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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 25, No. 4. 1962.

Correspondence

Correspondence

Let the Executive Rot

Sir,

So the Executive has the confidence of a Special General Meeting. This should not be taken to mean that it has the complete confidence of the student body, I feel that exec's actions and lack of action leaves much to be desired.

Rather than call a special general meeting I would like to ask the following questions:—
1.Do any persons on exec, favour the idea of handing over confidential Stud. Assn. Records to any outside bodies?
2.We have rooms for meditation, prayer, exec, meetings etc., but why can't a room be set side for swotting yet allowing smoking?
3.Why should the student body have to suffer the consequences of Exec, members' actions at the Freshers Ball? It should be obvious that Capping Ball will have the same uninvited guests from Waring Taylor Street, who were able to walk off with armfuls of grog from the back rooms which were full of exec. members.
4.How many more years must we await the appearance of "Spike"?
5.When are the long awaited accounts for Extrav. to be presented?
6.When the public is sympathetic to our feelings on increased fees, why haven't our Public Relations kept our burden in the public eye? There has been not an utterance from exec. to the papers on this issue.
7.Where are the Wool Store dances and where is Vic's Interfacs drinking horn?

If anyone would like to know why these matters were not raised at the S.G.M. ask the chairman— he accepted a closure motion before the matter had been fully discussed—before any of the above had been touched at all. I suggest that exec. be lined up against a wall and allowed to rot.

Yours etc.,

R. E. Magnusson.

Smear Tactics At S.G.M.

Sir,

I was amazed, to say the least, how an element of the students present at the recent Special General Meeting of the Association were permitted by the chairman to close the debate before all those wishing to speak had done so. This element also showed them-selves in true colours when, after Giving Armour Mitchell a completely uninterrupted hearing, they tried to stop the extension being granted to Mr Dwyer (luckily defeated) and then Interrupted his speech with loud remarks.

Smear tactics were the order of the night. First, a rather odious Mr Hamilton attempted to make fun of protagonist Dwyer by rather cheap jokes that the audience, to their discredit, responded to happily. Second, a waffling Mr Bidder tried to bring up Dwyer's Anarchist beliefs which were entirely irrelevant to the meeting. But it was a good smear anyway.

Finally, this business of secret ballot. About 10% of these assembled requested a secret ballot. On the instigation of noted Clown Butler, the meeting denied the right of a secret ballot. All in all, then, it was a well controlled meeting. I'm only ashamed to belong to such a student body.

"Pruned Off."

Orientation Again

Sir,—This is a heart-felt protest on behalf of the apathetic, or at least a small section of them. Mr Murray only echoes the countless pleas of numbers of the small but hardy race of organisers at Victoria. I admit that perhaps I need some organising, and to a certain extent I respond, but I also contend that organisers will go on organising when there is nothing left to organise, and to that extent I, by joining, or going, or doing, become a function of the organisers, rather than vice versa, the way it should be.

An extension of this is that the joiner becomes a function of the joined group, and immediately upon entrance solidifies into another facet, brilliant but regular, of the group facade. He may eventually become a big and lustrous facet, but he will always be just another relationship to be considered. My heresy is that I disbelieve in clubs as seedbeds of jolly good friendships. I prefer to think of them rather in terms of assignations, or vendettas, and I consider friends made in clubs in the same category as friends made when drunk.

I do heartily recommend joining for the joiners, but I suggest that those who do cleave onto one of the heartier purposive conglomerations concentrate single-mindedly on the activities offered, avoiding personal contacts which seem delightful in the chummy inebriation of the meeting-room, but seem of less solid stuff outside.

Granted, people are basically interesting, or amusing, but the sub-group university student is at first appearance uniformly horrifying, and the practice of meeting them in groups should be avoided until the individual members can be sorted out and analysed.

Yours etc..

Rob Laking.

