On the morning of Wednesday, the first of January 1947, Lebanon celebrated the Feast of Evacuation. The procession of the President of the Republic proceeded to Nahr al-Kalb, where the ceremony was held for the unveiling of the memorial erected to immortalize the memory of the evacuation, in the presence of Lebanon's leading men, the head of the Syrian government and several of its ministers, the Arab delegations, and the diplomatic corps.

His Excellency the President of the Republic delivered a speech in which he addressed the Lebanese, both those assembled and those abroad, saying that the credit for this day belongs to our martyrs, to our cooperation with the Arab countries, and to our joining the organization of the United Nations, and is owed as well to the Chamber of Deputies, to the independence governments, and to the unknown Lebanese. His Excellency called for continuing the struggle after our glorious feast, for no struggle ends but another begins: life knows no stagnation, and it shows no indulgence to the passive and the faint-hearted.

His Excellency then called for constant sacrifice in the cause of the national interest, for self-denial, and for the forgetting of rancor and grudges, so that the blessing of independence may endure. He concluded by saying that a small country, if it conducts its policy well, consolidates its foreign relations, and walks

the straight path, will have a radiance that the great country will envy it. His Excellency closed his great historic speech by renewing his faith in Lebanon and by praising its men and its distinctions, in the homeland and in the Mahjar. At the end of the speech, His Excellency raised the Lebanese flag over the memorial amid cheers, applause, and the firing of cannon.

The procession then returned to Martyrs' Square, where His Excellency the President laid a wreath of flowers on the martyrs' memorial and was photographed with the Arab delegations, whereupon the cannon thundered. At noon an official reception was held at the Lebanese Serail, at which His Excellency the President received congratulations, and the official luncheon was given at the Normandy Hotel at the invitation of the government. And here is The Woman's Voice, recording this great historic event and wishing its like, most warmly, for the sister Arab peoples who still groan under the yoke of brutal foreign occupation.

And here we publish below the text of the two speeches delivered on this occasion by two distinguished ladies of ours, who express, most truly, the feeling of the Lebanese woman.

Mrs. Najla Saab's Address

Today — after long generations — this Arab Lebanese land has been freed of the last foreign soldier who trod the homeland to uphold a tyrant's authority, an exploiting colonial rule, a domination degrading to the nation's dignity, and a foreign influence that humiliated it, paralyzed its national characteristics, destroyed its faculties, and held it back from free, unhindered growth and from its fulfillment toward its own good and glory.

We saw the dawn of this day after a night whose depths were pitch-dark, whose events followed one upon another, whose sacrifices and calamities multiplied upon us. So today we are among the happiest of people, and among those who know best how cherished hopes take form as a standing reality, how precious sacrifices turn into fruit and harvest, how the blood of martyrs shines forth as light and radiance, and how the common effort is crowned with victory, though after a time.

This day did not come by chance, nor did time cast it forth by accident; rather it is, whether one knows it or not, the work of this nation, the product of its will, the fruit of its sacrifices and its patience. So to the Arab Lebanese people — to the people, to the peasants of the village and the common folk of the city; to that peasant of whom, singly, no mention was ever heard; to that common man whose name was never set down in a newspaper and never spoken from a platform, but who, in his totality, is the substance of this

On December 31, 1946, the evacuation of all foreign armies from Lebanon was completed, in the era of His Excellency Sheikh Beshara Khalil El-Khouri, President of the Republic