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Food to be sold to students in the Cafeteria has been left outside the Student Union Building all night next to open rubbish tins.
On 24 February, the Executive impounded a delivery of buns, doughnuts and similar items which had been left outside the Building.
At an Executive meeting in the evening of the 24th, the following motions were passed:
That the Executive notes that it has this night seen food which has been delivered outside the kitchens of the
Sub; that the food has been left, unattended, on the ground in trays insufficiently covered and next to open rubbish tins full of refuse and swill.That the Association take all possible steps to see that the food viewed tonight be condemned as unfit for human consumption and be not sold tomorrow or any other day.
That we do impound the food referred to in the above motions.
Members of the Executive then removed the food and placed it in the Executive Workroom. The next day, Association President Margaret Bryson made the following Statement:
"Mr. Levenbach and his staff fully understand the action of the Executive and have been most cooperative. Mr. Levenbach has told me that he has frequently asked the suppliers to deliver food to an enclosed area within the Building-to which the suppliers hold keys. For a considerable time, apparently, the suppliers have ignored all instructions to deliver food to the enclosed area."
While working late on Sunday night in the basement of the Theatre I heard a van pull up at the back of the Cafeteria. I took it to be the rubbish collection van coming to clear the garbage and mess from a previous day's function.
To my horror the van turned out to belong to a caterer who was delivering pies and cakes. These were left among the filth, grime and cat-shit on wooden trays. When I departed the scene at 10.30 pm they were still out there and the Building had been locked up.
Here's wishing you a healthy and happy start to the eating year.
A proposal for a Government-subsidised block of flats for Victoria University Women students has fallen through.
This news closely followed a decision by the University Council to give strong backing to Women Students Hostel Society's attempts to acquire the Ambassador Flats.
A Ministry of Works inspection of the building has shown that it is structurally unsatisfactory and not readily adaptable for student flats.
The 31 year-old block of six self-contained flats immediately to the rear of Victoria House would have provided accommodation for up to 20 women students.
The Victoria University Council has endorsed the strong opposition of the Vice-Chancellor's Committee to a proposal by the Technician's Certification Authority to introduce a Diploma in Science course at N.Z. Technical Institutes.
According to the Deputy Vice-Chancellor, Professor I.D. Campbell, the proposal "came out of the blue" in spite of the fact that a senior member of the Victoria University staff is undoubtedly on the Authority.
In his letter to the Authority, the chairman of the Vice-Chancellor's Committee, Massey University Vice-Chancellor Dr. A. Stewart, said that "the universities wish to stress that they already have the necessary resources of staff and equipment to provide the level of training envisaged."
Dr. Stewart added that "the proposal reflects the grave lack of coordination which exists in the field of tertiary education in New Zealand."
Members of the Victoria University Council expressed concern at the possibility of a threatened overlap between Technical Institute and University courses and referred to the proposal of last year's Conference of Universities that liaison committees should be set up between local Universities and technical institutes.
They endorsed Dr. Stewart's claim that the matter "should be given the widest publicity".
"The Association has written to the suppliers notifying them that the next breach of the delivery conditions will result in their being reported to the Health Department. Mr. Levenbach is in full agreement with this letter. The Managing Secretary, Mr. Boyd, was alarmed at the action taken by the Executive but agreed that food left in that state was probably a health risk."
The President has since received an assurance from the suppliers-San Anita Bakeries-that all deliveries will be placed inside the Building. They had previously instructed their drivers to do this.
Mr. Boyd said that there was some uncertainty as to whether the Health Department has any power as regards the catering facilities at Victoria since the Cafeteria is not a public restaurant. The Department does, however, make occasional inspections. Mr. Boyd agreed that the food impounded should not be placed on sale after such exposure to contamination but added that he would not have taken the same action as the Executive.
The Catering Manager, Mr. Levenbach, said that he understood the Executive's action and any food left outside the Building overnight would not be placed on sale.
The question of food deliveries was initially raised in a letter to Salient from Mr. R. Middleton (see inset) and was then referred to the Executive. Mr. Middleton had seen deliveries of food made to the area by the rubbish tins on several occasions. On each occasion, the food was left outside the Building from about 9 pm until members of the Cafeteria staff arrived in the morning.
