The Debating Society

In all Universities a Debating Society is of the utmost value to those students who realise the opportunity such an institution offers to them, not only to acquire facility in expressing in public such ideas as they may have, but also to discuss and form new ideas on the important current questions of the day. By debate one detects the weakness and crudity of many of one's preconceived ideas and the strength or weakness of the ideas of others. Many a brilliant thinker fails to achieve distinction or, more important, is unable to give his fellow citizens the benefit of his brilliance through his inability to express himself in public logically and attractively. Any student who suspects himself of incipient brilliance cannot afford to run such risk while there is a debating society to give the necessary training. Even the student who is satisfied there is no cause for any such suspicion will find a debating training useful if only for the purpose of preventing too ostentatious a display of lack of wisdom when speaking. The criticism indulged in by a College audience is at all times a healthy tonic for a condition of undue exaltation or extreme depression.

The V.U.C. Debating Society is one of the oldest of the student bodies. When the Students' Society (the progenitor of the Students' Association) held its first meeting on the 6th May, 1899, one of the first motions passed was that the Committee should take steps to form a Debating Society. This was done very promptly, as the first debate was held a month later on the 3rd June. The first Committee was elected on this latter occasion, with Professor Maclaurin as Chairman and Mr. A. W. Blair as Secretary. The first debate was on a subject which has, we believe, been discussed at least once or twice since but never probably in the startling form of that night's motion, viz. "That any system of control of the drink traffic is inimical to civilisation"! From its birth the Society was a healthy flourishing child. The first annual report showed a membership of 45 with an average attendance of 40 at all the meetings. Like all other early College Institutions, its activities were located in the Girls' High School buildings, until the College acquired a home of its own. Upon the erection of the College building, the Society carried on for several years in the large unfinished and unfurnished top storey of the College which served as the only meeting place for students until the erection of the Gymnasium. Old members of the Society have vivid recollections of packed meetings on the old top floor, when the cold and discomfort of the surroundings were forgotten in the perfervid oratory begotten of Home Rule Debates.

Among the prominent debaters of those early days may be mentioned H. H. Ostler, T. Neave, H. P. Richmond, F. A. de la Mare, E. J. Fitzgibbon, W. Gillanders, A. G. Quartley, G. Toogood, A. H. Johnstone and F. P. Kelly.

Strangely, interest in the Society seemed to wane slightly on its moving into the much more comfortable environment of the Social Hall of the Gymnasium. The speakers seemed as keen and as numerous as formerly but the audiences—the necessary chopping block for speakers—shrank in size. This languishing of interest became of course even more marked with the advent of page 68 war conditions in 1914. Throughout those dark years of war-time, however, the Society carried on with the support of those who were unable to go to the Front. Since the war, the Society has succeeded in attracting a considerable degree of fame or notoriety through the somewhat radical and ruddy tinge of certain of its discussions, much platitudinous paternal criticism has, for this reason, been wasted on the Society—wasted on account of the critics not realising that a Debating Society is for university students like a blow-hole in a volcanic district—a means of allowing a harmless escape of the dangerous ultra-radical gas given off during the convulsive upheavals which so often precede the final settling down into respectable conservatism. Sitting on a blow-hole is alike-dangerous and futile.

The most important activities of the Society have centred round the Inter-University College Tournament Debate, the Plunket Medal and the Union Prize.

The Society has been represented at every Tournament Debate since the inception of the Tournament at Christchurch in 1902. Although our representatives H. P. Richmond and J. Graham were not successful on that occasion, nevertheless in subsequent Tournaments our College has been so uniformly successful as to suggest that V.U.C. has some form of lien on the handsome Shield presented by Mr. J. W. Joynt (formerly Registrar of the University) for competition at this contest. Out of 19 contests V.U.C. has scored 10 wins.

The Society is deeply indebted to the late Lord Plunket, former Governor of this Dominion, for his generosity in providing for all time the Plunket Medal for Oratory. At the first contest in 1905, Lord Plunket stated that two motives actuated him in providing the Medal. The first was to connect the name of Plunket with the College of which he had laid the foundation stone and in which he took a keen personal interest. His second reason was that the first Lord Plunket, orator and statesman, had founded a similar Medal at Trinity College, Dublin, as a recognition of the fact that that distinguished statesman owed much of his later success in life to the opportunities a similar Society in Dublin had offered to him as a student. Lord Plunket, who always continued to evince a personal interest in subsequent contests for the medal, also on various occasions expressed the hope that the training for such a contest might ultimately help to improve the standard of oratory and debate in the wider spheres of the Law Courts and Parliament. While undoubtedly Lord Plunket's hopes have been realised as to the Law Courts, where many former winners of the Medal have already earned distinction, we have not detected any signs of marked improvement in Parliament,—explained possibly by the fact that, as yet, no Plunket Medallist has entered politics.

The annual contest for the Medal always evokes great interest not only in the College but among the general public. It is of interest to note that for several years the winner was selected by a ballot of the audience and not as now, by a board of judges. The old regime possibly gave some advantage to the competitor endowed with a winning smile or a motor car.

The Union Prize, which is awarded annually to the speaker who has obtained the highest average number of points throughout the session, is provided from a fund, vested in the College Council, dating back to the early years of the Society when it was affiliated to a Union Parliament in Wellington, which consisted of an associ page 69 tion of Debating Societies holding inter-society contests. Upon the decease of the Association, the funds were handed to the Council for the purpose of providing this prize. The fact that the prize is awarded to the man who has debated most successfully throughout the year has been a very great factor in bringing about the consistently high standard of debate which has characterised the Society throughout its history. Another factor tending in the same direction has been the annual presentation of a New Speaker's Prize to the new speaker showing the greatest improvement during the year.

It is a matter of gratification both to the Society and to old members that among the judges for such contests as the Plunket Medal and the Tournament Debate are now to be found men who were themselves formerly competitors in these contests, but whose training in the Society has helped them to achieve a position in their respective professions qualifying them to act as such judges.

G. G. G. Watson