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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 3, No. [3]. 1940
The Special Meeting
The Special Meeting.
Credit must be given to the Chairman, Mr. Ron Corkill, for his impartial handling of the meeting. After several questions proposed by Mr. Lewin had been dealt with, the mover of the motion that affiliation of the Society should be granted, was called upon.
| (a) | That full opportunity to discuss questions of peace, war, and civil liberties was already given in existing clubs and societies. |
| (b) | That the society would become controlled by a bureaucratic clique who would use it for presenting one political opinion. |
| (c) | That the College would be brought into disrepute by the operations of such a society. |
| (d) | That individual members of the Executive personally disagreed with some of the opinions, which would be expressed at meetings of the Society. |
He endeavoured to prove logically that no reasonable Exec could have relied on any of these four reasons, and therefore deduced that the Society had been banned for no reason at all.
Mr. Heine than read a list of reasons compiled by the Exec for the refusal to affiliate the Society. The main reasons wore that other societies already existed which would deal adequately with the topics to be discussed, that it was undesirable that student energies should be diffused in a number of small clubs, that on an important matter like this the students should decide, and that the College would be brought into disrepute by the existence of the Society.
Speakers from the floor then commenced activities, the balance between left and right being fairly evenly distributed. Mr. Ongley, speaking against the motion, attacked the logic of the mover of the motion, and managed to knock a few holes in the amour of his Reason No.1. Mr. Lewin, in a forceful speech, appealed to the
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students to uphold what little academic freedom they did possess.
It would be useless to detail the various speeches. Left versus right, absolute freedom versus restricted freedom, boldness versus compromise - these were the main issues raised. Miss Ball's sincere speech should be noted, however, and Miss Hutchinson's equally sincere counter to it.
Every side of the matter was thoroughly thrashed out. The large majority by which the motion was carried demonstrated conclusively the will of the students. Undoubtedly this was the most important decision made by New Zealand university students for many years: the result will hearten all those who believe in absolute free speech, and those who believe that discussion should be restricted in war time may revise their views now they have seen the weight of opinion against them.