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"University students are an untidy lot". Most of us are pretty tired of hearing this remark. Nine times out of ten it isn't true. But to justify ourselves, we've been doing some investigations round the more populated corners of Varsity. The caf in particular. We've been interested to see just what the typical student will be wearing during the coming year.
The caf is the best place to observe the diversity of student fashion. We've certainly seen some odd sights, though nowhere near the description "an untidy lot". On the whole we were most impressed with the number of neatly dressed students, a few of whom are shown on this page.
The essence of university dress is comfort and serviceability. Money of course plays a very important part. Most students don't have much to spend on clothes. So this is all the more reason for buying sensibly and not being talked into something "useless," by an over persuasive "counter jumper."
Male students' fashions are fairly simple and don't change much from one year to the next.
But women students' fashions are more complex and are thus open to more criticism.
We've seen a wide range of women students' dress round varsity—from shifts and sandals, skirts and jerseys right up to the more sophisticated styles.
It is a point to remember for those students, specially freshers planning wardrobes for the coming winter. Most men students seem to feel inferior when with women students, who are dressed to kill. As one student told us, "I don't like seeing dolls dressed up too much round varsity. They never look any different when you take them out." But of course it doesn't pay to be dictated to, whether you're male or female: "She did commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise my leg being cross-gartered—I will be strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and cross-garter'd even with the swiftness of putting on."
For women students as with men, It is not important to have a lot of clothes. Blouses and skirts are useful. They can be changed round and teamed up with jerseys as well. You may want to cultivate the "typical student'' look, but it's better not to go to extremes if it doesn't suit. Wearing a big black jersey may make you look like one of those "black pudding" sausages.
Many older graduates have much criticism of students' dress today. As one graduate told us, "It was never like this in my day. We all wore gowns to lectures and men students wore collar and tie." We wonder what sort of reception it would get, if a rule of wearing gowns to lectures was introduced again. It may have been alright when there were fewer students at University, but now, with increased numbers, it's doubtful if the idea would be greeted with much enthusiasm.
Shoes are also an important part of varsity dress. The men mostly favour the suede desert boot type. We believe they're referred to as some sort of "creeper." What species we're not quite sure.
Women students favour a variety of styles. Much depends on the weather. Some of the more sophisticated women prefer high heels. But these can be rather uncomfortable, tripping up and down stairs all day. The flat heeled shoes are really far more suitable for varsity conditions. We notice the "American type" sneaker is quite popular among some students, though rubber soles can be tiring on the feet.
Hair styles also play an important part in student fashions. The "Beatle" out for instance, is the craze overseas. We've even seen some daring students sporting these round varsity. At some stage during the year too, there are sure to be the long haired intellectual types round. Some look as though they haven't seen the inside of a barber's shop for months. (Some just don't want to.—Ed.)
No doubt he could forgo a couple of trips to the "Mid" to pay for a decent haircut. We've also heard of some students who are saving money by cutting each other's hair. It's quite apparent by one or two of the styles that they are just learning.
Now women students' hairstyles. There's quite a collection round the campus this year. Short, long and in between. Apart from a few frowsy "Bardot" types most of them seem to be fairly sensible and tidy.
Of course you'll always get the "Beat" fashion. Long untidy hair whether you're male or female. But this fashion (if you can call it such) belongs to a few of the "elite" and seems to be a dying generation. The big black eyes and dead white lips are "non u" at present, though beards still come and go. But we'll see what the winter brings.
The duffel coat of course is a definite insignia of varsity rank. So if you want to be right in the fashion swing, a duffel coat's essential. Oh and don't forget, yards and yards of varsity scarf wound round and round and round. But please remember we may be the leaders of tomorrow but we're not "an untidy lot".
Student reaction to an article on contraception, contributed to the last Salient by Erich Geiringer, M.D., Ph.D., has varied from a strong disgust to welcoming appreciation.
Several groups hove approached Salient to find out why the article was published. Basically, this involved a belief that knowledge on contraceptive techniques was not as common at university as most people believe.
A continuing sharp rise in the birth rate of illegitimate children in New Zealand has probably been reflected on the campus. Discussions held at Congress, during the vacation pointed towards such a trend.
Senior female students have told Salient they thought this knowledge of the dangers involved would be very useful to many younger girl students.
Some "old hands" on the campus thought the article was unnecessary and therefore distasteful.
The general concensus of religious opinion appeared to be unfavourable. Most religious people who approached Salient thought an article could perhaps have been published but knowledge about contraception should be tempered with moral instruction which should have appeared in the same issue, perhaps adjacent to the article we printed.
Since the Salient article was to all intents and purposes a factual description of contraceptive techniques, the editors did not believe that moral instruction, of one kind or another, was absolutely necessary with the article. Such moral instruction is freely available from a wide variety of sources in the community and the situation can hardly be said to be biased towards the immoral unless one defines one's moral point of view so strictly as to exclude the possibility of ammorality.
Salient intends to provide further background information on contraception, especially material on the comparative efficiency of contraceptive devices as shown by Consumer Council tests.
The next issue of Salient will contain an article describing a recent Catholic viewpoint as expressed by a contributor to the Australian Catholic Worker.
Readers are encouraged to write to Salient expressing their views on contraception and related issues.
The Annual General Meeting of the Law Faculty Club devoted considerable time to the discussion of allegedly unjust treatment of students with regard to special examinations.
Alistair Taylor opened discussion with a motion that "The Law Faculty be requested to present a clear policy on aegrotat passes and special exams." In support of the motion (which included a number of other requirements, most of which were voted away) Taylor drew attention to the case of the two students who applied to sit specials, under, it was suggested, the same circumstances. One was accepted, the other refused, and the purpose of the motion was to find the truth of, or the reason for, this action
Other speakers felt that the Faculty must be trusted—that its members applied their minds to these matters, and no need was felt for the motion. The Faculty itself would realise that it was about time for these things to settle down.
"But they must work to some norms and standards," remarked another person.
"We must plead guilty to wavering back and forth." said Professor Campbell in reply to the motion. He went on to submit that he had been unexpectedly called into enrolment and that his plans had been knocked awry.
However this had no connection with accusation of injustice—"I categorically deny that the circumstances of the two cases were in any way similar," Campbell told the meeting.
The opinion was later expressed that "The more we insist that specials are to be a right, the less likely are we to be able to sit them." "If you lay down rigid specifications for aegrotat passes, you destroy the reasons for them—they are designed to meet the 'special case' and the 'exception'. It is at the discretion of the Faculty to preserve the value of the provisions."
The motion was then put, and soundly defeated. Said Taylor: "I'd like to move a motion of confidence in the staff." A voice from the floor: "You would need to, wouldn't you?"
It is rumoured that a recent issue of the clandestine Auckland publication called Wreccum has stirred up trouble on the campus there.
The issue of Wreccum appeared after the recent censorship of Craccum and attacks the Students' Association Executive and the Auckland Vice-Chancellor for their actions in that affair.
When approached by Salient, Mr John Sanders. Craccum Editor, categorically denied having any conection with Wreccum. He claimed he could speak with equal assuredness about the lack of connections between staff of Craccum and the cyclostyled publication Wreccum.
The full details of developments in the censorship affair will be made available to Salient for publication in the next issue.
Some comments on censorship.