The "Appointments Board" is now to be known as the "Careers Advisory Board".
The Vice-Chancellor, Dr D.B. Taylor, told the University Council that many students and even academic staff had not realized that the Board's function was to advise graduates and near graduates on career opportunities.
Students' Association representative, Bill Logan, expressed concern at the lack of publicity which the Board had been given, and added, at both ends of a chastening rebuttal by former Students' Association President, Mr K.B. O'Brien, that much more publicity was needed.
Edited for and on behalf of the Victoria University Students' Association, P.O. Box 196, Wellington by David Harcourt, 121 Kelburn Parade, Wellington 5 and printed by the Wanganui Chronicle Company Limited, P.O. Box 433, Wanganui.
The news of strong Council backing for blocks of student flats will be welcomed in student circles even though the Ambassador Flats proposal has fallen through. But the implications of the specific proposals discussed at the February meeting of the University Council deserve closer scrutiny.
Students have for some time argued the need for low rental flats, preferably in the form of a student village complex in which groups of male and groups of female students can form small communities—preferably with a few members of staff and their families.
This is not to decry the investigation by the Women Students Hostel Society of the possibility of converting the Ambassador Flats into an annex of Victoria House. Nor is it a criticism of the strong university backing for such proposals. But to call this type of proposal an experiment in University-backed student flats was somewhat unrealistic.
The proposal was for 20 women students, in groups of three to five, to occupy 6 self-contained flats at $7 per week, per student. This put the flats beyond the reach of three-quarters of the women students. Worse still it created the precedent for blocks of students flats to be regarded as adjuncts to current University Hostels in which a few senior hostel students could retain their loyalty to what is basically a hostel community.
Equally alarming was the evidence that neither the University Grants Committee nor the Government have yet geared the complex system of subsidies for student accommodation to allow the university to make prompt and confident decisions on options available on suitable properties for student flats.
By all means, support schemes such as the Ambassador Flats proposal. But the time is long overdue for vigorous efforts by the University and the Students Association to work towards complexes of low rental student flats. And this will take more work by Council, and Students' Association representatives on Council, than merely rubber stamping proposals for high rental segregated flats attached to a University Hostel.
In writing her comments on the First Report of the Committee on Drug Dependency and Drug Abuse in New Zealand, (published on 16 February), Miss Swain must have worked in great haste to meet the deadline for the 18 February issue of Salient. This haste might well account for certain inaccuracies and misinterpretations contained in her brief review of a complex report of 157 pages.
However, in the interests of informed discussion the Committee feels that certain points in the review should be corrected or clarified.
In the first place: Miss Swain contrasts the Committee's decision not to recommend any changes in the legal penalties for marijuana or other drug offences with the (alleged) lowering of penalties in Britain and similar moves for relaxation of the law relating to marijuana in the USA. The implication is that New Zealand is as usual behind the times. Miss Swain, however, fails to point out (as the Report does, in para 3.16) that the New Zealand Narcotics Act
In Britain, the opiates, cannabis and a variety of other drugs liable to abuse are controlled under the Dangerous Drugs Act
Thus as far as the possession and use of cannabis are concerned, the New Zealand Narcotics Act is more liberal even than the Wootton Report in that it sets a lower maximum prison term, and by providing for a higher maximum fine actually decreases the need to impose a prison term.
It should be pointed out that the penalties laid down in the Narcotics Act are maximum penalties, not mandatory ones, allowing magistrates considerable discretion in dealing with offenders. Having heard submissions from a senior magistrate and the Secretary for Justice the Committee has reason to believe that this discretion is being exercised wisely to distinguish between offenders abusing drugs of various kinds and according to the seriousness of their involvement. The Committee can see no need for separate legislation for each and every category of drugs when the courts already have such discretion (See 8.18).
Secondly: the Committee disclaims utterly the assertion that it 'virtually equates possession of cannabis with committing a serious assault by moral standards'. This assertion is based on a complete misreading of a passage in 8.13, in which quite the opposite meaning was intended. (Perhaps the Committee's use of a double negative was the trouble). Throughout the Report the Committee stresses the need for a compassionate and unself-righteous attitude to drug abusers and makes extensive reference to the general tendency to over-reliance on drugs in New Zealand society at large.
