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Salient: Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Vol. 32, No. 8. 1969.

Letters To The Editor

page 11

Letters To The Editor

All Letters Submitted For Publication Must Be Signed With The Writer'S Own Name, No Pseudonyms Will Be Accepted Save In Exceptional Circumstances.

More Pretty

Good afternoon, this is your friendly neighborhood genius speaking. The name of Ron Pretty has become well known on this campus in the course of the last few months when he has spoken upon unpopular issues, and not always taken the accepted course. Why? Can he possibly be serious, or is he the biggest since Gerard Curry? Pretty (that's pronounced "Pretty" as in "bet", not "bit"), is a most unusual fellow.

A self-confessed genius and crackpot, he spouts apartheid and Nazism, mixed with socialist ideals. He hates the government, socialists, anti-aparthiedist and 1% A.I.D. He loves Ron Pretty. It has been suggested that he is a government agent with a new type of cover. Perhaps he really is genuine, perhaps he really does believe in the superiority of "humans" over "wogs". Perhaps then he's a not case. R.P.'s ideas are many and varied, at different times he has thought of several ideas of to necessitate subjugating someone. The basis of many of Pretty's racialist ideas seem to come from outside his won intricate mind. For proof of the superiority of same races over others he has turned to Aristotle, who stated in his "The Politics", that: The slave was so by virtue of his natural inferiority. It is the tendency of nature to mark a difference (slaves and freemen) and, quote, "There are some by nature free, others by nature slaves, and for those their state as slaves is both advantagueous and just." The mental differences are sufficient, where nature has failed to mark the body. "The use to which the two are put the slave and the animal, varies but little."

For inspiration he has turned to Wagner, that composer whose "Nordic" operas were so beloved by one, Adolf Hitler, Indeed, perhaps you have noticed at forum the gleam in Pretty's eyes when he speaks and other startling similarities to that other great German orator, some of whose ideas seem to have been adopted, and to a certain extent expanded by this fellow in our midst. Is Pretty a fascist who if he had the chance would enslave and "purify" the world? Is he a Government agent who seems to be doing an excellent job at leading suspicion away from himself. Or is he the best entertainer this university has had since Wedderspoon? We will probably never know. Of course you could always vote him as the next President of the Students' Association.

Ron Pretty.

Dear Philistines, one and all. The latest piece of lavatory paper filling to issue from the pen of M. Aitken has demonstrated once again just what sort of a thick character he is. This fool cannot get it through his railways-cup-type skull and into the meagre brain within that my letter asked for a BALANCE of music and other. I can ignore the other, Aitken can ignore the music. I do not understand Aitken's remark about the reviewer "ballsing-it-up" as he very delicately puts it. I asked for a review of music and I got one, and, and a very pleasant review at that: I am sorry that Aitken's crude tasted do not appreciate Daniel Baremboim or the English Chamber Orchestra. Incidentally, forgive me if I exhibit my own ignorance by enquiring as to who wrote "Spoonful". I don't think it was written by either Liszi or Handel.

Ron Pretty.

After reading your correspondent (sic), Mr (sic) Pretty's (sick) ramblings on Wagner and culture, I was struck by the resemblance between his arguments and the demented ravings of another compatriot or Wagner's who was fortunately buried, as far as the world is concerned, under tons of rubble at the end of World War II. To quote Mr Pretty himself, "Those who don't like Wagner should be made to like him". Surely here is as good a reason as any why Mr Pretty should be certified. He, unfortunately, like so many other, has little to say, but he makes the loudest possible noise making it.

Take, for example, his statement that the author of a letter to which he is replying "descended to the level of personal insult". Then he very querly asserts that the author of this letter Is a "nincompoop", an "oaf" and a "nit". Perhaps from Mr Pretty's supposedly elevated nation in life as an arbiter of other people's taste these are not personal insults.

P. F. O'Dea.

Blue movies

In connection with a treatise in Salient 6 on Focus article "The Growth of a Substantial Trade", I do not question the existence of a New Zealand blue movie circuit—but what in the name of erotica prompted Frank Romanovsky to choose Wainuiomata as a venue for "libidinous citizens"?

To make such statements needs the support of considerable concrete evidence. (In blue and while? If Mr Romanovsky were to share his knowledge—if in fact it exists—it would negate the necessity for me to leave the valley for entertainment; except for occasional visits to other "places like Wainuiomata".

Is he attempting to say that all this time I have been leaving Texas in search of oil?

P. J. Fiebig.

Security issue

The accusations in The Dominion about the Security issue are unfounded.

I would seriously suggest that they are piqued by the fact that the Herald managed to scoop them.

