Dear "Spike,"—The most exhilarating adventure that can befall a critic is to be himself criticised. It tells him that his existence has been noticed—that some other immortal soul has cast the light of his attention across the void that separates mind from mind and for one hectic instant stared him right in the eye, with (oh rich experience!) the awe-inspiring expression of a half-brick. Thus it is with a shiver of delightful terror that I scramble to my feet to receive the shock of H. McC.'s blighting accusations of "grudge," inability to produce an extravaganza, capacity for making misstatements, treasonable wishes to see College ventures result in failure, faulty use of logic, and other enormities barely hinted at, all of which I display in "two long embittered" articles in the June "Spike"—a total of four and three-quarter pages! What a record one or other of us achieves!—H.McC., I timidly suggest.

Better to be quarrelsome than lonely, an Irish writer points but. H.McC.'s (and Stephen Leacock's) vision of a University with "a smoking-room where the men could meet and argue" is foreshadowed in the pages of this very issue of the "Spike;" surely, when the smoke clears, the reality will be in sight. In the meantime, let us enjoy the smoke, for where there is smoke there is fire—in this case, the fire of a burning interest in College affairs. The day of "strong silent men with empty heads like gourds" has passed, and a Bolshevistic excitement takes its place. Let H.McC. burn me at his stake; it has been a genial year.

First I will praise H.McC. If my daring guess at his identity is correct, he (in the words of Cervantes) "hath a face like a benediction" (despite a quill that scratches) and an invincible regard for the College interest. At no time have I ever thought or suggested that he or any member of the "Please the Public—We Want Money" party acted in this Extravaganza affair other than with the very best intentions. I heartily concur in his statement that "grossly mistaken though they may have been, they acted in the best interests of the College, and with no eye to the interests of Mr. Trezise." And I am in no agreement whatever with his application of the term "mercenary party" to himself and his associates, for this carries an unmerited implication of self-seeking. It is a dummy he sets up himself for the sole purpose of knocking down. On the other hand, the description "Please the Public—We Want Money" I applied to H.McC.'s party because they made bold and frequent use of the words to explain and excuse their introduction into the College of Mr. Trezise; but I know (and never did deny) that the employment of Mr. Trezise was genuinely meant to benefit the Stud. Ass. finances.

The narrowest question was whether it would benefit the Stud. Ass. finance's. The answer is, did it? The usual profits of the Extravaganza are (I understand) somewhere about £150. For his services this year Mr. Trezise received (and quite probably earned, as things go) £30; and the net profits accruing to the Stud. Ass. were (I understand again) £80. When H.McC. remembers that the debasement of the Extravaganza to the character of a third-class revue and the employment of Mr. Trezise were fondly looked to to bring in an extra profit, will he still cavil at my satiric description of the whole thing as "the Trezise Benefit"? Is is of course lamentable that any student should think the show was staged solely to benefit Mr. Trezise; but who benefited the more—Mr. Trezise with his personal profit of £30 or the student body (800 odd) with its £80? It makes little difference that the profits were greater than the poor houses and the authoritative rumours current at the time J wrote my article led me to expect. Measured with previous results and judged in the light of the mighty expectations of the P.P.W.W.M. party, "Pep" was a miserable failure. Instead of a gold mine, it was very nearly a gold brick.

It is natural for H.McC. to dislike my effort to drive the lesson home, but why hint at a "grudge"? Is that the only possible explanation of my criticism? Was there no criticism before Mr. Trezise came upon the scene? Am I dreaming when I recall a stormy time commencing with the very first mention of Mr. Trezise—one general meeting which carried a certain resolution and another which revoked it, resignations of President, Secretary, and other members of the Stud. Ass. Executive, the vain attempt of page 32 "the Rump" to construct a "Stiffy and Mo" extravaganza, and so on and so forth? What a tremendous eddy has the lonely voice of my "grudge," reaching as it does to the time of "Luv," rippling even through a private discussion between myself and H.McC. in 1923, well before the then Executive asked me to collaborate with Mr. Beaglehole—and Mr. Byrne—in writing an extravaganza which would break with the tendencies of "Luv"! "Grudge," forsooth. I'd help to write a dozen still-born extravaganzas and consider them all well lost in the effort to prevent a breach with the fine tradition made in a fuller day by wiser men than we. And please do not hurl against Mr. Beaglehole and myself the fact that we compromised with expediency when a general meeting went to the length of swallowing its previous decision. It was good work to bring the matter to an issue, and we could afford a concession, even to comrades.

We withdrew our Extravaganza because a general meeting demanded a certain Paid Professional Producer. When an attempt to write a substitute extravaganza had not succeeded,. another general meeting revoked the resolution in favour of the P.P.P. and left the matter to the discretion of the Executive, which was the compromise suggested by us at the beginning. Whereupon we handed "The Last Trump" back and agreed to help. Whereupon the Executive appointed the P.P.P. that all the trouble had been about, and in our innocence we continued to help. Whereupon the said P.P.P. rejected the said Extravaganza in favour of one which had not then been written, but which was about to be written under his supervision. To condense the story, two Executives, separately and under different circumstances, with plenty of time to think, voted for a bird in the hand, but the P.P.P. insisted upon a bird in the bush. Is "dictation" a wild word to bring in here?

