Censure-No Sinecure

It is usual at Annual General Meetings of the Students Association for two motions to be included among the general business. One, that clay pipes and chewing tobacco be provided for the Women's Common Room, has been passed every year from 1935 till 1946. This year it was defeated. The other, a vote of censure on the editor of "Salient," has been lost every year until 1947, when it was passed, with the tag, "with permission to print a funny page." I propose to deal with the tag first. I have considered the proposal and, owing to the obvious shortcomings of my intellect, have only been able to think of one suitable feature, namely, a photograph of Mr. O'Flynn making a speech. However, I have rejected this as not being in accordance with the policy of the paper, which is aimed at comment rather than reporting.

I consider that the motion was moved with much more serious intention than was accorded to it at the meeting. The charge against me is that of not publishing debating reports. I should have liked to reply at the time, but felt that as I was sitting on the stage in the capacity of Men's Vice-president, I was in no position to reply to criticism of the editor of "Salient," which position is held on a mandate from the Executive, and is in no way subject to the whims of that body, as the only direction the Executive can issue to the editor is that he resign.

In view of the attitude of the general meeting, I am prepared to modify my attitude to some extent. If the Debating Society, at its next meeting, passes a resolution desiring that its functions should be reported, and if the society can provide a reporter to write entertaining and informative reports of its functions, I would be prepared to publish them. This does not apply to Plunket Medal, for which a critical review has been prepared.

It may interest readers to know that recently two aspects of the policy of this paper have come into conflict. All contributed articles are published, provided they are reasonably well written, and fall within the limits of obscenity and libel; a large number of these have been reports of club functions, but as they are contributed articles, most of them have been published. Writers of such articles are asked to keep them as short as possible. In future, letters to the editor may be refused publication if they exceed the limit of 300 words. I am pleased that the policy of printing controversial articles has resulted in an abnormally large number of letters, but these often crowd out other material, and tend to lose the interest of the readers when they are not submitted until too late for the issue following the one containing the original article.—A. McL.