Recently the Auckland Students' Executive, acting on the advice of a lawyer and under strong pressure from the Varsity authorities, insisted on the removal of a book review and a poem from the newspaper Craccum. Further, they censured the editor Mr. John Sanders, for conducting an "experiment in law"—whatever that peculiar phrase may mean. Mr. Sanders and other Auckland students then resorted to the time-honoured practice of publishing an unauthorised newspaper called Wreccum, in which they criticised the actions and attitudes of the Students' Executive and the College authorities. The last I heard of the matter, it seemed that these students were at least in grave danger of expulsion. If they were expelled, it would be a horrifying misapplication of disciplinary power; for these particular students have given thought to issues of propriety and censorship, and have begun to examine critically the customs and prejudices of Pig Island society. They have begun to think. The Varsity authorities should utter prayers of thanksgiving that a few students at least had grasped what a university is meant to be; a place where people learn to think for themselves.
I would grant readily enough that the majority of men and women who pass through our universities are not concerned with learning to think at all. They want to pass their exams and get good jobs as chemists or librarians with the least possible fuss. The Varsity is a tunnel through which they pass from a suburban home to a city office or laboratory. Furthermore, I am sure that our Departmental Heads and city fathers are delighted that it should be so. They do not want employees or colleagues who have more ideas than are necessary for the job on hand. An office dealing with immigration, for example, would not want to employ people who questioned the notion that white-skinned British-born immigrants were in some mysterious way better than dark-skirnned immigrants born in Madras; and equally no business engaged in the manufacture and sale of soap would want to employ people who could not stomach the degraded use of language in newspaper and radio advertising, or who had doubts about the psychological benefits of the Machine Age. The point is that business men and bureaucrats have a vested interest in the status quo. It is their own little speckled cow, as it were; and they draw milk from it daily. And most Varsity students hope to do the same some day.
But there is another and older tradition. Since the University of Paris developed in the shade of the Church, there has existed in each generation and in many countries a creative tension between university thought and the habitual attitudes of the wider money-ruled community. In Russia some university students are prepared to criticise the regime; in America some students are preoccupied with racial issues; in England, as in New Zealand, some students join in marches to demonstrate against the use of nuclear weapons. It is precisely this readiness to think, speak, write and act on behalf of causes which lack support from, or may even be opposed to the policy of those who have most power in the community, that distinguishes the thinking students of a university from the pupils of a higher-grade technical college. The existence of such a group will always irritate the bureaucrat and the city father. They will attribute hooliganist and irresponsible motives to its members. They will say—"The students should work harder. It isn't their job to criticise the way the world is built." In part the irritation rises from a feeling of personal affront that any point of view different from their own should exist; in part it rises from the chagrin of the fox who has let his tail be chopped off, objecting to the brown, hairy plume of a more fortunate, younger fox. When any clash occurs between students and the authorities of the town or the university—as on this recent occasion in Auckland—the authorities tend to exercise their disciplinary powers with a paranoid severity. It is understandable; for student thought can in the course of a generation change the satus quo; and that is what the bought man fears most.
I was unable to read the book review in Craccum since I have not been able to obtain an uncensored issue. The title of the review—"The Vaginal Viewpoint of Mary McCarthy"—is a shrewd one. It sums up in a nutshell the particular bias of that tough American writer. I am sure she would have counted it both amusing and just. The poem which was censored was one I wrote myself—"The Sad Tale of Matilda Glubb", a verse chronicle describing the gradual lapse from sanity of a Pig Island primary school teacher, whose pattern of gentility does not survive the stresses of the classroom, I had used in this poem, for purposes of satire, the mildest four-letter word—the one which has no sexual connotations except for copraphagists—and the climax of the poem, when Miss Glubb dismembers the Director of Education with a butcher's knife, under the impression that he is the old ogre in the park against whom her mother had warned her, is certainly not the right bedtime reading for invalids. The poem was humorous; it is possible that the majority of Auckland students, their legal adviser, and the Varsity authorities were not accustomed to humour in the books they read. But the crux of the matter was undoubtedly the fact that the poem was indecorous.
I can accept a censorship which tries to prevent pornographic writing from being published. A pornographic story or poem is one which is designed or likely to stimulate the reader to sexual daydreams or misdemeanours. In a broad sense a detailed description of torture or atrocities could be termed pornographic, because of its appeal to the sadistic or masochistic proclivities of the reader. But as a literate person I cannot accept a censorship which hinges on another man's sense of what is proper. It would be a melancholy situation if what one was allowed to write or publish or read depended on the state of the subconscious mind of a Pig Island businessman a cop or a Varsity professor. Standards of decorum vary enormously, among writers, among the general public, and in Varsity circles. I cannot see why Craccum should not publish a poem or story or book review which some of its readers might consider indecorous. It means otherwise that a small pressure group can impose their standard of taste, by means of censorship, on other literate people.
Of course the issue goes much deeper. In many respects gentility is the glue which holds the status quo together. A genteel man can be counted on to take the side of the cops, because his mind is fuddled, and what Ernest Hemingway called his built-in dung-detector has been put out of action. (I have not used Hemingway's exact words in case Salient also should be censored on account of indecorous language.) It is very easy for any demagogue or religious charlatan to put it across a man like that. It was the genteel middle classes in Germany who welcomed Hitler as a bulwark against the indecorous speculations of the Jewish intellectuals who were (they thought) corrupting the youth of the country. And when the smoke blew their way from Belsen they didn't think about it because it was unpleasant. We have no Belsens here; but I have seen women go crazy in the tidy vacuum of a Primary school classroom between a glass tank and a vase of daffodils; and when I write a poem about the psychological dangers of the teaching profession (a matter of great relevance for student life) my genteel readers notice only that I have used Hemingway's word for dung three times, and start to call out the cops.
The curse of intellectual barrenness which rests like a black frost on the paddocks of Pig Island may have sprung in a large degree from the neo-Victorian gentility inculcated in our schools. Ordinary working people are the ones least affected by it. They generally brush it away like a bad smell, and go on using their minds and their tongues on whatever concerns them most. But the Varsity student, like the bureaucrat, is peculiarly vulnerable to it. He can be penalised for saying or writing what any wharfie would not think twice about. It is not the fate of the Auckland students who have come under the censor's hammer which troubles me most—they will stay alive because they have already begun to think their own thoughts. It is the fate of the ones who prefer to rest in the shade of the city fathers which troubles me. In ten years time it may be impossible to distinguish them from vegetable sheep Mound of moss found in Central Otago closely resembling sheep.
Faith and knowledge are not to be found in inverse proportions in everyone and in the case of Professor C. A. Coulson, F.R.S., they have come to an outstanding synthesis. Prof. Coulson has been for the past twelve years the Rouse Ball Professor of Applied Mathematics at Oxford following a brilliant career as a student and teacher.
He is the author of a number of standard text-books and innumerable research papers. While at Victoria during his very brief visit, he will lecture in the Chemistry department and meet staff and students In his own professorial setting. His host in this will be Prof. J. F. Duncan who has had associations with Prof. Coulson in the past. He will also meet members of the Institute of Chemists and of the Royal Society.
This in itself would almost fill the two and a half days he will be here, but besides that, he has a full programme talking about the Christian faith. He is the most notable British author today on the relationship of science and religion. His book, "Science and Christian Belief" was awarded the Lecomte de Nouy Prize and was reviewed in the Times Literary Supplement as "one of the most profound studies of the relationship of science and religion that has yet been published." He is a leading Methodist layman, past vice-president of the British Methodist Conference and since
He is a frequent lecturer and broadcaster in Britain on social problems, pacifism, education and religion. He will be giving an open lecture to all staff and students in the Men's and Women's Common Rooms on Friday, April 10 from 1-2 p.m. His subject will be "Science, Society and the Christian".
