THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 1932. SACRIFICE AND CITIZENSHIP.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21166, 26 April 1932, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, APRIL 26, 1932. SACRIFICE AND CITIZENSHIP.

In the course of the past two days this city has had proof that memories of the war years remain as yet clear and vital. There has been a change, of course, in personal reaction to them. The accent of grief is not so strong as it was. Time is a great healer. Regret occasioned by the early and tragic end of many lives is still keen, but sorrow is calmer and loss self-absorbed than of yore, and a. steadier view is taken of all that happened in those shadowed years. Xothing has been lost, however, of the realisation that the pari played by our men and women, most of them yi the heyday of life, was intrinsically noble. Their self-sacrifice endures untarnished : if that could be, it has got added brightness with the years of recall. At all events, what it involved and what it unconsciously taught are being more deeply impressed, to judge by the increase of reverent observance of Anzac Day to which Archbishop Avcrill referred yesterday. His appeal that the day be kept from desecration and used for the fostering of healthful patriotism, which need never clash with international fraternity, should prove to be, seed sown in good ground. It is natural to express disappointment, as some have done, with the slow fruitage of peace and moral progress from the. struggle that was expected to end war and produce a stage of civilisation far in advance of that in which the conflict raged. But to say that nothing of gDod has been achieved as an outcome is to confess an ignorance of historic fact and a vision false i:.i perspective. If there be remembered only the worldwide renewal of emphasis on the virtue of sell-sacrifice, that alone is enough to redeem the trying years ; even the fear that this emphasis may often stop short at empty adulation, and be by many untranslated into selfless deed, cannot lower the value of the rediscovery of an essential vi'.-tuc. In the moral heritage of the war this is by no means the only gift to generations following, but it has its particular attraction in present circumstances, and will be evermore enforceable by the outstanding example of those remembered in this annual observance.

| This lessor, has been given impressive utterance by Lord Bledisloe in his speech at the unveiling of the Roll of Honour, an occasion of special appropriateness for such a counsel of emulation. At the basis of all worthy* action in a national crisis, all cheerful willingness to endure hardness, all endeavour to promote the common weal, is subordination of self. In the "active service" to which every citizen should feel committed by the demands of these difficult times, sclf-sacrificc is the chief element, as the GovernorI General has; so well emphasised. In what His Excellency has described as the new World AY ar — the grappling with adverse economic conditions —unity of purpose and plan is critically requisite. On the broad field of international politics this has had convincing acknowledgment. To..* the first time in history, the world is recognised as a unit. It has been made so by the rapid development of communication and transport. However possible it was hitherto for nations to live to themselves, they can do so no longer. There is still, nevertheless, an unfilled need for organic co-operation in this broad field. Even the League of Nations, the most adventurous enterprise of this higher "mutual aid," is manifestly unable to accomplish all that its founders hoped and its leaders attempt. The process of unification is slow. One obstacle, strange as it may seen to impatient observers, is the lack of unity within its component nations; and an essential step is the creation of that unity, not in a lifeless amalgam of uniform ideas but in a fully-shared spirit of citizenship, eager to moderate individual aimfi in order to prosper the national cause. It is historically true that civil strife promotes international hostility. When honest men fall out, thieves get what is not their own. In the ancient strategy, "divide and conquer," is written the record of many an enduring breach between the victors and the- vanquished. On the other hand, when internecine quarrels have been stayed in order to present a united front to the foe, national neighbours have compfilled mutual respect and become really neighbourly. There has certainly been more hope of this than of international amity's being fostered by divisive propaganda such as Soviet Russia has practised. To pull together at a time of national difficulty should appeal as counsel wcrth following. The setting of our financial house in order — a pre-requisite of credit and confidence abroad and the ensuing advantage of inflowing capital, productive of employment—entails an individual readiness to bear burdens. To subordinate selfish considerations for the general good manifests a spirit of wholesome citizenship—it is self-sacrifice carried into the workaday affairs of this time of economic crisis. This may seem a humdrum sort of thing compared with the sacrificial service rendered by those to proudly remembered on Anzac Day. It has nothing of the glamour of that wonderful experience, when all the world was athrob with zeal for menaced homes and countries. But at heart it is the selfsame thing. It evidences a like sense of national responsibility, and of tho need to subject individual ease and pleasure to a broader outlook. If the task of the valorous elead is; to be completed, and the struggle they endured to the end is to result in a more secure and happy life for those on whose behalf they were self-forgetful, there must be acceptance in these days of the principle inspiring them then.