ANZAC CELEBRATION.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20562, 13 May 1930, Page 10

ANZAC CELEBRATION.

SUGGESTED ABOLITION.

DEBATE BY STUDENTS*

After a spirited debate at Victoria College, Wellington, last Saturday evening, a motion to the effect that the observance of Anzac Day should bo discontinued was carried by an overwhelming majority.

Many speakers took part in the discussion, and many of the outside public were present. Two votes were taken, one of the whole audience, and one of society members, and in each the result was the same. The text of the motion was "That the observance of Anzac Day should be discontinued."

Mr. W. J. Rosevear, who opened for the affirmative, said there was an increasing number of people who felt that Anzac Day observance might well bo done away with. Very different feelings were prevalent in wartime, he said, and in the years just after the war, from those which obtained now among the mass of the people, and although at one time the ceremonies had a true and inspiring effect upon those who attended them, they were now not longer the same. Those who attended tho Anzac Day service, said tho speaker, went nowadays from motives of curiosity, or from habit, or because they were compelled to. Very few went with deep feelings of duty and reverence, and ho doubted whether the largo number of services on Anzac Day improved tho general character of tho people. Grand speeches and noble addresses, ho said, "cut very little ice" with those who heard them. Such eloquence was wasted. Mr. A. E. Hurley, who opposed the motion, .said it was not with tho idea of keeping up race ,hatred that ho advocated the continuance of Anzac Day. Nor was it with tho intention of keeping tho thought of war in the minds of the people. Ho quoted the words of Colonel Mitchell, who was responsible for the passage of the Anzac Day Bill, that tho day should be observed firstly in memory of the 17,000 New Zealand dead who lay over tho other side of the world, secondly for those who mourned for them here, and lastly for tho inspiration of tho event. Love, service and sacrifice were tho great qualities of tho men who landed at Anzac Covo, and these were the qualities which the observance of Anzac Day would commemorate for ever.

Mr. Hurley spoke of tho greatness of tho achievement at Gallipoli. It was completely fitting, ho said, for such a wonderful deed to bo commemorated in the small and distant land where many of tho men had their homo Sympathy with tho relatives was a diminishing factor as timo wont on, ho continued. This had nothing to do with the value of Anzac Day observance, however, and he held that the day and its ceremonies deepened our spiritual life. Tho tone of the daywas changing, and ho for one would'like to sco all the militaristic display abandoned. Like the great Toe II movement, service was becoming the dominant note of tho day. It was a call to self-sacriiico and service.

The day, said Mr. Hurley, was first in memory of those who died, and was next an inspirational source of love, sacrifice and service. Tho, churches perpetuated Easter and Christmas for the same reasons, and if these festivals remaiued then surely Anzac Day should remain also.