On Russian Students

Sir,—I was disgusted at the sheer ignorance displayed by quite a few so-called students when the Russian Student Delegation came to Victoria. Whatever their political convictions were, these charming people deserved politeness from us if nothing else. It is not necessary to act in a boorish manner to preserve one's political faith.

I refer mainly to the belligerently worded rhetorical questions put up by some students at the discussion in the Little Theatre, prefaced by such phrases as "your shabby people's democracy," etc. Obviously they are rhetorical because their content is so loaded, emotionally, that no rational discussion can follow. They seem more to be raised for the sake of satisfying the questioner's inner prejudices than to facilitate discussion.

One questioner's lack of factual knowledge about such well-known history as that between the two world wars made me cringe with shame over our insularity. I can only conclude that some students do not really wish to find out anything about Communism on an intellectual level. The Russians wiped the floor with us, and we deserved it.

I remain.