The Gisborne Herald. IN WHICH IS INCORPORATED “THE TIMES.” GISBORNE, THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 1947. TO MORROWS DAY OF COMMEMORATION

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22313, 24 April 1947, Page 4

The Gisborne Herald. IN WHICH IS INCORPORATED “THE TIMES.” GISBORNE, THURSDAY, APRIL 24, 1947. TO MORROWS DAY OF COMMEMORATION

j[)URING the year a good deal of discussion lias been devoted to Anzac Day and how it should be observed. Since the eve of this day of commemoration is hardly a suitable time for reviving a debate which has become not a little contentious, it is best that the organising aspect of the matter should be dropped for the time being in favour of contemplation of the spiritual nature of the anniversary. Suffice it to say that, although there arc people who favour other forms of celebration, the men and women most closely concerned—those who have participated in warfare in some form or other—still regard Anzac Day as an appropriate occasion first and foremost for paying tribute to fallen comrades and, secondly for meeting old friends, some of whom they may not have seen for a whole year. It is now a day on which a new generation of ex-servicemen join with veterans of the First 'World War and the South African War in a heartfelt and solemn salute to those who have passed on, most of them in the flush of youthful health. The spirit of Anzac Day, as it has developed from the people’s own emotional impulses, has lifted it to a plane unique in the calendar; and in an age when the majority of the public arc charged with indifference to traditional church observances, the religious feeling in the open-air services offers a. striking contradiction. It seems to deny any possible allegation of a widespread lack of spiritual sincerity. Probably there is no public service elsewhere in the Empire so profoundly moving as the Dawn Service, a distinctive feature of observances in Australian cities and towns and one which Gisborne, in common with many other places in New Zealand, has been inspired to adopt. This service commemorates the hour of landing on Gallipoli and the usual zero hour of offensives on the Western Front of France. Mindful of this background, people may to-morrow contemplate an Anzac Day cavalcade covering nearly a third of a century. The more recent years in which the members of the new A.I.F. and the Second N.Z.E.F. distinguished themselves with the same clan as their predecessors in battle have added great riches to its history and depth to its meaning. There was an Anzac Day when Australians and New Zealanders were fighting for their lives against hopeless odds in Greece, not very far from the old beaches of Gallipoli. On Anzac Day, 1945, the world was realising more strongly than ever that the end of the war was near. On April 25 of that year the United Nations Conference at San Francisco was opened, and it was there that the Allied delegates drafted the new universal Charter of security and freedom, inaugurating the new internationalism upon which the fate of the world now hangs. At the moment clouds of uncertainty and foreboding hover over the world. It should be a prayer to-morrow that these will be dissipated during the ensuing year and that full realisation will come to mankind that, whatever our differences may be, war as. a means of settlement is a futile and criminal tiling. Success in the purposes to which we, along with others, are pledged will require for the common good all the loyalty, devotion and unselfishness of which our community and everybody in it are capable.