ANZAC'S MEMORIAL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20235, 20 April 1929, Page 1 (Supplement)

ANZAC'S MEMORIAL.

BY MATANGJL

SOLEMN, BUT NOT SAD.

From the Governor-General has come a suggestion that the observance of Anzac Day should bo less mournful, though not less solemn, than has been tho custom. His idea is one to be given a welcome, and in its distinction between sadness and solemnity is something that calls for particular heed. It is a real distinction, however much it may be masked by current speech and practice. To bo solemn is not necessarily to be sad. Solemnity and festival are not alien notions. There is often a joyous uplift in works of art—in great paintings and great compositions, to wit —and from even tho most solemn ceremonial the element of sadness may bo completely and happily lacking.

Sadness thcro has been associated with Anzac Day, as with all the memorials of the war. For very many thero is sadness still in every recall of those bereaving, burdensome days. Sonio wounds, despifo the gracious healing of time, aro yet tender, and even the lightest touch will set heart and flesh aquivcr. ' But that there lias been a gracious healing is a fact beyond gainsaying, and that it ought to havo been so needs no argument. The days will assuredly come when tho last tear on this account will have been wiped away, and in calm review tho whole siory can be read. That time comes year by year closer to tho threshold of life, and its harbingers even now appear, as Sir Charles Fergusson's words bear witness.

Yet Anzac Day need never become a day of frivolous or flippant recall. It holds memories of deeply solemn import, and should still hold them when the sadness has departed. To us in this transition time, when tho most poignant memories wane while yet the lessons of the war aro still being learned, is given a sacred task—to see that, as tho sorrowis shed, there does not go with it the gravely solemn meaning of all that once befell. A Day 9 f Renown. Sir Charles Las'spoken of " the glory of tho day." It has a glory. »On it is commemorated the courageous selfdevotion of the young manhood of these British lands of the South Seas. That is a splendid tiling lo keep in enduring memory. Should there ever conio an age when courage and self-sacrifice are not deemed worthy of honour, that age will write itself down as dead to the best in human instincts. So, as Anzac Day comes yet again, let there be 110 faltering in praise of those who proved their manhood, especially of those who laid down their lives in the day of strenuous and sore testing. Give them honour, full and great; No praise deny; Fallen, they've imperial state, Are throu'd on high. Blend the purple with the goldLife's princes they. Rich in love's real wealth untold And crown'd for aye. Sound the trumpet, roll the drum. Applaud their deed; Palm and paean us become. And are their meed. Gave they all they had to give; Nov.' ours the gain: Dared lo die that we might live, Nor grudg'd Ihe pain. Theirs the fight, so theirs the cheers—'A gallant host! Yet our joy's impearl'd with tears, And droop 3 our boast; Not unto us ihe victory's pride— Theirs, under God; Theirs is it, too, who nobly tried The way theso trod. Give them praise this Anzac Day, Their storv tell: With the cypress weave the hay, Blend peal with knell. Freedom's sun shines through the clouds; All's lislat o'erhead: Royal robes displace the shrouds Of Anzac dead.

The Vocation of the Soldier. There need be no use of the occasion in glorification of war; nor need there bo any use of it in a sweeping denunciation of all things military. Both uses of it are to be deplored. If honour to (he fallen be allowed to pass into lauding of war, then is there violence done to tho truth that the service rendered by the rnen we praiso was undertaken by them as a sad necessity, not as a. gay 'enjoyment. A sense of stern duty, not tho 'doing of their own pleasure, was in their heroic endeavour. 1o say otherwise is to tarnish the honour we pay, even to rob it of all reality. On the other hand, to pass from recollection of their sacrifice to an unmitigated denunciation of war in all its aspects is to condemn their voluntary part in it, and so to withdraw by implication all the praise we speak. . , , , What is (ho vocation of the soldier. Let answer be given by one who wrote most searchingly of the waste and wickedness so often associated with war. Luskin ranks the soldier among those with duty to the nation, and that duty, as he says, is to defend it, and, "on the occasion, to die for it." Viewed clearly thus, the vocation is not, to be lightly decried, lo take to heart Raskin's words, to remember that the soldier is bound, ' to give up, if need be, his life, in such way as it may be demanded of him, is UIKIHStand how sincere and full may be the praise we feel prompted to utter whenever the recent terrible years come to mind.

A Dire Necessity. From another Governor-General there came, in 1914, a declaration to be remembered when those years are reviewed, lie spoke for the whole Canadian people. " My advisers," lie telegraphed to the British Government on that fateful August ,lav when Britain anticipated taking sides sirrainst Prussian assault on civilisation "while expressing their most earnest hope that peaceful solution of existing international difficulties may l.c achieved and their strong desire to co-operate in every possible way for that purpose, wish me to convey to His Majesty.s Government the firm assurance that, if unhappily war should ensue, the Canadian people will be united in a common resolve to put forth every effort and to make every sacrifice necessary to ensuro the integrity and maintain the honour of our Lmpirc. That sets the position plainly: peace ardently desired, but war if need be. Because, in the face of inexorable circumstances, there was no other reasonable and honourable recourse, the Dominions took their share of the brunt of battle; and in what followed of trial and suffer. in<r |heir warriors were 111 the foretront, AH honour, then, to them 1 Sorrow must have its way, but the glory of the day may well be kept-even after war itself has passed from the stage of human life till that glad day comes we may trust to see war, like every other form ol siifforiiif and misery, redeemed somewhat by the courage and the devotion that men show in it- Solf-sacrifico has ever been the redeeming element in human life, and this bewildered world has been led onward by the example of those who gave themselves for others. Often we are too busy, too self-centred, too stupid to see this', and it lakes a great crisis like the war to stab us broad awake to note it. The crisis has passed, but Anzac Day remains as part of its legacy. I'or what it can do to keep alive out care for some priceless things, it should be observed with due solemnity, sadness giving place to calm gratitude and a sense of the glory of great deeds.