VALUE OF ANZAC DAY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 52, Issue 3750, 1 May 1936, Page 5

VALUE OF ANZAC DAY

CHANGE IN OBSERVANCE PROPHESIED SHOULD BENEFIT THE LIVING DISCUSSION BY R.S.A. Some discussion on the value of Anzac Day and the manner in which it should be observed took place at Tuesday’s meeting of the executive committee of the Putaruru Returned Soldiers' Association. Views were expressed that the day would soon be observed on the nearest Sunday, and that it should not be allowed to become merely a day of mourning for i the dead. Reference was made to the action of the Auckland R.S.A. in taking a vote amongst its members to obtain their views on the day’s value, and the opinion was expressed that matters had become upside down, since, while it was illegal to exhibit pictures on Anzac Day, this was permitted on Good Friday. One member prophesied that Government action would soon be taken in this matter, and the decision on this vexed question would be made for local bodies. The speaker thought local bodies should request a strong Government stand against pictures on Anzac Day. The president agreed with a suggestion that the close observance of the day as a holiday was hard on some wage-earners, who thus lost, a day’s work and paid for their patriotism when they could ill afford to do so. It was suggested that in many cases the day was simply made an excuse for a holiday, and that it would not be long before the observance of Anzac Day was held on the nearest Sunday. Members thought the Auckland vote would be valuable as measuring the strength of the divergent opinions on the matter.

The belief that the Bishop of Waikato was correct when he suggested that men look less after the dead and do more for the living was expressed by one member and echoed by others. It was thought that the sale of poppies benefited the living, but a speaker held that this did not overcome the sacrifice of a day’s wages. He reasserted his belief that observances would soon be made on a Sunday. It was suggested that a point frequently overlooked was that Anzac day definitely benefited' living soldiers by keeping their needs in the’memory of the community. Should the day be abolished, those who advocated the change to avert the loss of wages might be the eventual losers. The dead might be remembered, but the living forgotten. Had the South African veterans had such a day of remembrance as “Transvaal Day” or something similar, their needs might have had more active respect. The Maori War and the Crimea War wete also mentioned, and the chairman then closed the discussion.