Thirdly; While the Report does stress the need for psychiatric care for certain types of drug abusers, it does not (as Miss Swain's summary implies) insist on it for all. Rather the Report stresses that abusers vary widely and that their varying needs and circumstances should be met by a variety of forms of treatment. For those in an advanced stage of dependency and/or with psychiatric problems, treatment in a psychiatric hospital is essential, but there are others for whom such treatment would be both unnecessary and unhelpful. Accordingly the Report stresses the importance of providing adequate facilities for the assessment not only of drug offenders but also of those who seek help voluntarily, as a basis for choosing the most appropriate form of treatment and guidance. The word 'psychiatric' does not appear in Recommendation 14: what is intended is an all round assessment that is concerned with the total personality and with such factors as environment and motivation. (See 9.1 and 9.6-9.11).
Fourthly: I would point out that the Committee had complete freedom in the whole conduct of its enquiries, deliberations and all the substance of the report, the recommendations and content of the appendices were the direct outcome of its own deliberations. The Committee has in no way at any time been subject to any direction by 'officialdom'.
As Miss Swain says, this is a First Report. In its conclusion the Committee stresses "the fact that a topic is referred to in this report or is the subject of a recommendation does not preclude further consideration, especially of broader issues". The Committee was disappointed that more individuals and organisations-especially student bodies—did not respond to its advertised invitation to make submissions, and would welcome further objective representations from such quarters.
For those who wish to judge the Report for themselves six copies were supplied to the University Library and three to the Students' Association.
(Editor's note: Miss Swain may or may not have "worked in great haste to meet the deadline for the 18 February issue of Salient." Dr Blake-Palmer would know, however, that copies of the Interim Report were supplied to the press well before the publication date of 16 February. Miss Swain was, in fact, given a copy of the Report by me on 12 February. She was not asked to 'review' the Report but was asked to read it as thoroughly as she could in the few days available and provide some brief comments on its principal recommendations.)
I was saddened to read on the back page of your first Salient yet another attack on Masskerade 69. The article added nothing new to the Masskerade witch-hunt, being something less than a bad copy of old newspaper reports and even older smears, such as those used each year by an assemblage of bigots hypocrites and hick-town mayors just prior to Masskerade's publication. It is genuine cause for alarm when the Editor of Salient chooses to emulate such self-righteous pricks.
Had you, and those of your ilk, taken a brief moment to consider your ill-informed smears and read Masskerade you would have found that it consisted predominantly of attacks on religion war and pulp culture with sex and 'vulgarity' occupying a very minor part of the magazine. I am unsure which of the Masskerade articles you would classify as satire or humour, but after reading your first Salient Editorial I would seriously question your ability to discern much less classify either. To make amends for your smear, I suggest that you get an impartial person to do an analysis of Masskerade's contents and that you publish this in Salient, with an apology, to give your readers a true idea of the contents.
I have thought about the possible reasons a fledgling Editor could have for publishing such Truth-style horseshit in his first edition. If the article was not intended seriously and was in fact a satire, you have my apologies as my vulgar Massey sense of humour is often not tuned in to the subtleties of sophisticated satire, but if the article is an indication of the standard of news articles for Salient 70 may God and Mary McDermott help your readers. However I suspect that the truth is that the whole thing is a layout fault with the names Argot and Masskerade being juxtaposed between ad and article on the back page.
You would be more honest in your appraisal of The Wild Bunch if you said simply that you didn't like the film and that those who did were nongs. Instead you try to lend a degree of unnecessary respectability to your assertions by indulging in some very tricky pseudo-criticism. You assure readers that the Leone movies and Butch Cassidy are 'infinitely superior' to The Wild Bunch in terms of script, photography, theme music and performances. I note with some interest but little surprise the omission of direction from your list. This important (nay, paramount) concept sifts the cinemaphiles from the literati, since it seems to elude those, mainly bookworms, who haven't yet matured to a full understanding of the film medium.