Your political editor is well astray in his comments on University political Clubs, reported in the last issue of "Salient". Might I point out just a few of the errors in Mr. Haas's article.
We are accused of mud-slinging and lack of constructive political activity. Such accusations are at variance with the facts. Mr. Haas must surely agree that the meetings last year addressed by Mr. Nordmeyer and Mr. Nash were hardly of a destructive nature. Mr. Nordmeyer spoke on Labour's policy and Mr. Nash on the philosophy of the Labour party. The Labour Party Club held a meeting in December specifically to discuss and formulate remits for the Annual conference of the Party. This is certainly constructive politics and aiming at serious political thought. Perhaps Mr. Haas was not aware of this meeting.
I am pleased to see that he mentions the active part played by the Labour Party Club in the Election campaign. I can think of few things more constructive on the part of a political club than assisting its party in such a way. This involved a lot of hard work and sacrifice on the part of our members, hardly the "pure sophistry" that Mr. Haas speaks of.
Perhaps it was Mr. Norman Kirk's meeting that upset him. White I would agree that such a topic is not entirely constructive, surely criticism of the present government is a perfectly legitimate political activity. Criticism is not mudslinging which is what Mr. Haas seems confused with.
And incidentally regarding the attendance figure at Mr. Kirk's meeting, I am sure that this was intended to be 95, as this is the correct figure.
Mr. Haas's remarks are so wide of the mark that I am prompted to ask him to think in future before he makes such sweeping statements.
Sir,—How about having no Procesh this year? It would be interesting to see the effect on those deprived of their annual exhibitionist adolescent cavortings.
I think particulraly of the effect on the trouserless gentleman who, last year, paraded his toilet prowess greatly to the delight of only himself.
In fact I wonder whether Wellington's lavatory walls are the source of Procesh students' humour. or merely provide a further outlet.
"Ba Choir go Mbdeadh Naire ort": Sorry, we do not print unsigned letters. They must carry name, address and usual signature.
I would like to warn against unwarranted conclusions which might be drawn from Mr, Lojkine's reference to Esperanto at the N.Z.U.S.A. Congress, as reported in your issue last week. Languages such as Esperanto are word oriented but this is a deliberate policy followed because, like the insistence on having no exceptions and rules, it maximises the ease of learning the language. A medium which is to be useful as a second language for people of diverse linguistic backgrounds and with a wide range of intellectual capacity (not merely university graduates) must be one which does not require eighteen years for a professional linguist to gain "instinctive use" of it. To learn new forms of word order is much more difficult than to learn new words for old concepts. Mr. Lojkine's remarks provide a further argument for the choice of a deliberately planned language for international use since the criteria of excellence cannot be quite the same as for a national language which is learned from birth and becomes the very basis of a person's thinking.
Sir,—Your Mr El Muhummad AI Crud is the greatest ... he is the king ... In fact Cassius had nothing on him.
Most students see little of the Vice-Chancellor of the University, and many may wonder what he finds to do. He does not lecture, he does no examining, he runs no laboratories, he is not directly engaged in "advancing the frontiers of knowledge". For all that can be seen, he may be a vestigial appendage, preserved for ceremonial occasions only.
Actually, however, the Vice-Chancellor works incessantly and arduously in the interests of the University; and although some of what he does is of little concern to students, most of it vitally affects the extent to which the University is successful in achieving its aims, and has a profound impact on student life and welfare. As Deputy Vice-Chancellor I was called upon to take over temporarily from Dr Williams while he was in England attending a conference of Commonwealth Universities, and I am happy to respond to the request for some account of the work of Vice-Chancellor
University administration on the British pattern, as we have it in New Zealand is based on ingenious and delicate devices designed to get the best of both worlds by combined leadership and direction from above with academic democracy. The Vice-Chancellor is the keystone of the structure.
The policies of the University are determined by the Council, which consists predominantly of laymen. That is not to say that they are in no sense academics: on the contrary, all or most of them are university graduates and highly skilled in various professional fields. It merely means that they are not currently engaged in university teaching. The Council not only controls the business and financial aspects of the University (matters of great magnitude, and rapidly increasing in scale) but also settles academic issues. On the latter questions it must always consult the Professorial Board and obtain its advice before making a decision.
The Professorial Board, however, is itself only one part of the academic structure. Questions about degree courses, new subjects, pre-requisites, scholarships and the like commonly arise in the first place within some teaching Department or in the proceedings of a meeting of a Faculty, and recommendations proceed upward through the Professorial Board to the Council. Should they come from elsewhere, e.g. from the Students' Association or the Society of Accountants or the Universities Entrance Board—democratic procedures are used to ensure that the teaching staff (at all levels) have the opportunity to comment and offer advice. As the President of a Canadian University has said, the important decisions are "not made at the top and then passed down through a series of carefully spaced positions on the administrative scale; they are formulated as the result of widespread and intensive discussion and they can only be effective if they represent a consensus of the academic community."
The chief preoccupation of a Vice-Chancellor is to see that the machinery for academic discussion is adequate and effective and at the same time to give that persuasive leadership which clarifies the goals to be sought and the best means to achieve them. Ideally he must he a man of great intellectual power, imaginative and farseeing; yet a man of immense practical good sense, and one who can deal with an incredible mass of unrelated details while preserving the ability to see clearly the major issues, to discern patterns of change, to respond sensitively to new needs.
Thus the Vice-Chancellor Is, in the first place, the principal adviser of Council, and for this purpose he must have at his fingertips information on every conceivable aspect of University affairs—not only the immediate acadamic problems but the whole range of subjects from long-term planning of the building programme to the least important details of internal administration, from staff superannuation schemes to the lighting of playing fields, from student health and counselling services to visits of distinguished scholars from overseas. The Vice-Chancellor is the voice for all members of the administrative staff and the channel through which their recommendations reach the Council. Equally the Vice-Chancellor as Academic Head of the University is the person through whom the Professorial Board and academic staff tender advice to Council.
While membership of the Professorial Board (of which he is Chairman) and of Council are probably his major responsibilities, he is also a member of a host of committees of all kinds. Without attempting to compile a complete list I may mention (1) the Vice-Chancellor's Committee (consisting of the Academic Hoads of all university institutions in New Zealand); (2) the Curriculum Committee; (3) the Scholarships Committee of the University Grants Committee; (4) the Committee of Vice Chancellor and Deans (the principal committee of the Professorial Board); (5) the Student Union Management Committee; (6) the Weir House Council; (7) the V.U.W. Appointments Board.
Of more indirect concern to students, but of great importance to the University, is the Vice-Chancellor's responsibility for the welfare of the staff. Some hundreds of persons are now in the employment of the University, and each of them has from time to time some personal problem which demands the attention of the Vice-Chancellorr.
It is not surprising if a Vice-Chancellor while wishing to mingle with staff and students and to promote good public relations, finds himself tied to his desk. It is not surprising if the incessant succession of meetings and the piles of paper work tend to obscure his vision of those broader issues which should be his main concern. We are fortunate that in Dr. Williams we have a Vice-Chancellor who has been so successful in advancing the interests of Victoria in every sphere while dscharging his multifarious minor duties.
Everyone knows that the success of a stage play owes much to the services of unseen workers, and especially the producer. The wellbeing of university students is to a very great extent dependent on the unseen efforts of the Vice-Chancellor.
It seemed at the beginning of term that there would be no Extravaganza this year. However, on Friday, March 13, the deadline set by the Executive for a script, producer and business manager, a script written by David Flude was handed in. Jeremy Agar agreed to produce the show and a complete Production Staff offered their services.
