AFTER TWENTY-TWO YEARS.

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 54, Issue 3893, 23 April 1937, Page 3

AFTER TWENTY-TWO YEARS.

THE IMMORTAL GLORIES OF ANZAC. II7AR ANNIVERSARIES inevitably lose some of their significance as time passes, and the poignant memories of one of the most momentous episodes in human history are touched by softening influences. Nevertheless, it is too early to begin to disregard the periodic reminders of crucial events which have left an indelible mark upon the whole of the civilised world and affected millions of lives for good or ill. There is strong exultation as well as infinite pathos in the retrospect on this, the approaching twenty-second anniversary of the immortal landing on the historic shores of Gallipoli. If it is still unalterably sad to think of the loving tale of loss and suffering and sorrow which that day brought about, there are glory and grace and gladness in the remembrance that it typified the wonderful rally of the Empire in time of direful crisis: that it gave to our language a new name —Anzac. It engendered “the sense of an immense new comradeship that stirred the least emotional, when the great British Commonwealth of Nations revealed itself as that wonderful thing for which its makers had striven and prayed—"a union based not upon statute and officialdom, but upon the eternal simplicities of the human spirit.” Yes, despite all the tragedy and sacrifice and bereavement, it is still good to think of great-hearted days when “every young man with blood in his veins felt that in such a cause and in such a company it was just and pleasant to give his all.” And there should be a salutary stimulus in the recollection of the stirring events of that far-off day when Anzac was born. —J.T.P.