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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 15, No. 11. June 26, 1952
Letters to the Editor
Letters to the Editor
Editorial Subterfuge
Sir.—It is not good editorial policy to "blast" the executive merely because everything else "from staff to students" has already been blasted. To bull-balt this capable body—I say capable, because those functions recently held which have been controlled by the executive, namely the Easter Tournament, the Undergrade's Supper, the Capping Ball and Proeash, have all been unqualified successes—smacks of a rather public editorial subterfuge to obtain sensational copy. You succeeded. Mr. Horsley's letter was the bull-charge resulting from your rag-flappings. Had our president born in mind that the present executive has acquitted itself more than creditably, and that you apparently consider the executive to be endowed with powers equivalent to those of the College Council, then he would never have designed to answer your "deligerately provocative" editorial.
The executive cannot avail itself of powers it has never had. Its job, as representing the Students' Association, is to he "the official link between the students of the college and the college authorities ... to deal with all matters in which the students as a body are interested . . . ," etc. (See Vic. Calendar, p. 279.) The latter has been capably done and the college authorities are just as aware of the problems of the student body as the executive is. Why the pin-pricking? is it just something to write about, being the active, energetic, new-broom editor that you are? Is the executive to be blamed for V.U.C. apathy about which. M.W.R. was so eloquent in Salient of May 29? He like yourself. Is so impractical an idealist, that to combat this apathy, he suggests increasing it ten-fold by cutting Students' Association grants to clubs. For what club functions without at least some money? And what average, hard-up student, near as he undenably is to the abyss of apathy would not rather plunge back into it than be plagued for subs, by every club he cares to patronise in his semi-interested way? Many-clubs, remember, especially the cultural ones, depend on casual members rather than on an enthusiastic clique for their successful functioning.
The place to lay the blame for lack of progress round Victoria is not at the door of the executive, nor with the council—real progress has been effectively blocked by a drastically reduced (i.e.. as a percentage of total expenditure) budget grant to education made by the National Government.
—I.D.A.
Just Weaklings
Sir,—Commiseration with our selves on our hardships has [unclear: reach] such a high pitch of [unclear: intensify] it is lime we mention that [unclear: sover] hardship, that which must [unclear: make] existence as students a [unclear: burden] ourselves and an annoyance to one another, the fact that we never do what we want. The policy of the Executive, the facilities of the clubs, the ineffectiveness of notices, and the clutches of time and modern civilisation are evidently more than our capaclties can cope with. We are merely able to lament our frustration in "Salient." and exhort one another into activity which we have acknowledged impossible.
So M.W.R. has made the helpful Malthusian suggestion that if in our starred condition our giant clubs murdered the weaklings there would be more Association food for the giants, and we would produce a finer race. He has made the suggestion from no feeling of anti-humanitarian ism, but from the conviction that these weaklings are merely buy and that they would become veritable tigers in strength and ferocity should we threaten them with extinction.
I humbly wish to suggest that they are possibly just weaklings, and that many of us are still humanitarians. I also Suggest that there is one thing better than casting off societies and that is founding new ones.
B.D.
Why Proletariat?
Sir—I agree with D.B.S. in his appraisal of "A Streetcar Named Desire" as being an intelligent, first-class film." But . . .
First, two quite unnecessary words in the first two paragraphs. Why-does he have to lean over backwards Just to use bourgeois and proletariat—words picked out 01 Pol. Sc. I? Actually, I don't know that the film Industry Ignored the "piddling demands" of the box office after all. An increasing awareness of the value of Streetcar-type productions among the public is reflected in what producers give it.
Proletariat colloquially means wage-working class, employed group. Stanley and his friends hardly seemed to qualify. It would have been better to use a less-politically charged expression such as down-trodden or squalid quarter, or cesspool of New Orieans.
Second, critic D.B.S. presumes that because "Streetcar" was written in 1947 shows "the type of personality that has grown up after, and as a direct result of, the last war." Neurosis explored by Williams do not date from post-1945. Stanley's "schizophrenic Insanity" (?) would have been apparent war or no war. His is a personality which has existed for ages.
Minor points: scenes of the surrounding environment are not greatly increased in the film; I may' be wrong but the very last scene of all is not part of the original script.
—D. L. Rowntree.