The script is somewhat of a breakaway from the old traditional Extrav's, which dealt mainly with New Zealand politics, Holysmoke and all that gang are kept fairly well out of the picture. Woven into a tight plot there are comments on the world, the Profumo affair, the British election, the oil companies, television, the arms race, the Beatles, the world heavyweight boxing title holder—Mr. X—and the efficiency of the New Zealand Police. In fact, it promises to be one of the brightest shows in years.
The producer, Jeremy Agar, is spending his first year at Victoria. He is doing Political Science honours. In Christchurch, his home town, he gained considerable experience in the Capping Review' there. He has also written and produced his own play.
The show will be produced in the Little Theatre, with a budget of around about £600. This means that although the show will not have the money-making potential that a larger show produced for the Opera House would have, by the same token it will not have the money-losing potential which last year's show exhibited—to the disgust of many students. It should be possible for the show to make a small but comfortable profit. Those organising feel sure that this will be the case.
By the time that this goes to print the cast will have been called for and production will be underway. If enthusiastic talented people come forward there is every reason to believe that this year's show will be successful.
Well, well, well; what a party. We surveyed the mess next morning through bloodshot eyes and slowly with elephantine tread started clearing up. It was not until the afternoon though that we noticed the things missing; a pop-up toaster, a Ronson lighter, a gold plated cigarette case and to cap it all someone had flogged two dozen eggs and our Sunday joint from the fridge.
It was, I am afraid, the last open party we shall be having; we certainly have no desire to play Santa Claus to pricks who do that sort of thing to you. It was a shame because the party was mighty, even though some jokers who seemed uncertain whether they were Arthur or Martha turned up uninvited and put on a show which nauseated everyone except themselves. So much for the party and its concomitant disillusionment; put it down to experience.
A gentleman well noted for prowess in certain fields is at present working on a book entitled "How to win at Vatican roulette." He seems to have succeeded so far at any rate so he may have something. One never knows with these things. Ran into Sandy Chadwick the other day at a party (in fact, I think it was ours). Seems she is working for the N.Z.B.C. making scenery for radio plays.
Went to the Weir House AGM last night and was quite suprised; Tony Haas suggested that the place be thrown open to the public during the university festival to show those old ladies that there are not any naked women in the showers, Tony seems ever doomed to the championing of forlorn causes. Of course, inevitably, there was a raid by an unknown girls' hostel which came unstuck, as all raids by girls' hostels seem to come unstuck; I think they get a greater kick out of getting caught than they do from raiding.
You know I get the feeling, whenever I go into the cafe these days that I don't belong; compared with last year I hardly see the place. Just a huge crowd of people in beatle haircuts, great rows of Kafka like faces solving name a horse competitions and copying Maths I assignments.
Some Vic A girls called in on us on Sunday night and what a wild mob they were. They played cricket in our living room with a gay indifference to the furniture and windows and one lass who had flaked the night before was roaring around clouting people with a broom handle. Another put on her usual and inevitable show for everyone which includes among other things a hair raising dance which I hear has at last been imitated at Vic A.
Rumour has it that the Wairarapa Times Age is planning a take over bid for the Daily Mirror; British troops are being recalled from Cyprus and the women and donkeys of Aden are being mobilised to meet this latest threat to Britain's sovereignly. "I served tea for the officers in the Boer war" (Signed) by "British and proud of it" appear in the Dominion, and the league of Empire loyalists seals off the Rimutaka tunnel while Wellington is overrun by a swarm of O.B.E.'s.
George Ellis informs me he is off back to the Cook Islands one of these days to be Minister of Railways and snow control. Says he is fed up with the trains running late and that the ski champs this year were a total washout; the last time I saw George he was trudging along the heights of Mornington, muttering softly to himself.
Just what do people on Exec think they are doing? Someone wanted to give £12 of our money to that blasted Poetry Year Book which as far as I'm concerned can go and get ... I quite like poetry, but quite frankly I have seen much stuff on the interior of the Taj Mahal, and you must admit that the latter is written with earnest sincerity if not correct spellings. Talking of the Taj, I must say how pleased I was to it granted a reprieve. A lot of people have given of their best to the Taj and I don't think it should he done away with lightly. It should he made a memorial to the avante garde of the avant garde.
The other day, I met a girl who said she knew me; this in itself was not strange even though she came from Waipawa which she cannot help. The trouble was she left without telling us who she was and to this day I don't know; I lay awake at night going over all the girls from Waipawa that I have known in my 21 years of life but I still cannot place her. I am rather poor at both faces and names I'm afraid.
A Government answer to its claims that the State should provide finance for halls of residence at Ilam is wanted urgently by the University of Canterbury, reports the February 2 issue of The Press (Christchurch).
Already with the roll near 3.800, the demand for hostel accommodation far exceeds that available round the city site.
So far the State is only providing subsidies, and the Vice Chancellor, Dr L. Pownall, is grateful for the use churches are making of them. They are providing 350 new beds in three hostels, which, however, is not enough.
In the United Kingdom, many American states and many European countries, halls of residence were provided by the state.
At the Town Hall, Wellington, March 18. Condon (gt. and leader). Buck Clayton (tpt). Pee Wee Russell (clt), Vic Dickenson (trom). Bud Freeman (ten), Dick Cary (p and mellophone), Jack Lesberg (b). Cliff Leeman (d).
An American I met during the holidays who had lived, worked played with and at odd times supported sundry Chicago jazzmen in the
As a novice critic, I still haven't worked up the gall required to contradict someone who has actually blown with such mammoth folk-heroes as Beiderbecke, Russell and Freeman—I still remember Condon's appraisal of Panassie ("We don't go over there and tell them how to jump on a grape, do we?")—but this man's view is typical of the reactionary independence of the Chicago men.
They have their own legends and their own credos apparently untarnished by the wholesale removal of Condon's court to New York many years ago. And Condon's Town Hall meeting shows that the music as played by the best of them—Russell Freeman etc, al.—has through its frank and joyous simplicity an easily understood warmth and penetration that quickly reaches its audience.
An example at the Town Hall was Vic Dickenson's wonderfully witty pastiche of sly growls and slurs embellishing his choruses of Basin Street Blues: the audience's polite if generous applause for previous numbers turned into a stamping, cheering tumult—a quite heartwarming and genuine tribute to a trombonist of whom we hear far too little. As Condon said at the end of the concert, the audience's reaction was appreciated because it was not exhibitionism.
Altogether the evening was an emotional experience for someone who has come to love these men through their recordings. For me the high spot was Russell's Mariooch—a blues he wrote for his wife. This shy, homely man with his kindly bloodhound face and long sensitive hands caressed and held each note as if it would break.
That phrase has been used before to describe Russell, but it is apt for this solo, full of humour and warmth, his inimitable mixture of spit and breath in the chalumeau and the queer, gawky mixtures of chimes and walls. Why he has been classified in the past as a funny-hat Dixielander one can only guess. Pee Wee is this age's greatest clarinetist and a unique poet.
The dapper tenor of Bud Freeman was like a voice out of the past—a Ben Webster in embryo. Like Webster and the Hawk. Freeman's phrasing is charged and punctuated with a vibrato that underscores an intense rhythm. As the evening wore on Freeman's style loosened up and on his last solo—for Royal Garden Blues—he seemed to be striding into swing; it was like watching a history of the tenor.
