Peter Pan.

An apology to freshers.

I feel that some apology is needed, for the "Advice to freshers" tendered by R.L.M. in your last issue, and that this outburst should not be allowed to pass unchallenged as representative of the attitude of the mature students towards freshers.

With the material of R.L.M's article I do not quarrel - every man has a right to formulate and express his opinion; but with the manner of its presentation the position is different.

It is a great pity that a man, once - presumably - a fresher himself, holding the beliefs and assumptions with which he charges freshers, should have arrived towards the end of his university career at such a state of acedemic patronisation and smug self-satisfaction.

We are glad to learn that he has triumphed over the bourgeois influences of his youth, found the magic co-ordinating principle of Marxism; we wish we had witnessed the blinding revelation moment in which he discovered sunsets, passion, God and Keats and Mr. Trevor Lane.

But we are sorry to recognise that R.L.M. has not also learned the lesson of tolerance. His contemptuous dissection of the fresher mind was hardly in the best possible taste, and furthermore could only be detrimental to the first impressions of V.U.C. gained by many freshers. It is to be hoped that in future he will cease making "Salient" his Hyde Park, and release his repressions somewhere else; remember that he, too, was once fisher, and that he has attained his present philosophy without the unnecessary and unwanted interference of another.

Certainly, freshers, think! stocktake! be awake to your privileges and the responsibility which is yours to exercise them widely and fully, for your own benefit and that of society. But for heaven's sake strive also to acquire a little of the old- fashioned virtues - tolerance, understanding, humility.

frank.

Reply.

Tolerance, understanding, humility. Good, Christian, old- fashioned virtues all of them. All designed, consciously or unconsciously, to secure the humble acquiescence of the people in their exploitation by the ruling classes.

If to fight against ignorance, academic eclecticism, and dangerously false "opinion is patronising or intolerant, then I am patronising and intolerant.

I should like to point out to "frank" that it is precisely through the "interference of another" - or, rather, others, - that most of the older students have reached their present intellectual positions. They are not ungrateful.

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Peace on Earth.

The announcement in "Salient" of the proposed V.U.C. "Peace Society" to promote peace is in harmony with President Roosevelt's seeking of a moral basis for "a real, lasting, sound, moral, intelligent and righteous peace" common to all mankind. But when there are already three other bodies in existence that can as adequately deal with such problem as the "Peace Society", any further division among students is based upon unsound principle. If members of the "Peace Society" are anxious for peace, they have ample scope to show the way to peace by unifying and amalgamating some of their own College institutions, such as the Free Discussions Club, the Debating Society, and the International Relations Club on the one hand, and again, on the other hand, the Evangelical Union and the Student Christian Movement. If they cannot achieve this domestic task successfully, they can hardly be expected to do much good in the wider national and international fields of peace. But if they can do this, there is some hope that they Have discovered something of that co-ordinating "principle" that the whole world is looking for as a moral basis for peace. I suggest that there is only one way of effecting this and that is by a careful analysis of first principles according to the soundest reason and the truth, and the net result will be that only by complete adherence to Jesus Christ and His Word as the truth is a moral basis possible. Either this principle is true, or it is not, Which meals its complete acceptance, if it is true, or its complete rejection, if it be untrue; and words' must be likewise converted into action. So true wisdom is established.

Early as the session is, it has become clear that one of the burning questions will be pacifism. As there are many of us who are opposed to killing on Christian and other principles and yet are active supporters of democracy, there is some doubt as to the decision. To those I would point out that as war was declared by a government elected by the majority of the people, and in accordance with the wish of the majority, we, as democrats, should support their effort. The support should be more active because of the reasons for. The declaration of war. There are many ways in which those who feel they cannot take an active part in the conflict can

I have pointed out those facts because, in my opinion, many who call themselves pacifists seem to advocate anything from obstruction and defeatism to absolute treason. They preach not peace on earth, but, "England is committing an act of aggression against Germany" and "New Zealand should not support Britain". Such people are neither democrats nor pacifists and as such should not have the support of those who still cling to their ideals, and I think there are many of the latter at V.U.C.

"Morals are like a pair of trousers - they are a cover for both lewdness and crudeness, but may be conveniently dropped in the service of either".

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The article "For Freshers Only" in this year's first issue of "Salient" succeeds in its purpose, if that purpose is, as I assume, the commendable one of provoking thought. May I also assume that the thought provoked in one "Average fresher" if, of sufficient interest to justify you in publishing this letter?

The writer of the above article enumerates seven "main fallacies" in terms of which the average fresher reasons. Some of the seven have been so long since and so thoroughly exploded that I think the freshest fresher would hardly harbour them now. Who of this generation or of the one preceding it "acquiesces wholly in the status quo"? It is on every lip that the status quo is rotten. Who now believes that poverty is natural and inevitable? Labour went into power in the 1935 elections because the majority of voters knew that poverty is neither natural nor inevitable. Who but a puny defeatist believes that war is inevitable? Certainly not the thousands who are leaving as in the brave hope and expectation of putting an end to war.

The writer's selection of a fresher's fallacies pays no compliment to the fresher's knowledge of current thought However his purpose is to edify the fresher and not to compliment him, so let it pass, and now to fallacy No. 7

Belief in the existence of the soul is cherished by many. Whether it be well founded or not is, for my present purpose, beside the point. The most that can be said on the subject is that the soul's existence cannot be proved nor can it be disproved. Why then does the writer include this belief among "the main fallacies in terms of which a fresher reasons"? He cannot prove it a fallacy. Is it not simply because it is a widely accepted belief that he calls it a fallacy? He classes himself among the "students who actually think for themselves". Is that thinking for himself or mere pose and perversity and the negation of thought. The writer would have done better had he left the soul untouched. The soul may be non-existent, but at least it has sufficed to show the sorry shallows of the writer's mind. Because, in his own words, he "does possess a mind. But it is a mind of e peculiar sort - a mind which deserves minute analysis".