The Dominion, which is easily the worst of all morning papers in the major centres, also tried to bury the issue, whilst others gave it very good coverage. It is just as well there is one newspaper in Wellington with the guts to hit the establishment where it hurts.

P. N. Harris (Mrs.)

The reaction of Brigadier Gilbert, Esq., to your expose, must have convinced you of the necessity to reveal any members of the Security Service when you become aware of them.

No legislation could ever stamp out this evil service, for the legislators themselves are scared of it.

And what would be the difference between Mr Bank on university premises, and on off-duty policeman? Make no mistake about it—no information would be with held from the organisation.

Alan Martin.

Down with that vodka martini and on with the cloak and dagger—there's a spy on the campus! Cunningly disguised as a rugby player, too—the fiendish little bounders stop at nothing. We even hear that he seemed "quiet" spoken, polite, apparently reasonable, and taciturn". A front, of course, A diabolically clever front! Everybody knows security men are as mad as hatters and reek of "cynical deviousness". To the stake with them all, I say!

A security agent doesn't come to the university to learn — he comes to spy, just as a toothpaste salesman comes to sell toothpaste and a demolition worker comes to blow the noble institution to pieces.

Of course students must be protected from neaky infiltrators in their midst. It's all very well to have radical opinions, but who wants to be overheard and disliked by the Establishment? Just look at Christ, Lenin, Castro, Darwin and Socrates. When the government of the day suggested they toe the line, they Immediately recounted their ideas. That's why nobody has heard of them today.

Peter J. Needham.

I Am moved (emotionally and bowel-wise) by the picture featured in your last issue that showed the bodily removal of one of this institution's most able and eloquent gentry—(Ron) Pretty—by a gang of featureless thugs under the pretext of encouraging free speech.

As an avid supporter of Prettyism and dirty jokes at forum, I feel that such actions definitely increase the chances of serious speech and discussion taking place. Never!

Just what do these students hope to achieve?

Mr Pretty will survive even under these extremes of persecution —it is rumoured that he might go underground to prove his point (watch Manners Street - Taranaki Street intersection). Stand firm, dear Ron, enlarge the circle of your friends, what this forum needs is a good one-hour shit-stirrer.

Andy Mcewan.

Congratulations on your excellent special edition of Salient.

Let's not be fooled by The Dominion or by Tony Jaques, who claim that there is not sufficient evidence on which to base claims that Security agents are operating on campus. These people are just saying that because they are scared that their Illusions might be shattered. Let's look at the facts.

It cannot be denied that there Is a Security Service in New Zealand, it cannot be denied that there are at least three known instances in the last four years of Security agents being active in some way on the campus; it cannot be denied that, as Brigadier Gilbert himself said in a TV interview (Salient, June 17, 1966), the Service "has a duty to follow Communist and Communist front activities and the possibility of espionage wherever these may occur".

Given these three established facts it is not being the slightest bit unreasonable to assume that Security is engaged in spying on students. Of course we have no concrete proof of this, and we probably find it impossible to get resorting to measures which in terms of law could quite possibly be highly punishable offences. The only additional fact really necessary to render such an assumption (and other universities in New Zealand) there is "Communist and Communist front activity", admittedly little from the Communist Party itself).

It it not true, however, that there are declared (not to mention silent) Communists, socialists. Trotskyists and many other "subversives" operating openly at Vic?

What with the Socialist Club, the Spartacist Club, anti-this and anti-that, Action Committees, the RED SPARK magazine, left-wing articles in Salient—this fact is so obvious that not even the second-rate sleuths in the Security Service could fail to miss it.

But Mr Jaques and The Dominion have missed it, and they even cast aspersions on the Service by saying that it has, too. If it had it would be reneguing on what even it itself has publicly declared to be its duty. Mr Jaques and The dominion are guilty of disloyalty or the most childish inconsistency imaginable.

Ian Mcgill.

What a storm in a tea cup you raise in your special issue on "Security Agent on Campus". When reduced to its elements it appears that all that happened was that an officer of the Security Service asked a person, who also happens to be a student at Victoria, to report upon the activities of certain organisations which are not university organisations. How on earth can that affect academic freedom? The officer from the Security Service might just as well have asked someone else, who happened to be say a freezing worker, and then presumably would not have objected.

The heading "Security Agent on Campus" implies that the Security Service has an agent within the university reporting upon activities there. This is not borne out by what you report. Is it not rather a dishonest innuendo on your part?

