"DOMINION" DAY.

NZ Truth, Issue 274, 1 October 1910, Page 6

"DOMINION" DAY.

A Farce m Canterbury. The celebration of Dominion Bay m Cbristchurch was a spiritless mockery, a waste of breath, a weariness of the flesh, and an infernal nuisance. While everybody was proceeding calmly about their work, the local Government offices were closed, and the transaction of business was seriously interfered witii. In the matter of stamps, for instance, every bookseller within several cooees of the Post Office sold out of the Id and Id variety, and distracted persons were rushing about on the eye of the various local mails demanding and imploring the gift of stamps ; but that is only a small matter. The idiocy of closing Government institutions when every other business place is open should be so palpable as to hit the Government m the eye and put the optic into deep mourning. The unhappy school kids were unable j to defend themselves against the awful platitudes hurled at them by persons who sought to shine m the reflected light cast by the festival, or the anniversary, or the gala day, or the thanksgiving, occasion, or whatever Dominion Day m#*P be termed. Nobody seems to be sure what sort of an animal it really is. Most people imagine that it is the one day that New Zealand has to its very self, when it may skite for itself about itself to itself, and shake hands

with itself about its achievements m a general way of speaking, but the .we-ird ceremonies at the local schools [Were confined to "Gor' Save," salutling a bit of bunting, and chin-wagg-■ing about the territory grabbed, at the cost of much blood and beer, not by New Zealand, but by our aged maternal relations on the other side of the globe. There was absolutely nothing about the Dominion m the celebrations, if we except those of the Sydenham school, which was the only patriotic celebrant m Canterbury, and probably New Zealand. The Sydenham kids sang two verses of the New Zealand National anthem ere they grabbed their hats to enjoy "Dominion" Day holiday. The other ■schools £ celebrated Britain: Surely to goodness there is plenty of material m the short, progressive, and really startling story of the Domin•ion to furnish material for a real, patriotic local celebration: It should be a day for the exhibition- of tangible marks of our progress, of the products of our soil, of Our manufactures, literature, and art, of everything worth showing that is a part of our kind, so that pride of country should be implanted m the breasts of juveniles who will one day be called .upon to defend it. Unfortunately, it •is the habit of many of our legislators and others who earn their living m New Zealand to think from a place called London, and to take part m no celebration of any kind without frantically waving a bit of bunting and howling. "Gor 1 Save" m unmusical chorus. Wanted, an Act of Parliament 'to make Dominion Day a real Dominion Day. We borrowed the title m any case. Everything, m this blessed country is borrowed.