It is self-evident that one can take practically any film which impresses initially, break it up into its various components, and then decide that in each of these several respects there is at least one other film that is superior. This procedure is farcical, since a film that we think highly of is, after due consideration, analysed into the rubbish bin, condemned by some weird and totally spurious method of comparison. But our appreciation of films is generally based on the totality, not the bits and pieces, despite the fact that when called on to defend out position we tend to parade our opinion of the bits and pieces in order to lend weight to our like or dislike of the whole. He would be brave indeed who would say that the Leone films and Butch Cassidy, as total entities, are infinitely superior to The Wild Bunch.
Your incomplete list deserves some investigation. Photography, for example, unless grossly out of focus, is not in most cases a legitimate subject for 'objective' criticism, since each has his personal opinion as to what kind of photography best suits the mood and setting of a film. The inclusion of 'theme music' leads me to believe that you would dismiss the music in a film if it was not (a) memorable, or (b) heard occasionally on the radio. But I need hardly point out that it is not the purpose of film music to be either memorable or heard on the radio. The worth of the music in a film is not related to its attractions as music independent of the film.
Certain phrases or lines in The Wild Bunch may seem peculiar to those sophisticates steeped in the art-house offerings, but again it is hardly worth observing that the Western as a genre has conventions of action and dialogue that are peculiar. And one could hardly say that the Leone films are notable for subtlety of utterance. As for the 'performances of the leading actors', it must be noted that in the films under discussion it is the case of comparing different styles. The grotesquerie of the Leone films, the studied naturalism in The Wild Bunch, and the distinctive charm of Newman and Redford—all these have points in their favour. You seem to be saying, however, that the performances in The Wild Bunch are noticeably second-rate. I can assure you that in this case the Emperor's clothes are not seen, not because they are not there, but because the beholder chooses not to see.
Perhaps I have misunderstood the intent of your postscript. Perhaps you were intending to say that in each and every one of the aspects you name The Wild Bunch is inferior (the 'infinitely' is excused as hyperbole). If this is so then the last shred of objectivity I cling to deserts me, and I must deem you, Sir, a fool. I agree that the Emperor's clothes syndrome must be avoided at all costs, and I have elsewhere pointed out what I consider to be the faults of The Wild Bunch. What is to be avoided even more, however, is a reaction to the syndrome that goes off the deep end, depriving the viewer of all his critical faculties. Your dislike of The Wild Bunch is unobjectionable; your reasoning is entirely fallacious.
Professor Taylor generalises about student radicalism, starting off from particular observations about LSE, which may be partly true, to observations about student radicals everywhere, which are almost certainly false. As a professor of psychology should know, generalisations about all members of any one group, even when substantiated by some evidence, are most unlikely to be verifiable. His method of argument and his standards of proof throughout the article are startlingly lax for a senior academic.
Professor Taylor discounts bad staff-student relations as a reason for student unrest. Yet it would seem from the meagre evidence Dr Taylor offers that the most dramatic British example of student radicalism (which he observed) was at LSE—a university with bad staff-student relations.
"The militant students of LSE were unlike the radicals of earlier years who gave the place an international reputation because they were as vigorous in their revolutionary activity as in their debate". The best radical, as we all know, is a dead radical, but if Professor Taylor had said openly in support of this rotten thesis that he doesn't think modern student radicals think, one might give him credit for greater honesty. In fact, of course, none of the books which influenced the LSE radicals or express their thinking appear in Professor Taylor's bibliography; not even the Penguin Student Power volume edited by Blackburn and Cockburn which is reasonably well-known. The writers popular among the International Socialism group which was most influential at LSE include Tony Cliff, Michael Kidron, Alastair MacIntyre and Paul Foot: not surprisingly none of these writers is quoted by Taylor. It is very easy to say radicals don't think if you never bother to read what they write. Professor Taylor's attempts to summarise the views of these writers he has not read are only, need one say, travesties.
Then we move on to American universities where Professor Taylor is, if possible, even vaguer. His first approach to an original insight is alarmingly totalitarian: less attention should be paid to the quality of academic degrees and more to the "stability, enthusiasm, loyalty and responsibility of the staff", (Emphases mine). Professor Taylor's answer to student unrest, in other words, is to dilute the academic status of his staff and insist more on their commitment to the Administration. If to this prescription for academic security Professor Taylor added a demand for 'loyalty oaths' he would be in exactly the same political position as Vice-President Agnew. Teaching ability, of course, is needed among academics: but this is exactly what the student radicals, whom Professor Taylor claims are unconcerned about education, ask for.
