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Ave Et Vale

As the first editor who was appointed without coming up from the ranks, without the approval of the staff, with an editorial announcing my appointment as a break with Salient's tradition I found that being Editor is not easy even if all the staff do approve.

Salient is not any easy job and I say that not in defence but for the benefit of all editors past and to come. Unlike a paper at another university our staff is usually no more than a dozen while theirs is usually thirty. Finances are a difficulty' and time is limited. Printing costs continue to rise and student interest is not yet sufficient to ensure that Salient is a real organ of student opinion. It could better be headed "an organ of opinion of a few students."

Salient should not exist to put forward a party point of view even if it can have its own views. It has already been my view that the editor stuck for copy should only reprint as a last resort and should never reprint articles which favoured his political view but were rather of interest to the general body of the students.

For many reasons I am glad that at last the old stagers of Salient and the old identities of Victoria are disappearing from Salient. Too long an association with Salient and with the College removes the staff from the student mind, creates a clique and takes Salient too far out of the College.

It may have appeared that for the last year Salient has ascended again into an Ivory Tower and if it has that appearance I regret it. Nevertheless if Salient devotes too much space to the world and too little to the University it fails in my opinion to do its first duty. Let Salient promote the thinking mind the intellectually vigorous university and the students will themselves make outside affairs their concern.

I must thank those who differed with me and tolerated me. Staffers sometimes disliked my editorials but a composite editorial on which all the staff agree would necessarily in most cases be a colourless thing. To the staff my thanks for their increased interest. I regret that I have to leave Salient and although Editors rarely write editorials such as this I have because I hope that Salient did not depart so far from its tradition while I was its editor but rather found it again and attempted to make that tradition a vital thing known to all students.

Maurice McIntyre

[This issue of Salient was edited by the interim editor, T. H. Hill, as Mr. Mclntyre's approaching marriage prevented his editorshlp continuing. The best wishes of Salient to the newly married couple.—T.H.H.]