Since the community has obviously accepted the need for a security service I would have thought you would be gratified to know that it was recruiting senior students and graduates. Surely you would feel happier to think that the quality of the Service was being enhanced by having sensible fellow students and graduates at members of it. Let us hope, though, that Mr Hugh Fyson does not join. The arrogance with which he can condemn others would be an unfortunate characteristic in a member of the Service.

The editorial on the back page of the special issue, after fairly postulating some of the issues, ends with a curious piece of illogicality. In what possible way does attempting to recruit students and graduates from within the university suggest that the Security Service is unaware of what it should be defending? How does such recruitment, for reporting on activities unconnected with the university, inhibit the free exchange of Ideas? Does it mean that in the editorial writers' view no member of the Security Service can ever be permitted to go to the university because, if so, it is contrary to the report or the Hutchison Commission and would create a class of persons discriminating against, not on account of their views or the colour of their skins, but because of their occupations? Not quite in accord with those Rights of Man that the editorial writers were busy advocating. If none of these things is meant what did they mean, if anything?

If your report of what the Vice-Chancellor, Dr Taylor, said is all that he said then I can only conclude he has been given a very different account of whet occurred than which appears in Salient. To say of that incident that "it is quite inconsistent with the basic principles of a university" is patently absurd. Dr Taylor must surely have been referring to some other sort of activity than this.

The anonymous student who disclosed the incident in the first place is to be congratulated on bringing the matter out into the open. It must be nice for him to feel he is doing a public service without at the same time incurring "unnecessary publicity or perhaps prejudicing his future career". Not so the officer of the Security Service that you bravely chose to name.

R. C. Savage.

David Harcourt and Simon Arnold reply:

A Point made in our editorial has been overlooked. This was that inevitably conflicts of rights will arise in a democratic society and there is an obvious need for a body to resolve these conflicts. The Security Service, which at present carries out this function, has discerning and incompetent..

The service was established at the request of the Americans, to of attitude which might be appropriate here—with its suggestions of counter-espionage, Smersh and cloak-and-dagger methods—is incompatible with the critical faculty necessary to resolve conflicts of rights.

This greater responsibility should be borne by a judicial body. We feel that in the conflict of rights which arises when a member of the Security Service is active in any way on campus—and thereby inhibits the freedom of speech of students-might be resolved by subordination of the Security Service members' rights to attend university.

Security must go. Even on Mr Holyoake's principles it must! go. In June last year he said "New Zealand is a free society governed by the rule of law." But how can it be said that people are Free when the existence of a Security Service makes them Afraid that they are being watched personally by a secret branch of the government? This should not worry most people in the society at large, but it must cause concern to those whose very work requires them to engage in criticism. Such people are the staff and students of universities; the government is not perfect and so it is inevitable, or at least it is their duly to criticise the government from time to time. Occasionally this involves a radical criticism of "the system" (without in any way involving resorting to values which contradict the highest values embodied in our society already).

"Law" and "Security Service" are incompatible, logically and morally. The term "law" as contained in the sentence "a free society governed by the rule of law" assumes and implies a level of rationality on the part of the subjects to the law, such that they are capable of knowing and are required to know the law, and such that the law is made available to them in order that it can be known.

Let us forget our differences on the All Black tour, on Vietnam, on the elections; let us all unite for the rights, honour and dignity, of the free man in what ought to be a free society.

M. R. D. Olsen.

You Students! You ungrateful pack of motley fanatics! Just who the hell do you think you are? The odious little broadsheet on the Security Service stunk even more than your usual flush of Communist bigotry. I am not a student; I suppose you would call me a member of the "Establishment", for unlike most students I work for a living. Hugh Fyson's disgraceful sewage of polemic in the said broadsheet made me want to retch. All university ideas are either Rabelaisian or visionary, and Fyson's article falls into the second category. He actually seems to believe that the university is independent of the Establishment and can object to its security men being there. What utter drivel!

I, like many others, am highly indignant that the government takes my money and handts it to you loafing subversives to burn your way through varsity and generally make trouble. How dare you question our right to find out what's going on in that damned bunch of buildings we had to pay for. Students are ingrates they'd gladly fester up some filthy little scheme to overthrow the Establishment that supplied their university.

"I don't care how scared the Establishment is," trumpets Fyson Well, Mr fyson, at this moment I and my kind have the power to destroy the Earth. We can easily call up forces to smash you and your degenerate into the ground upon which you stand. It is you, not we, who should be scared.

As far as I'm concerned, students stink, their newspapers, their disruptive ideas stink, and everything they come into contact with, stinks. You may well have the same opinions about security agents on campus, but if you don't like them in that poisonous little place up there on the hill, you can bloody well leave it.

Jerome Wallace.