I am not going to enter upon an examination of Mr. Trezise's motives for rejecting the Extravaganza so thoroughly accepted by the Executive. As to his grounds, he said it was unproducible. I went to some pains to find out why it was unproducible, but he didn't seem to be able to get past a few general statements such as that it "violated all the canons of the dramatic art" (or was in some other authority who passed this judgment?), lacked "a central idea, such as Beauty"—in short, was unproducible. One expects more from an expert. My conclusions were that Mr. Trezise was accustomed to producing a type of show very different from the traditional College extravaganza and found that he could get such a show specially written for him. Indeed, who can blame an acute business man, of specialised talents and dependent upon advertisement in a particular line, for being unwilling to project himself into an unfamiliar world when he could carry his own world along with him? Shade of the old "Social Course"!—who can even blame the P.P.W.W.M. party when he remembers the reverence abroad in the College in March last for the very name of Trezise? Could the poor mountain do aught but go to Mahomet? The ex-students experienced in Extravaganzas who considered "The Last Trump" to be quite producible belonged to another day, that was all.

As to my capacity to act as producer: pray do not charge me with the excesses of my friends, H.McC. They were more willing to experiment than I was. To me a producer is very like the famous purple cow—" I'd sooner see than be one." I once attended a debate between Mr. Robert Hogg and another, in which

V.U.C. Cricket Club First Eleven, 1923-24 Winners of Junior "A" Championship

Back Row:—A.M. Wilson, G.U. Martin, F.H. Mullins, G.C. Kent, C.H. Arndt. Sitting—J.C. Greig, E.C. Wiren (Club Captain), R.H.C. Mackenzie (Captain), A.M. Hollings, C.H. Hain, Front Row:—L.J. Evans, R.L.A. Crosswell. Absent.—J.L. Dighton, W.E. Anderson.

the other complained of his inability to "make a silken purse out of a hog's ear." Mr. Hogg replied that "it was not the fault of the hog but of the fool who tried to do it." Perhaps my friends were fools; they did not, at any rate, try to make a silken purse out of "Pep"!'

Much of H.McC.'s letter is sound common sense. When the nonsense regarding myself is winnowed from it—such as that I "hoped" for a "financial disaster" to "Pep" or that I blame the P.P.W.W.M. party for not having held a Capping procession—the result is a substantial contribution to the movement for a keener interest" in College affairs. The whole Extravaganza discussion has been beneficial in this regard, and the Extravaganza itself an experience too rich to be wasted. Next year should sec the Luv-Beauty-Pep stuff flung aside for something more the measure of a Varsity's imagination.

H.McC. is welcome to his point in logic. Restated, however, the argument stands. What the public looks for in a College Extravaganza is novelty, and each Extravaganza advertises the one which comes after it. The advertisement of a previous Extravaganza will fill the booked seats and provide a crowded first night, but only novelty will draw the non-booking public on the second and third nights. A mere revue like "Luv" is terribly out-of-date in twelve months of these sated times.

Pax vobiscum, "Spike," and my thanks for this opportunity of replying.—Yours, etc.,

P.J.S.

P.S.—Must I apologise to anybody for referring to Mr. Trezise as "Professor"? And, if so, to how many?

Dear "Spike,"—Might I remind P.J.S. that the W.W.M. party did want to produce "The Last Trump," as witness the fact that they were parties to the "compromise with expediency" mentioned by him. One trifling difficulty, however, cropped up. The P.P.P. pronounced the show unproduceable—an opinion which was also expressed by quite a number of others, including some "ex-students experienced in Extravaganzas," who also "belonged to another day." Hence "Pep"—admittedly a rush show.

The point at issue may perhaps be stated thus:

It will probably not be denied that the great majority of present-day students are divorced from the old traditions of the College and have no conception of the true meaning and spirit of a University. The W.W.M. party holds that in order to remedy this, in order to make a real University, we have to start and rebuild "from the ground up." We suggest that the most feasible means of doing this is to do our utmost to procure the erection of residential hostels, etc. And for this we must get money. The students can help in this by making and putting aside as much as possible every year. Now the question is, "Was it worth while to make even £80 out of the Extravaganza this year, and put that sum aside as a nucleus of a fund for Residential Hostels, etc., bearing in mind the fact that, to put it as mildly as possible, there was very great doubt as to the possibility of producing 'The Last Trump'?" As P.J.S. would say, "the answer is 'was it?'" In any case it seemed to be a case of £80 or nothing. I am pleased to learn that P.J.S. did not intend by his article "The Trezise Benefit" to suggest that we had any eye to the interests of Mr. page 34 Trezise. However, the suggestion was not a dummy set up by myself. Perhaps P.J.S. has heard of such a thing as a "benefit performance," and he will perhaps admit that the word "benefit" in such a connection denotes the purpose of the performance.