Orientation Week

Sir,—In his article on Orientation Week Cam Murray asserts, in bold type, that the "avowed aim" of the Anarchist is "the complete destruction of anything organised." I would respectfully suggest that Mr Murray is misinformed on the subject of the aims of Anarchists. Authority for my suggestion can not only be found in Anarchist literature, but also in any serious definition of "Anarchism." The Penguin Dictionary of Politics states as follows:—

". . . . There Is (however) no anarchism advocating anarchy in the sense of dissolution of every social order." Further reference to any encyclopeadia dealing with anarchism (Brittanica, Chamber's, Everyman's etc.) would soon show Mr Murray that he is abysmally ignorant of the aims of the Anarchist Movement.

I am etc.,

Peter J. Shanly.

The Clocks are up the Wop

Sir

Though an advocate of originality and non conformity, I feel that I must draw the line where time is concerned.

Why cannot all the clocks, be functioning, i.e., E006. Why cannot all the clocks, both in S.U.B. and the University be adjusted to approximately the same time, instead of being all different.

Hoping that the situation could possibly be remedied.

Yours, C.A.J.

Why of I

Sir,

Of interest to all egotists should be the article "Nothings" in your last issue of "'Salient". The first person pronouns "I" and "my" occur 114 times.

This is a good example of just how personal and subjective modern art-forms have become. Art is now the Tool, the guinea-pig of intellectual and emotional immaturity and instability, used by people afraid of losing their identity in life's rat-race.

Yours,

M.B.R.

Male and Female

Sir,—Once again, someone has has taken it upon himself to complain about "The shortness of skirts worn by certain sections of our community." It appears that "Male" is trying to prove the aptness of his pseudonym by telling us his passions are uncontrollably aroused at the sight of a female knee (I hope he is not getting his knife into Vic's Kilted Laddle too!) to the extent that he cannot swot.

This I simply do not believe, for two reasons: (i) Surely, "Male," if he has ever done anything to assert his masculinity, would not be aroused by the sight of anything so innocuous as knees. Most V.U.W. blokes would not be aroused by anything.

(ii) If "Male" were doing any real swot, it would make no difference to him if hemlines were neck level. Distraction produced is dependent on the individual's inability to concentrate, not the distracting agent.

I suggest, Sir, that the only motive present in "Male's" dirty little provincial mind for writing that letter was the prompting of a few dirty little provincial sniggers behind a few dirty little provincial hands.

I am etc.,

R. J. Spence.

"Correspondence"

Sir,—I am interested in the reason for the inverted commas placed around the heading of the portion of this year's Salient devoted to letters from readers, viz. "Correspondence." The editors apparently consider that the standard of letters likely to be received from their "correspondents" will be pitifully unworthy of that term as it is generally used.

This attitude seems, at the very least, condescending, and if the actual purpose of the inverted commas was merely, perhaps, decoration, I would advocate their immediate removal in order to do away with a regrettable ambiguity.

I am etc.,

Q. Rious.

Maths And Physics Society

Fees Again

Dear Sir,—As students now pay three times their former fees, there is some basis for a claim to more voice in University matters.

I therefore suggest that the course now known as English is actually History of English Literature. Accordingly, there is a place and a need for a course in English.

Such topics as craftsmanship in writing prose, poetry and drama; variations in the written and spoken language of different English-speaking communities; and trends of style; could be included.

Then, as a language course, English could be counted as a modern language in the B.A. degree ... a requirement that Victoria has not yet brought up to date in any other way.

I am etc.,

Unwilling Historian.

And Again

Sir,

I would like to know what the Full effect of the new fees increase is going to be.

Already it is possible to enter the common room at 6 p.m. and find not only no card games in progress, but some people are actually studying! This is an unprecedented condition for this time of year. So much so that I fear the Universities may become places of learning and not as they should, the social amphitheatres of New Zealand's (sic) intellectuals.—I am, etc.,

Jan G. Frater.

Laughter on the Left

Current joke in left-wing circles; "An anarchist—one who joins the Anarchist association for the sake of freedom and allows himself to be pushed around by Bill Dwyer."

—J.M.