Together with Freeman the straightforward trumpet of Buck Clayton provided the basis of the riffs and the drive for the ensembles, Clayton's clear tone and immaculate phrasing never strayed far from the material—in vivid contrast to Russell's wryer solos, which skirted around the key for several bars before sliding on to it at the end of a long wail—but his take-outs, particularly on St. Louis Blues, were a soaring joy, a trademark of this sort of jazz.
Dick Cary provided some well-mannered, if hardly energetic piano and was entertaining on the mellophone, Cliff Leeman is an expensive, Krupa-style drummer without as much use of bass and tom-tom—making him sound fiat and pinched behind a group with so much honest swing. He provided one spot of humour with a loud bomb to encourage Bud Freeman into a new chorus. Jack Lesberg's suave manner was seen mainly in the background.
Condon spent a good deal of his time wandering around the stage keeping up a running commentary of quips, insults and exhortations, but when actually heard to play, his guitar appeared a useful melodic anchor and prod for the soloists.
James Rushing, Esquire, looking like an amiable midget blimp, wound his well-oiled voice around three tired standards, and a nostalgic blues medley, but without undue enthusiasm.
Comparisons with Armstrong are inevitable. From Condon the Town Hall had two well-rounded hours of good, sometimes top-notch, jazz, covering about 25 numbers. Armstrong's circus seasoned a mighty thin soup of antics and clowning with about three choruses of honest soloing.
Extract from Student Association Newsheet March 19:
Wanted to buy: One old aquarium or glass tank suitable for a white mouse. Contact Mrs. Bunt, Studass Office.
Mrs. Bunt, presumably, aims to teach her white mouse to swim. If this is so, we would like to wish her luck in this most difficult and exacting job, for not everyone has the initiative and spirit of endeavour to persevere with such a task.
Salient's science reporter says that Mrs. Bunt's activities will be of immense benefit to the scientific world, and could provide valuable information on animal behaviour. He draws attention, however, to the Harvard Law of Animal Behaviour, which states:
"Under carefully controlled conditions, organisms behave as they damn well please."
This may be so, in which case Mrs. Bunt's mouse could well sink.
A trio consisting of Sybil Westland (actress), Desmond Lock (actor), and Ronald Barker (narrator) gave a performance of "William Shakespeare, Portrait of a Man" in the Memorial Theatre recently. Despite the fact that it is the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's birth this is the only profession company to be touring New Zealand in 1964 celebrating the event. On this ground alone they must receive credit in bringing to the public the seldom heard, but much read words of England's greatest poet.
The show consisted of excerpts from Shakespeare's sonnets, his longer poems "Venus and Adonis" and the "Rape of Lucrece", as well as most of his better known plays. The programme was well devised and showed Shakespeare up in an interesting light.
Very rarely did the players rise above mere recitation though in itself the recitation was generally excellent. Both players had good voices and on most occasions used them well. They acted on a few occasions only. Desmond Lock performed well in any excerpt from "The Two Gentlemen of Verona", and better still as Falstaff in "King Henry IV part one". He tended to speak too fast and ruined, in doing so, the speech from "King Richard III" . . . "Now is the winter of our discontent . . . . " Of the three, his stage presence was the most convincing.
Sybil Westland did not fare so well. She exaggerated her parts and only in roles such as Mistress Quickly from "King Henry IV part two" and as Kate in "The Taming of the Shrew" did this exaggeration succeed. Ronald Barker's narration was, at the least, annoying, though the words of the narration were helpful in giving "The Portrait".
One felt he was intruding upon a natural sequence, and he gave the appearance of leering over every word he spoke. The performance improved in the second part of the programme, but this type of show has to have a Geilgud for it to have continuity of meaning and not appear as a series of unlinked sketches.
The brilliant handling of Baron Cefalu's marital difficulties and his unusual method of resolving them is not in question, but the underlying morality of Divorzio All'Italiana is.
Don't get me wrong; I am not against comedie noire or even the presentation of anti social or amoral themes in an approving way, but the interest developed in watching Pietro Germi's film brings with it an accompanying revulsion. After all, here is a not particularly bright member of the decayed Sicilian aristocracy, married a dozen years or so to an adoring (if cloying and smothering) wife, who develops a passion for his young cousin and plots to remove the obstacle to his gratification.
Italian law does not contain provision for divorce; the only way of removing the unwanted spouse is to utilise the Court's demonstrated leniency toward the wronged spouse avenging his honour—especially if he stays the guilty partner in flagrante delicto, under strong provocation.
Thus I take Germi's aim to be that of demonstrating the anomaly in a legal system which sets the value of life below divorce in its justification of homicide in the cause of honour (leaving aside the question of whether it really does or not). He has, however, obscured the issue in the particular way he has treated it—any intended social criticism becoming lost in the concentration on the Baron's machinations.
The Baron is unscrupulous in his intention to possess his Angela; there is no hint of Justification in his actions other than infatuation for his cousin and boredom with his wife—he wants something and he is determined to have it.
If this schemer had been treated with a certain amount of charm and a lighter touch (e.g. like the hero of Kind Hearts and Coronets) he would have been more acceptable, though probably no more justified, but I was repelled by his slovenliness calculation and misapplied ingenuity in arranging his manipulations (In a way a back handed compliment to Mastroianni's authoritative performance).
The difficulty of sympathising with him as a person accounts for the inability to become really interested in the issues involved. This detachment means that it is easier to laugh at the way his plans either work precariously or go astray, and at his frantic attempts to regulate their course than to question them
The high level of technical accomplishment (there is an excellent musical sound track as well as above average photography) means that the film is most successful when judged as an exercise in directorial expertise.
If you are interested in writing informed articles on any particular subject, ring 70-319/81 or call at the editorial room.
During the last fortnight in Wellington there have been three very interesting Exhibitions of paintings. Two by female artists were showing at the Centre Gallery and were not unfortunately, very well publicised. The third, at Kirk-caldie & Stains Exhibition Room received a lot of publicity and acclaim which it did not deserve.
The worst first, Cornel M. Von Berwald is showing an Exhibition of paintings which altogether constitute a glorious fruit-salad in sunset shades. The number of paintings, 39, does not improve viewing because the room is far too small, particularly for both portraits and Reubens (copies), and consequently the ultimate impression is one of chaos.
The subject matter includes New Zealand landscapes which are very attractively done in clear pastel colours, Lake Gunn, Mitre Peak and Mt. Cook being excellent examples, and undoubtedly the best of the collection. There are several rural scenes by the Danube and in the Black Forest area but these are for the most part very uninspiring. The portraits too lack a distinctive style, but worst of all are the Reubens copies (which the artist had gained special permission to paint).
Reubens' cherubs were voluptuous but their creamy skins some-how modified the impact of them. Von Berwald's cherubs are a hot pink Shade and look thoroughly uncomfortable.
Despite such harsh criticism, the display Is worth seeing.
At the Centre Gallery Louise Henderson and Fiances D. Ellis have shown exhibitions of abstract and semi-abstract work. Louise Henderson is a Parisian-born artist well-known among other things for her work in Australian and New Zealand art schools.
She has very limited range of subject matter but a particularly interesting form of interpretation. Her paintings are abstract and her subjects are aspects of Nature: Moon. Garden. Plant Form and Composition of Oil on Paper, each one sub-numbered.
The design is geometric, the texture of the paint is thick, the colours natural, that is, ochre, black, white, brown, with an occasional yellow, blue, and green mood.
The compositions are in red and blue exclusively and the oil on paper medium is not nearly so effective as the usual canvas.
There are both perpendicular and horizontal panels which create a feeling of movement in nature and would be Well suited to a modern decor.
