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Salient: Victoria University Students' Paper. Vol. 25, No. 6. 1962.

Debaters Pro-Bomb

Debaters Pro-Bomb

The West should not ban the bomb unilaterally. The Debating Society decided this by a vote of 27.23. A Mr March went further and suggested that the banners should be bombed. The motion: "That the West should Ban the Bomb."

Opening for the Affirmative, David Flude claimed that the bomb is a threat of total destruction. He told his sparse but attentive audience that the West was in a terrible dilemma. It would be difficult to trust the Russians, but this was the only course to follow. It could happen that the U.S. might accidentally precipitate a war. There was mutual mistrust, but it was better to he Red than dead.

Longtime debater Peter Hogg said that he agreed with the Affirmative in many ways. But the Negative disagreed with Flude's reasoning. The unilateralists did not look at the facts. It was a matter of balancing one set of risks against another. He thought that there was a better chance of remaining alive if the West retained the Bomb. The Russians were not to be trusted, the Chinese would soon have the Bomb.

Continuing for the Affirmative, William Dwyer forecast a Utopia. He said that Hogg had confused nuclear disarmament with complete disarmament. One side, claimed Dwyer, must break the present stalemate. The present competition between East and West is in the economic sphere. Productivity now wasted on arms could be spent helping under-developed countries. This would, at the same time both win the economic race and bring peace. The Utopia of a united world would follow.

Second speaker for the Negative, Lewis, claimed that the Russians, as people, could not be trusted. They were a cruel race. He was followed by a legion of floor speakers whose arguments centred around, for the most part, points raised on the platform.

Speakers placed: Hogg, 1; Lewis, 2; Dwyer, 3; Roberts, 4. The adjudicator was Mr Jim Traue, onetime Auckland University debater.

R.J.B.

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