ARMISTICE DAY ANNIVERSARY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3426, 11 November 1919, Page 41

ARMISTICE DAY ANNIVERSARY.

REMEMBRANCE OF THE DEAD

TWO MINUTES' SILENCE REQUESTED.

WELLINGTON, November 7. The following message from the King has been received by the Governor-General:

To All Mr People

Tuesday next, November 11, is the first anniversary of the armistice which stayed the world-wide carnage of the four preceding years and marked the victory of right and freedom. I believe my people in every part of the Empire fervently wish *to perpetuate the memory of that great deliverance and of those who laid down their lives to achieve it. To afford an oportunity for a universal expression of this feeling, it is my desire and hope that at the hour when the armistice came into force —the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month—there may bo for a brief space of two minutes a complete suspension of all our normal activities. During that time, exoapt in rare cases where this may be impracticable, all work, all sound, and all locomotion should cease, so that in perfect stillne&s the thoughts of everyone may be concentrated on a reverent remembrance of the glorious dead.

No elaborate organisation appears to be necessary. At a given siginal, which can easily be arranged to suit the circumstances of each locality, I believe wo shall all gladly interrupt our business and pleasure, whatever it may be, and unite in this simple service of silence and remembrance.

(Signed) Geoege R.I.

The Prime Minister stated this evening arrangements would be put in hand to secure as far as possible a general observano3 throughout the dominion of the two minutes' silence on Tuesday next. Trains would bo stopped on the railways. A request would be made that there should be a osssation of traffic on the streets, and every effort would bo made to have work suspended in schools, shops, and factories, and to secure complete silence. This <proceduro would conform with what was intended to be done in the United Kingdom, and the Prime Minister said he was quito sure there would be ready acquiescence in the desire of his Majesty on the part of citizens of New Zealand as well as in other parts of the Empire.