Student radicalism is a most complex phenomenon, with very different roots in different countries, often as capable of extreme right-wing (as in Indonesia) as left-wing expression. The theories student radicalism has espoused range from situationism to Trotskyism and Stalinism and anarchism. The theories cannot be dismissed without study: they are various. An international political phenomenon cannot be discussed by tossing off generalisations about anarchism. We await a sound academic study of why radical students, for so many different reasons, in so many different places, should become politically involved at the same time. Professor Taylor's article does not add to, but diminishes from, our understanding of these matters.
Bill Evans' articles in Salient have never been the products of rational analytical consideration. His previews and reviews have always been inspired by the particular whim or humour he feels at the moment of writing and nothing more. So it is that the same superficial style which last year said Gbosts at Downstage was very nice can unscrupulously say that Paul Holmes has wrecked the Drama Society.
The major portion of his latest effort attempts to prove this and he proffers some valid arguments. But, dear Bill, you are not the only one who can look at
The New Look Drama Committee was elected to intensify dramatic activity within the University. Simple as that. What we were too immature to realise was that those who lead violent revolutions of this nature are not necessarily the mature organisers and that is what the Drama Society lacked last year. Wasn't it you, Bill, who stood up at what was meant to be a Drama Society discussion and demanded "Mr President! If you don't call a meeting of the Drama Society Committee now, giving all present speaking rights, I shall resign!"? But where were you when it came to re-election? Dear ineffectual Bill.
Speaking broadly, I admit that I and my committee failed in our objective; basically we did not realise the often insurmountable difficulty of communicating to members, students and the general public. I admit that as a President I was very, very inexperienced for such a job. Further, some of the fire departed the spirits of many of the Committee and that left us with passengers, but I am not a politician so I shall not go further here. There is no point.
We were amazed by the apathy within the Society and amongst students generally. You, Bill, although most vocally critical were one of the most apathetic. So if one-way communication seemed impossible, the establishment of a two-way conversation seemed a pipe-dream. This two-way situation between a committee and its members is the only way of fulfilling our original objective for only with active co-operation between both bodies can a group of individuals explore what is becoming a very vital ray in the vast spectrum of Art.
Another reason for our apparent lack of stamina was the simple physical fact that the Theatre was fully booked the year before. The previous Committee had made very few bookings and we were virtually powerless.
Yet despite all this we still did more actual production work than the Zoo Story went to Downstage not because of the personal honour and glory but because it took the University Drama Society out to the public, brought credit to the Society as a whole and because there was a chance of giving it a season at Varsity. Dear Bill always forgets (or chooses to) The American Dream—another full scale production with a student producer. Once again, no Theatre available.
The breakdown of communications which occurred during the rehearsals of Christmas Revue was a breakdown between Dave Smith and me—Not between the producer and the Drama Society. Had this been so the show could not have been the success it was. The statements of mine quoted in Bill's article were said to Dave — not behind his back — during a row between the two of us. Knowing our incompatibility could wreck the show I allowed other Committee members to do the job. I was not being irresponsible — I merely knew that they would see that things were done. And while I have no quarrel with Dave and appreciate his viewpoint I am disappointed that he would spread petty shit for two months and let Bill Evans do his athletic stint of jumping firmly and securely onto the Bandwagon.
Last April we were angry and we tried idealistically to change the level of activity of the Drama Society. In December Dave Smith was angry. And to be angry is to care. Bill Evans' excursions into this emotion are only half-way trips of self-righteousness and indignation and alas he seems to be able to do so much damage in spite of this.
In
P.S. By the way, Bill, auditions are held monthly for Downstage — that's if you're interested.
I, also, am absolutely disgusted.
Also Absolutely Disgusted.
(This correspondence may now cease.
A committee established by the Executive has recommended that the salaries paid to the President and Editor of Salient be substantially increased.
The Committee recommended that the President be paid S800 a year, instead of $400 a year as at present. It is also suggested that the Salient Editor's salary be increased by $300, to $700.
