Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1942. ANZAC DAY.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LXII, Issue 266, 9 October 1942, Page 4

Manawatu Evening Standard. FRIDAY, OCTOBER 9, 1942. ANZAC DAY.

The R.S.A. is performing a public duty in calling attention to the tendency to depart from the purpose of Anzac Day. The Act under which April 25 in each year is set aside, not as a holiday in the ordinary sense of this word but as if it were a Sunday, is specific in its intention. In commemoration of the men and women who gave their lives in the Great War in the cause of freedom, the day on which the Anzacs landed on the difficult shores of Gallipoli was declared by the first enactment, passed in 1920, to be a public holiday, licensed premises not being permitted to open and racing being* forbidden. Early in 1922 any misconceptions in regard to Parliament’s intentions were removed by the amending Act, which deleted the words “public holiday” and declared that observance should be “in all respects as if Anzac.Day were a Sunday.” No provision was made for observance on another day when April 25 fell on Sunday, for the very good reason that this was quite unnecessary, and in the years following the legislation no thought was given to such an issue. iNow the R.S.A. is concerned —and _ rightly too for it was the moving spirit in the matter —because this “national day of memorial has become a bargaining point in award negotiations.” It is to.be regretted that in some of its awards the Arbitration Court should have substituted April 2G as a holiday when Anzac Day falls on a Sunday. That is entirely repugnant to the spirit of the Act. The Court has gone further by providing that where April 2G also is a holiday Anzac Day will be observed on the following day. It so happens that in April next Easter Day and Anzac Day will fall on a Sunday, with Easter Monday on April 2G. Such an unusual situation will not again occur for. many years for, according to the Table of Movable Feasts in the Prayer Book, between now and 1957 the latest date for Easter Day is April 21, in 1946 and 1957. The matter is one that should have the Government’s attention. The R.S.A. has asked that Anzac Day should be kept as the law prescribed and the request is wholly in order. Anzac Day does not come within the Public Holidays Act and should not enter into Arbitration Court awards. To prevent further retrogression from the high ideals which prompted Parliament to pass the legislation twenty years ago the Government should act as requested-