Hectic Discussion

An address which aroused great controversy amongst the students present at the N.Z.U.S.A. congress held at Curious Cove, was given by Professor W. Airey, associate professor of history at "Auckland University College.

Professor Airey's address was called "some problems of peaceful co-existence." Professor Airey said that the main cause of distrust was the attitude of the West to the East. The West tended to regard its values as if they were valid for all the world for all time. Actually, they were the product of the particular position of the West, which had been in a privileged and dominant position towards the rest of the world.

The West ignored the fact that in other areas with different conditions, democracy might take other forms. The East had inclined towards Communism because people had to fight against the internal oppression of feudalism and foreign imperialism with little middle-class development as in the West.

Professor Airey depreciated comparison of one country with another. The proper comparison was between the present and the past in a given country, with regard for the future prospects.

He referred to the danger of what was called "subversion" being made the basis of intervention under the terms of the Manila Pact.

"Subversion." he said, "is part of our glorious heritage," and stressed the part that it had played in the tradition of Great Britain, the United States and France.

He made a plea for the right of a people to settle its own future by peaceful vote or revolt and civil war if that could not be avoided. The United Nations was based on the idea of peaceful co-existence and could operate only on that basis.

"The Geneva Conference," he said, "has been a great triumph of this principle which is being endangered by such blocs as established by the Manila Pact."

Professor Airey concluded: "The struggle for peace is a struggle for meeting, for discussion, understanding across frontiers, not merely geographical, but of the spirit. We must learn to be modest regarding our own ideas, patient and open-eyed for the ideas of others. The task of mutual understanding is today before all of us working for peace whatever our viewpoint or organisation. If we do not succeed, the fault will lie not with those procuring war, for we are stronger, but with ourselves."

For the next 2½ hours in heated and hectic discussion, the students and visitors contested Professor Airey's [unclear: viewpoint] and each other's without an [unclear: ultimate] conclusion being reached.

Dr U. B. H. Howard summed up the discussion and thanked the speaker.