Frances D. Ellis's Exhibition (still showing incidentally) includes oils, water-colours and lithographs.
Her semi-abstract oils of Italian scenes are really wonderful. She uses only shades of blue and green and the overall effect is one of cool depth and shade.
"Bridge Over Tiber," "Perugia," "San Spirito," and "Umbrian Hills" are all outstanding.
The water-colours, by comparison, are drab "poor-relations," still of the Italian scene but lacking any warmth and depth.
The several lithographs of the Ponte Vecchio are worth comparing for stages of development. There is one very interesting group in lithograph, unfortunately not listed in the catalogue, composed of green and pink shades, unusual and effective.
Frequent trips to the Centre Gallery are interesting and rewarding as Exhibitions are changed regularly and there is always something new and unusual to see.
Berlioz. Harold in Italy. Menuhin / Philharmonia Orchestra / Colin Davis (H.M.V.), MALP
To those enthusiasts for whom any new Berlioz record is a "buy" and for those persons who want the best introduction to the best of this composer, this new Harold in Italy is unreservedly recommended. A brilliant performance by Colin Davis and the Philharmonia, taut, fiery—a real wide screen production. Yehudi Menuhin too, excels in the viola obbligato; the sonority of his bowing and clean line of intonation is excellent. Recording (stereo yet to be released here) is on a par with the performance.
Lynn Gold. Songs and Ballads. (Warner) WB
Let's face it. This is not much chop. Recorded at a ridiculous level (notice in the number "Hound Dog," how the surface noise balances that coming out of the speaker) the voice seems fairly to transcend the confines of the list-enable audio spectrum. This, I understand, is known as distortion (due to a faulty cutting head?). Play this record well lubricated with plenty of treble cut. Mind you, these remarks hardly apply to those persons equipped with the "mechanical-shovel" type pick-up.
Beethoven. Quartets Nos. 3 in D, 6 in B flat. Drole Quartet. (Columbia 33mcx
A few years back there wasn't one satisfactory performance to be had of a Beethoven string quartet. Now the story is a little different. World Record Club have been plugging their (adequate) series (Hungarian Quartet) for some years and there is on the I open market a plethora of other performances. The Drolc Quartet tops the lot on this disc. The balance is most agreeable, with the first violin not actually leading the others in the spot-light manner I to which we are accustomed. Phrasing is incisive, intonation ditto and the tempo throughout both pieces, consistent and sensible. It is all so, shall we say, molto espressivo?
The Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO) will send 350 British graduates to developing countries this summer. About 80 per cent of the volunteers will do teaching work. The bulk of the costs for each graduate will be borne by the British Government. Board and lodging, and £3 a week pocket money will be provided by the governments of the countries to which they have been invited.
The most controversial topic affecting the University at present is the proposed use of Nabokov's "Lolita" as a study text in on English degree course at the Australian National University.
A lecturer in the English department, Dr. Brissenden, introduced the book as part of a study of modern American literature after the minister for customs, Senator Henty announced a new policy for books, normally banned.
Such books would be considered for import if there was a case for their use for professional or educational use.
The English Department has applied for permission to import thirty copies of "Lolita" for the use of students.
In order to prevent damage to unprepared minds, or to those likely to be perverted in the reading, the books will be available only to those students in the course, and must be studied in the Library or taken into the lecture room if required. Copies will not be allowed out of the University for parents to slobber over.
The forces of ignorance have not taken this lightly. Those guardians of public virtue, the writers of letters to the editors, have taken quill in hand and vented their fury against the government, the English department, and worst of all the University system.
References have been made to "pressure groups trying to undermine our society": "a minority that seeks to vulgarise our society"; "the thin edge of the wedge that Is splitting our already crumbling social morals system", and especially bad, to the danger of allowing Universities such a degree of independence.
There is in fact a definite anti-intellectual feeling in much of this As the Professor of English here said, though, the greatest muss of criticism is coming from people who have not read the book, and whose basis for the stand they are taking is shaky to say the least.
References to the book as "just sordid study of sex" appear to be based on hearsay rather than experience: a tribute to the effectiveness of censorship here, if not to the intelligence of the writers.
Whether the minister will allow himself to be swayed by the mass of ill-judged, ill-informed, over-emotional criticism of the proposed admission of the book, or whether we will see a stand for academic freedom is still to be decided.
There is actually a precedent for the admission of such books, set by Sydney University some years ago when they made the then banned book "Ulysses" the subject of a prize essay.
It would be very interesting to see if New Zealand Universities follow this example. An early attempt to establish a liberal attitude of the Tribunal to academic requirements in the same vein would be a valuable step.
Or perhaps New Zealanders are still too young, or too old, to accept progress.
As a sidelight on the "Lolita" fuss, a writer to the Canberra Times advanced as proof of the I benefits of censorship the fact that under the severe censorship imposed in Ireland, illegitimacy is lower than in any comparable state.
He got his answer in the next issue. A Dutchman pointed out that the number of storks in Holland had declined at the same rate as the birthrate. The obvious conclusion is that there is more in the stork business than meets the eye.
The Search for A Country: G. W. von Zedlitz. Pauls Book Arcade, 166 pages, 18/6. Reviewed by A. R. Haas.
The hounding of a man from his rightful post by men of responsibility cannot but evoke sympathy for that person, and disgust with his persecutors.
Such was the position of G. W. von Zedlitz, former Professor of Modem Languages at Victoria University.
Professor von Zedlitz was German bom. He was a man with an unhappy childhood. But one of the joys of his life was the VUW Chair of Modern Languages. This was terminated by the first world war when he was hounded by war hysteria clamour from his chair. Much to its credit the University Council did not waver in the face of cries for his resignation, but the pressure of political expediency made the New Zealand House of Representatives bring down a special act for his removal.
Part of the life story of this man is contained in an autobiography recently released by Pauls Book Arcade. In diary form, and written for the Professor's children the book contains a rambling account of his early days in Europe. The society portrayed is one where strict child upbringing prevailed. It describes customs of the time which, today seem quaint and unrealistic.
The diary is prefaced by a biographical sketch by his son-in-law David Hall. In it, a little of the Professor's idea of how a university should function is expounded. In a brief manifesto criticising the complexity of the government of the University of New Zealand, von Zedlitz is quoted as having written: "The syllabus suggests that the main function of a university is to train students to obtain degrees. We maintain that the actual training in methods of independent thought is even more important."
Perhaps the most disappointing point about the biographical material is the paucity of comment by Professor von Zedlitz on his treatment by our misguided House of Representatives. But on the other hand, maybe it was in this man's nature just to avoid such comments.
Only a few immigrants to Australia wanted to return home.
I talked to as many as I could, and found an average cross-section of labourers—masons, lino layers, builders, typists, motor mechanics, with an occasional University educated person. All these have been brought to Australia on a modern Wakefield Scheme for £10 each, with the rest being' paid by the Commonwealth (Government. One said that he found the cost of living higher in Australia than back in England. "I've just given up cleaning' my shoes," he said, "no sooner arc they clean than they arc covered with dust again."
At a civic reception held in Adelaide, I asked one of the; councillors, "Is it really worthwhile to you to spend about £800 to bring, scry, a motor mechanic and his family to Australia; by air?"
