Maori Issue

Away from problems of human psychology to one more directly concerned with politics was Mr R. H. T. Thompson's talk on the rugby issue. Mr Thompson was emphatically for the "No Maoris no tour" solution. He presented us with a first-class survey of the problem not only with its internal implications but in relation to what is happening in other countries where the question of racial discrimination arises. This lecture moved the whole Congress to decide unanimously to send a telegram to the Prime Minister,

who had shortly before addressed the Congress, calling upon him to use his influence to have the tour cancelled.

There remains to make mention of Professor H. Winston Rhodes's lecture which dealt with literary interpretation and the sympathetic imagination, and Don Locke's lecture on jazz. This talk was followed by a short concert of jazz music played by a band composed mainly of musicians from Victoria.

For the first few days one of our brightest "sparks" was Sir George Currie the Vice-Chancellor of the University of New Zealand, who cut a good figure in his two-piece bottle green ensemble, complete with toe-peepers.