CELEBRATION OF ANZAC DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 17940, 20 May 1920, Page 2

CELEBRATION OF ANZAC DAY

RELATIONSHIP OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND.

(Fbom Oub Own Correspondent.) •, , , SYDNEY, April 20. ine people of the common.wea.Hh are settling down to the regular annual celebration of Anzac Day. April 25 this year falls on a Sunday, so next Monday, the 26th, has been declared a publio holiday in most of the States—if not in all—and preparations for the usual celebrations are well in hand. Nothing has appeared! in any of the newspapers here to show what New Zealand ie doing; but one presumes that ttie dominion is honouring the occasion in the same way. Anzao Day has a double significance to Australia and New Zealand. In the first place it is already recognised here—and the tendency will be more marked as the years pass —as tie National Day of United Australia the day on which this young nation of the South S-eae found its soul. It is recognised in an exactly punilar way in New Zealand The young men of Australia and of New Zealand coming unknown on to the world's tragio stage, were suddenly aaked to play a part in which the qualities of courage, initiative ten-aciousnese, and readiness for supreme selfsacrifice were asked for in an extraordinary degree, and they performed their part in a manner that placed the countries they represented in the front rank of the nations. Its further significance—one not so generally seen—hea in the fact that Anzac Day w an ™ dru ? n g link between Australia and New Zealand, and one that may serve to draw the two young southern nations much closer together. There could have been no "Anzac" Day unless both countries were in it for their nan** are mingled' in the words, just aa the blood of their gallant sons was mingled in the barren earth of traUipoU. So it eeeme that when Australia and New Zealand separately and independently celebrate Anzac Day, a unique opportunity is being lost for bringing the two peoples closer together by at least an expression of cordial greetings. They grew up together, they havo a common history, their social and political problems are similar thev have now the same national day, they are the only two great offshoots of iritato where tie British race » without foreign admixture, their destiny is beeet by the elm* problems and dangers-eurely, then, Anzac Day is the one occasion, above all others, when tie handi of the sister nations of the south should meet across the Tasman Sea in a grip of radeehip, good wishes, and faith in the futuS