He replied, "It's not the motor mechanic that we are; interested in, it's his children," and indeed Australia wants to build up its population at whatever price, to avoid having to give living space to those who need it in South East Asia. This is fundamentally an extremely selfish attitude, but you could never persuade the Government—any Government, to change its policy. This policy has been carried too far too; fast, according to several people in both Adelaide and Melbourne, and communities of each nationality have formed that will not break up. It is obvious throughout the city to: any outsider, for newspapers in foreign languages abound, and the Zoo (pretty mediocre for a population approaching a million) has "don't touch the animals" notices, in three languages.
The City itself is like a moon base. If we imagine the standard science Action plastic bubble on the moon with trees planted in it we would always be conscious of the hostile environment outside because of the harsh lighting. Thus in Adelaide, which has more trees in the streets than any other city I remember, I was always aware of the arid country around from the heat, and the vast expanse of sky visible.
Adelaide is a beautiful city, but is rather like a carefully maintained oasis. There are about 20 wooden houses in the entire city; all the rest are brick. As a result, everything still looks fairly new and there are some well designed churches. A certain Colonel Light planned the city when it was founded, and made the central civic area exactly a square mile with an extensive parkland belt on all sides.
The University is in the middle of this belt. Both it and the city have run into space trouble and are now shifting outside the park belt, while a second University is being built further out. The Torrens River runs through the city sometimes, not because it is very dry, but because it has been dammed to form a really attractive lake many miles long, and is occasionally released, solely to sweep its own silt away. This lake is an example of what can be done when a city council is go-ahead, for Adelaide is short of water; it is piped from the Murray river, got from artesian bores and some six reservoirs.
The final result tastes dreadful, but then' is sufficient of it for sprinklers to by going all the time. There is something wrong when the Hutt cannot duplicate this, and has to forbid sprinkler use.
In contrast to the surrounding countryside which is so dry, the parks are lush. The Adelaide Oval, where the Pipe Band Contest was held, is always in good condition.
The Adelaide University Band performed without any great distinction. This is perhaps due to the lack of the large amount of time necessary to bring a band to perfection. The Band itself, has most of its gear supplied by the Commonwealth Military Force; in Australia each university has Its own cadet group. Each member is paid, but some of each vacation must be spent in Camp. Apparently most students prefer to stay out of this scheme, in spite of the remuneration.
The annual Student Union fee is about £10A. The bursary system is not as comprehensive as ours, and relatively only a handful of what would be their equivalent of our Fees and Allowance bursaries, are awarded each year. Student teachers get about what ours do.
The University is far more varied in age groups than Victoria, and far more varied in the subjects. Virtually anything can be taken except Veterinary studies. The smallest department as far as space goes, is the Arts Department, which will be partially transferred to the outskirts of the city in a few years. The most modern building I was shown over was the R. A. Fisher Laboratories.
These house the two chairs of Zoology and Genetics, and have two minor, but rather cute ideas. The lino on each floor is inlaid with something illustrating that particular floor's speciality. Thus on one of the Genetic floors you may see a few inlays of a recognisable RNA molecule. The other feature is large vertical Venetian Blinds, which are operated from a single handle and of course do not collect dust.
The Student Union, or someone in authority, has actually opened a barber's shop at the University which is an idea that might well be copied here. That barber has a male population of about 5,000, and should do all right; the next nearest barber is nearly as far away as he is from here, for like the rest of Adelaide, the University seems to be set in a grove of trees, separated from elsewhere by a park. Its trees put the few measly shrubs we have here to shame. Here any garden we have is grubbed out of the rather poor gorse and native bush; in Adelaide they have deliberately planted exactly what they want, and the result is better.
Past the parklands and the near-by Torrens Lake, lie a number of student hostels—a students' quarter. These are run mainly by Church groups, and charge about £A5 a week. There appears to be enough accommodation, or at least there is no fuss about lack of it.
There is a student newspaper, and the general attitude to it is remarkably similar to the attitude here to "Salient".
A final factor I did not mention, is the space available. Organic and Inorganic chemistry for example, have a building of three or four storeys each, and this idea of space seems to have influenced factories too. The General Motors Holden factory al Elizabeth, near Adelaide, sits in 360 acres of ground. In I sumptuous, light, and colourful works, cars are rather hastily thrown together (reaching 250 a day in about two years time). Here also we find drive-in cinemas drive-in chemist's shops, self service petrol stations, and, of course the Inevitable drive-in bottle store. A Dutchman whom I talked to at the hostel said he thought New Zealand to be a close parallel to England, and Australia a parallel to the U.S.A.. He may be partly right.
The only thing I can guarantee is that if you go to Adelaide you should enjoy it, and more so if you go with a team or band of some kind.
We wish to apologise for the photograph captioned "Nordy and friends at Vietnamese Christmas Celebrations", which appeared last issue.
We realise that Vietnam is a primarily Buddhist country, and it has been pointed out that the celebrations were for the New Year.
We hope that no one described as a friend of Mr. Nordmeyer will be upset.
The old and the new in Singapore where building programmes are attempting to sweep away ramshackle dwellings.
Bill Faulkner, N.Z. delegate to a recent Asian Region Seminar approves of community development schemes dealing with illiteracy, public health and social services in areas such as Singapore, India and Hong Kong.
He thinks we should send students to help and not just for ambassadorial holidays.
There was no point in sending students on study tours to Asian countries, said Bill Faulkner to International Affairs sub-committee.
Reporting on his recent trip to the Asian region seminar at Kuala Lumpur. Faulkner said we should avoid sending students on "holidays" to Asia. They made a few friends but had little real impact.
Faulkner said he had supported ideas for community development schemes. Such schemes, dealing with illiteracy, public health, social services and agricultural extension work, were already operating in India, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong. He would like to see New Zealand send students over to help with these schemes.
"Asians would see New Zealanders as they really are—willing to work," he said.
Other delegates had little knowledge of New Zealand or New Zealanders when the seminar began. He and Peter Rankin the other N.Z.U.S.A. delegate told the seminar that they were not well informed on Asian problems. Some of the Australian delegates raised their eyebrows at this, but it paid off better than the Australian policy of telling other delegates how they should run their development schemes and the "This is how we do it" altitude.
The New Zealand delegation arrived as an unknown quantity but had done a lot to increase New Zealand prestige at the seminar.
Faulkner was unanimously elected to the drafting committee of the seminar.
He suggested that the subcommittee could investigate the Iranian delegation's claim that the Israelites were occupying land to which they had no rightful claim. Another point of interest was that India, the largest democracy in Asia wanted a larger vote than other delegations at the seminar. Faulkner said precedents for this had been established by the United States and Indonesia al other types of conferences.
The New Zealand delegation told the seminar that New Zealand's future was tied economically with Asia. Faulkner said that New Zealanders should start considering themselves as Asians.
"The industrial development of Australia and the agricultural development of New Zealand are very important to Asia but the approach must come from us. They won't make the move.
"It would be a two-way thing. If New Zealand decided to do community work in New Zealand or the Pacific Islands or sponsor work camps in Asian countries, as Australia had done, it could all on other countries to help.
"It would not be a holiday but would be something definite and constructive," he said.
One of the staggering features of the seminar was the lack of knowledge of many delegates about the needs of their own countries. They were dressed like smart young executives with a better standard of living than the New Zealand student. They were the elite—completely detached from the problems of the masses. They were able to talk economic schemes with the best but, with some notable exceptions, were not prepared to go out and work amongst the common people.
Faulkner felt some effort should be made to reduce the gap between the elite and the masses.
Einstein's general theory of relativity is still open to dispute.
This is in marked contrast to the more restricted theory of special relativity which is now a completely integrated part of physics, with laboratory applications. A satellite experiment which it is expected will give more evidence either for or against the general theory is being designed by physicists from Stanford University.
