Correspondence to the Editor.

Franklin Times, Volume XXV, Issue 57, 20 May 1935, Page 4

Correspondence to the Editor.

ANZAC DAY SERVICES.

THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT. REV. L. E. CARTRIDGE’S VIEW. Sir. —I think it is right that an emphatic protest should he registered with regard to some of the statements made by,Mr S. P. Day in his report, as president of the Franklin Returned Soldiers’ Association, at their annual meeting, as recorded in your paper.

Mi- Day is reported to have said. “I trust and hope that next year a returned man will be invited to speak at every Anzac service held in our area, because we have a message to deliver and only those who have experienced the horrors of war are 'competent to deliver that niessage.’’ Mr Day surely is over reaching himself in making such an assertion. The Anzac day services, are or should be civic or citizens’ religious services'. They should not be primarily services of remembrance. though naturally that ele- v ment should have its part. If. as seems - to be suggested, the message that has to be belivered is one urging the abolition of war, I maintain that the entirely negative attitude of referring to its horrors will achieve absolutely nothing. Rather the positive side should be made most prominent and that is, that only a real acceptance of Jesus Christ and His teaching will achieve a result which not only the R.S.A., but all citizens of our country desire. Surely, Mr Day would not presume to claim that he and the returned men are the only people competent to tell us what is the teaching of Jesus Christ? Might I suggest that it is the duty of the local civic authorities to copy tile example set by the Auckland City Council and hold a definite civic religious service. That surely is an eminently better idea, than allowing the R.S.A. to arrange the service, and so run fhev risk of letting the Anzac service degen- v erate—as there are evident signs it’ is doing in many quarters —into a semireligious concert or meeting where the whole emphasis is laid on remem- , brance. Such a development inevit- - ably spells the decay of the right and proper observance of Anzac day. I hope the local councils and town boards will awake to their responsibility in this matter, and speedily-too, because I for one do not wish the observance to become obsolete. — I am. etc.,

L. E. CARTRIDGE The Vicarage, Ellerslie.

THE DAIRY BOARD. Sir.—The Government’s enactments for relief of the dairying industry has borne its first fruits. The reconstructed dairy board lias raised the depression, hut it is the depression in their own and their staff salaries, by.* making a further depression in the incomes of dairymen who have to pay -t.h.eir rise: a pretty fair rise, too, for the members—about 70 per cent • with a much greater rise for the chairman. What a grand thing for the industry, not the dairying industry but our Government’s growing industry of board and commissions. Well, in these times of depression is it not a hopeful sign that the income of some industries should show an upward trend, if even the depressed dairying industry should he the means? Is it any wonder that our dairyfarmers should look with suspicion on the Government’s measures for improving the income of producers? If this reconstituted board is going to improve the condition of the dairy industry, why not wait until they have earned their increase before making such a grant to themselves? To quote the high salaries of other similar governmental institutions as a rea-"4 son for their self-voted rise is only further evidence of the necessity of abolishing a number of these parasitic boards and commissions which are battening on our depressed industries, or failing that abolish the Government. — I am, etc., J. HENRY. “Te Ponga,” Patumahoe. May 20. 1935. j