ANZAC OBSERVANCE

Thames Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 19623, 3 February 1936, Page 4

ANZAC OBSERVANCE

SCREENING OF PICTURES DECISION IN DUNEDIN. RETURNED SOLDIERS' PROTEST. Strong exception is taken by returned soldiers to a decision of the Dunedin City Council to permit picture entertainments on Anzac Day from 8.15 p.m. A resolution to this effect was carried by the council by six votes to three. "Not only is it disgusting, but galling to one born and bred in Dunedin who has had the privilege of serving with the Otago Regiment to find the City Council attempting to shoot holes in a piece of legislation that the people of this Dominion thought dignified and appropriate in 1920 when, incidentally, their homes and businesses had just been saved from possible incursions of the enemy," declared one of several returned soldiers to-day when commenting on the council's decision. "Here are the country's sentients as couched in the Anzac Day Act itself: 'ln commemoration of the part taken by the New Zealand troops in the Great War, and in memory of those who gave their lives for the Empire the 25th day of April in each year (being the aniversary of the first landing of the English, Australian and New Zealand troops on Gallipoli) shall be known as Anzac Day and shall be observed throughout New Zealand hi all respects as if Anzac Day were a Sunday.'" Observance of Statute. "If New Zealand's birthday as a nation is to be commemorated on April 25, then let it be fittingly adhered to or otherwise totally repeal the Statute," said another ex-serviceman. Either the Statute must be observed with dignity and faith, or a sense of propriety suggested that it should not be held in a manner which was only temporising with it. "There is too much hypocrisy in connection with Anzac Day," he added. "Either the community should see that the Act is observed as passed, or else it should be deleted from the Statute Book. To adopt half-way measures of holding I the celebrations on the nearest Sunday or of turning the occasion into a secular day by permitting picture programmes to be shown is neither a sincere tribute to the 16,600 men who fell in the war, nor is it a proper observance of the law. "It is certainly a hypocritical act of the Dunedin City Council to support legislation of which it must, or should be, aware and at the same time to grant permits for picture programmes which it is hoped it would not grant for an ordinary Sunday evening," the speaker concluded. "Robbed of Dignity." The explanation of another person approached on the subject was that the City Council apparently disagreed with the Statute according to which Anzac Day should continue to be regarded as a Sunday. Therefore, if it did not agree with the spirit of Anzac Day as constituted at present the council should go the right way about its business and have the Statute amended. "The council's backdoor methods of procedure rob Anzac Day of its dignity," it was said. In refusing to make any statement on the matter, the president of the Dunedin Returned Soldiers' Association, Mr. A. Thomas, stated that in all probability it would be fully discussed at the first executive meeting next Tuesday night.