The general theory of relativity states that the laws of physics have the same essential form for all observers, regardless of whether they are in accelerating laboratories or not. It arises because there does not seem to be any experiment a person could do in an accelerating lift which could tell him whether he was accelerating, or whether he was simply in a new gravitational field.
It is possible to think of gravity, considered Einstein, as due to a distortion of space-time produced by large bodies such as planets. The results of this distortion are the predicted bending of light rays when they pass large bodies and the very slow precession of Mercury's orbit round the sun.
A gravitational Held, according to Newtonian theory, only exerts a pull on matter, but Einstein's theory asserts the field should also exert an additional force on the momentum of a body. In other words, gravity will have different effects on moving and stationary bodies.
On the basic of the letter fact, it is proposed to lautch a satellite containing a frictionless precision syroscope, into an orbit ground the Earth. The gyro will become weightless in orbit and ran there-fore be freely suspended. It will be placed in a vacuum to avoid air drag and will spin eternally.
It will use servo-jets to adjust its own path through space to follow that of the unsuspended gyro inside, whose orbit will be slightly different from the natural orbit of the satellite. The scientists will then make precise measurements of the very slow precession of the gyro's spin that should result from the earth's gravitational pull.
It is fair to predict that the Universities here will get a public roasting over male strip tease incidents at Sydney University Orientation.
The incidents have an air of "Moon's" down trous at various tournament balls in the past. These boys, however, really get down to it.
The first report came on Saturday, when irate parents complained that their daughters had been entertained by a male stripper at an orientation meeting.
There had been a brains trust meeting scheduled for noon. This apparently was slow in starting and there was a degree of unrest in the audience.
From Mel Dickson, at the Australian National University, Canberra. Courtesy Critic, Otago.
Some public spirited youth, in order to entertain and quiet the unruly hall, leaped on the stage and started to strip. With proper modesty, he started to dress again once he got down to underpants, but insatiable troublemakers in the audience challenged him to make a job of It.
The public got what they asked for. According to a reliable source (the Vice Chancellor) a candid photo of proceedings at this stage shows the entertainer fully clothed from the knees down.
Young women who tried to leave found they could not for the crush. It is not recorded what the young women who did not wish to leave did.
The Vice Chancellor has gone on record as saying that "I think it is grossly unfair that young girls should come here and in the first week see an exposed male on the stage. It is a shocking affair."
With true sense of proportion, the President of the Students' Association took the view that "too much has been made of this. It has been blown up into an enormity. It is just another example of the community's endeavour to jump on University students."
Whatever the outcome, in Sydney men are men and the women know it.
An extra bright fresher at one Terrace girls' hostel successfully sabotaged a recent telephone hoax. She recognised the voice of a member of a neighbouring boys hostel and quickly called his bluff when he pretended to be a "greengrocer."
Confusion reigned when at lunchtime the same day the hostel greengrocer arrived with her order.
In this Salient Service Guide we hope we have provided a full list of the goods and services you will be needing this year If not, the Advertising Manager welcomes suggestions for services not already mentioned here. First-year students, especially, should find this guide useful.
By shopping with the firms which advertise in Salient you will be returning some of the goodwill they have shown to students.
A noise like machine guns greeted Salient on the basement floor of the Administration block of VUW. This deafening noise came from the room where every student is reduced to little punched holes on pieces of cardboard.
This noise was the verifying system of the punch card tabulator belonging to the University. It is in charge of the Statistics Registrar, Mr. D. B. Leadbetter, M.Sc., who was interviewed by Salient recently.
He informed Salient that the idea of having a punch card tabulator had been mooted for some time. It was ordered during
When Mr. Leadbetter was asked if the computer would be able to cope with any number of students, he replied that although its capacity was large it was not unlimited since it had many different functions.
Its main advantage was that it saved much time in checking and was more accurate than a manual system. It saves much time; it can print out class lists for al! subjects at Varsity in 100 minutes (working at the rale of 100 names per minute) as compared with two or three weeks needed previously.
On being asked how much it cost, Mr. Leadbetter told Salient that only half of it was owned by the University while the other half was rented from the firm concerned at a very advantageous discount. This was the only way it could be an economic proposition.
Briefly, it works thus: the card is punched, verified, sorted and stored until needed. When the cards are needed, they are put in to the printing out machine which is controlled by a programme unit. This unit or board is wired differently for different uses and this may take up to three weeks. It is joined to the machine when wired up. Then by pushing buttons and pulling levers the machine prints out the different pieces of information as directed by the programme board.
Mr. Leadbetter explained that it was not a true computer because it was on a fixed programme and has not got a memory unit.
The computer has made mistakes. A mistake that was made two years ago was that in exam code slips for accounting students. Flat No. 125A Colombo St. Christchurch was printed out as
It was rumoured that last year an honours student was granted both Stage III and Honours in the same year for the same subject. This was probably not true since the printed out pass list is checked against the number of passes the department concerned has allowed for that unit.
The tabulator at present does class lists, term lists, examination code slips, exam supervisors' lists, mark slip, mark sheets for the different departments, genera' statistics for the Department of Education. VUW's own statistics, and class lists for the different timetables. The machine is also used for familarising Accounting II students with these sort of machines and for demonstrations in Statistical Maths II. University departments use it for research: sampling, etc.
Each student has a card for every subject, a statistics card, and a progress card. By referring to previous years' progress cards it is possible to pick out students who have not passed two units in two years.
The machine can also hit where it hurts most—in the pocket. All those students who have been under-paying their fees or paying incorrect fees can be spotted immediately using the tabulator properly. For instance, in some law subjects there is confusion over whether 12 guineas or 15 guineas is to be paid. When the fee lists are printed out any incorrect payments stick out like sore toes. Similarly in Education II the £1/1/- Material Fee is often missed at enrolment and can be easily picked out.
Every year about now certain insiduous and often deciduous gentlemen of this automated factory of learning, tear their hair in the pursuit of sundry delicious morsels for that renowned institution Cappicade.
So that you may help the Editors in their pursuit of baldness either join the staff or send lots of seditious copy.
For the benefit of the uneducated Cappicade is the annual Capping production (in printed form we hope.)
Weir House inmates have long pleaded for renovations.
Last year, for the first time since
The first and second floors and the basement, however, are still in their pristine state, apart from renovations carried out by students. Foremost among these are common room, several years old now, and the games room just completed.
This was built with the aid of a loan from the University to the Weir House Association. It houses a Table Tennis and Billiards table. It is planned to do the other floors next long vacation.
The grounds, which lay untouched all of last year, are now being cleaned up. The gardeners moved in just before finals last year.
Rumours have come to our notice that the Dominion decided not to print a news report of the demonstrations against the South African European Cricket team. This despite the fact that such a report had been written by a Dominion reporter.
It is believed that the report refers to the way in which the driver of the bus taking the tourists to their hotel nearly foiled the demonstrators.
The report apparently says that the demonstrators silently held their placards high as the tourists tiled off the bus, at the Hotel St. George.
The article is thought to have recorded the slogans on the banners and commented that the South Africans ignored the banners but looked grim. The team's manager, Mr. K. Viljoen is apparently reported as having said that the demonstrators did not bother the side in any way.
Salient has also heard of a photograph of the demonstration which was not published. The caption prepared for it is thought to have read:
"People are equal in their eyes—members of the group which demonstrated against the South African cricketers yesterday afternoon. Later the demonstrators met the tourists as they filed off their bus outside the St. George Hotel,"
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