SYDNEY REMEMBERS.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXIV, Issue 925, 21 November 1933, Page 5

SYDNEY REMEMBERS.

Solemn Observance of Armistice Day. HORROR OF WAR. (Special to the “ Star.") SYDNEY, November 14. Armistice Day was celebrated here with all the dignity and solemnity that the people of Australia well know how to express in any public ceremonial which they take seriously. From the first gathering before dawn at the Cenotaph in Martin Place to the close of the great assembly in the Town Hall, when the countless red poppy leaves had ceased to flutter through the air and the last notes of the “ Reveille ” had died away, the impression conveyed by the hundreds of thousands who thronged the great city was well worthy of the occasion. A Discordant Note.

One of the few discordant notes was struck after the morning service at the Cenotaph, when a Communist among the spectators refused to remove his hat for the National Anthem, and had to be rescued by the police from the of the crowd. But there was little to mar the deep seriousness of the proceedings, and nothing to detract from the obvi&us sincerity and depth of feeling which marked the many impressive speeches delivered during the dav and evening by the Governor and some of our best-known public men. If one may attempt to summarise the meaning that all these things conveyed, it seemed to me that there were certain dominating ideas asserting themselves in all our minds. There was the wish to honour the dead and to commemorate their achievements; there was the conviction that not enough has been done to compensate the survivors of that terrible struggle for all that they have lost and sacrificed; there was the haunting horror of war as an evil fate to be avoided by all possible means, and yet in the last resort to be faced as the only alternative to dishonour and destruction. All these sentiments I found closely interwoven

in the speeches and public utterances of the day. Gratitude To The Soldiers. But I believe that, apprehensive as most people are about the bare possibility of future wars, the uppermost feeling in all minds on Armistice Day was not concerned with the question of national defence or of military service, but sprang from the sense of gratitude to those who bore the burden and heat of those awful years and- to those especially who, having passed through that fiery ordeal, are still with us—scarred and maimed and suffering yet bearing themselves for the most part as cheerfully and bravely as they fought for us in that tremendous conflict. If the Armistice Day celebrations have no other effect, they will have performed for us a great national service if they induce those in authority to treat the needs and the deserts of our war-worn veterans more seriously, and to make more generous efforts to secure for them in their declining years the comparative comfort and freedom from the sordid cares of life that are at least their due.