Constitutional Amendment

At the recent Annual General Meeting of the Students' Association a motion was carried by two votes that though past students may be members of College clubs they may not hold office. This motion was put to a little over a hundred students, ninety-nine of whom voted, and I think only the odd nine had at the time any serious views on the subject.

I voted for the motion, but subsequently I, and I think others too have regretted doing so. Hitherto it has never occurred to me to wonder who are past students and who are not, and it has been a revelation to me to learn how many invaluable committee members will be forced to resign as a result of this motion. I now agree with the view put forward at the meeting that the Students' Association has no right to lay down such a principle for the individual clubs, and I feel that a past student who by his interest and activity within a club has won the confidence of its members so that they elect him to their committee must almost invitably be an asset to that committee.

I would like to point out therefore that had I alone voted at the meeting in the light of my present knowledge the matter would have been submittd to a casting vote and ther result might have been entirely different. It may be argued that it is now too late to alter a motion that has been passed by the Students' Association, but it should never be too late to rectify a mistake, and surely it is a mistake that a motion having such farreaching results should be decided in this way, almost by chance. The presence or absence of one or two people might have atered the issure, and I would like to suggest that another ballot be held at which all members of the Students' Association entitled to vote may do so. The result would then be the considered opinion of the Students' Association, and not the hasty conjectures of those members of it who happened to have a free evening on Monday, June 30.

An Oration?

This year's contest for the Plunket Medal brings into the limelight what has always been a potential source of injustice to some of the speakers, viz., the corred meaning of the word "oration." On this occasion it is possible to raise the question without casting reflections on the decision of the judges since Miss Shortall would not have won the Plunket Medal even if her type of speech had not been ruled "no oration."

The fact remains however, that Miss Shortall would have been disqualified in the eyes of at least one judge because she chose to speak on a character whom she could not treat as her hero! If that is [unclear: rect] ruling, then it is time it was incorportated in the Plunket Medal Rules, while if it is not a corrrect ruling, some definition should be arrived at to prevent judges from making arbitrary regulations for themselves. It is a matter for the Debating Society, but it would seem a great mistake to narrow the scope down to hero worship when ortions (?) on such men as the Kaiser, Judge Jeffries and Zaharoff, have been amongst the most interesting and entertaining of recent years.

Judgment Is Not Reserved

The regularity with which, when a new issue of your demure little journal comes out, the hoi polloi say "rotten" or "worse than the last," impels me to spring to your defence. I have missed no issue since Vol. 1 No 1, dated August 12th, 1930, and consequently am in a position to say that at no time has "Smad" been so up-to-date. Indeed, each new issue is more up-to-date than the last.

The almost universal condemntion of "Smad" might be tre were it packed with doubtful humour. But there are never more than one or two examples in any issue. I would even say that "Smad" does without humour altogether. For example, the advertisement of Mr. Blank Blank in your last issue was written by somebody entirely laking in a sense of humoiur. That is as it should be in a paper which, like the "Woman's Page" of the local press, is suitable for domestic use.

Your editorials—are they rotten? Decidedly not. Your are careful to put so little in them. Their terms are of the strictest conventionality. They could offend nobody, not even momentarily distract, for they seldom criticise. How can articles so vitally green be termed rotten? Green?—say rather pale pink, for they are not red. And you have done splendidly in abolishing the Cockpit, in which ungentlemanly students disagreed with one another and bit the hand that fed them, our dear old Alma Mater. Opiniativeness among students is impertinence, dear "Smad", I was delighted to notice an absence of it in your Plunket Medal report.

I love your verses—they are such good prose. And your prose is so prosy. Above all, I love the spirit of true Victorianism that animates your pages, so dignified, aloof, cautious, ladylike, and restrained. Keep respectable, "Smad," by excluding anything that might annoy, amuse, interest, or provoke; in short, anything likely to pander to undisciplined tastes or capricious fancies. Your readers are here to learn, not to play. Give them "Foreign News" to show them that their College is not worthy of interest—it will bring them to their senses.

Above all, watch out for libel. Pretty nearly anything can be libellous, except, of course, advertisements. Can you print another good one about funeral parlours? Please.