The Committee also recommended that the Salient Editor be granted the sum of $450 a year to be paid to members of the Salient staff at his discretion. The Technical Editor of Salient in Salient staff, other than the Editor, by $50.
The Secretary of the Association is recommended to receive $250 and the Treasurer the sum of $100 (together with a further $150 if he prepares the accounts of the Association-these have previously been prepared by a firm in town).
It is further recommended that the Orientation and Open Day Controllers should receive $50 each and that members of the Executive other than the President, Secretary and Treasurer should receive no payment.
Payments to the Editors of Cappicade. Argot and Student Association Handbook are to be considered at the Committee's next meeting following submissions from the Publications Board. The Committee has recommended that all payments be operative from 1 January. The Committee's proposals have been considered by the Executive and are to be discussed at the AGM on 6 April. A further meeting of the Committee will be held shortly and some additional recommendations may arise from that meeting.
Ian Stockwell and Graeme Collins have been co-opted onto the Executive as Sports Officer and Publications Officer respectively. They will hold these positions until the by-election in early April.
Ian Stockwell, who has a Ma and is a part-time commerce student, was Salient Sports Editor in
Ian hopes to press for more utilisation of sports amenities and a University swimming pool. He sees Easter Tournament as his major responsibility during his term of office.
When asked whether he will stand for re-election in April, Ian said it was a 'possibility'.
Graeme Collins, who hopes to complete a law degree this year, feels that his main preoccupation as Publications Officer will be with finance. "The experience of previous years has shown that this is the greatest problem as far as Salient is concerned, especially with weekly publications," he said.
Graeme is an advocate of absolute independence. "Interference on my part would only be justified in the case of a breach of the Editor's contract," he said.
Graeme is not sure whether he will stand for re-election. "I feel perhaps I should," he said.
Accommodation for students this year is more scarce than ever.
"We are not keeping pace with the problem" said Mr Ian Boyd, Director of Student Welfare Services. "While new hostels are planned by the churches, they will be overcrowded by the expanding University."
The Accommodation Service expects that 600 students will be looking for accommodation this year. The situation is aggravated by the demolition of student flats in the path of the Motorway and flats in the Terrace area which are being removed to make way for office buildings.
The accommodation problem has been intensified by increased demands for flats from non-students who are looking for accommodation close to the City and who can afford to pay higher rents than most students. Also, landlords are often reluctant to rent flats to students — who generally want to rent flats during term time only — and have sought permanent tenants.
"Co-operation from the newspapers and the NZBC has helped to ease the problem," said Mr Boyd. "Despite the shortage, the Accommodation Service still inspects all accommodation before it is passed on to students. There is a demand for all types of accommodation-flats, hostels and private board."
The average price for men's board is $11-12 per week and women's board is generally about a dollar less. The Accommodation Service will continue advertising into the term as many students have only temporary accommodation.
The Publications Board has recommended that its own membership be substantially altered.
The recommendations, which have the effect of considerably reducing and formalising membership, are to be raised at the AGM on 6 April.
At present, membership of the Publications Board is virtually open to anyone who makes an application for membership at the Association Office. Confirmation of appointments by the Executive is generally a formality.
The Publications Board has recommended that the members of the Board shall be the following:
the Publications Officer;
the Publications Board Treasurer; the Association Treasurer; the Publications Board Advertising Manager; an appointee of the Executive; a person of technical competence from the staff of Salient appointed by the Board (that is, the Technical Editor); the Editor of Salient, Argot, Student Handbook, Cappicade and so on for the terms of their appointments; and four appointees of the SRC for a one-year term.
If the Board's recommendations are accepted at the AGM, the new Publications Board will have a membership of from twelve to fourteen members at any one time. At present, approximately thirty persons are members of the Board although attendance at meetings rarely exceeds twelve.
A hairdressing service in the Student Union is to occupy the renovated men's toilet on the first floor. This proposal was accepted by the University Council at its February meeting.
"The Wool Shed", as the room will be known, will open in the second week of the University year for a year's trial.
The contract, let to a student with hairdressing experience, Anthony Plews, allows for a minimal service of twelve hours a week and will cater for both men and women.
The Students' Association Office will accept hairdressing appointments on behalf of Mr Plews, and in turn the Student Union Building Fund will receive 15 per cent of the gross takings.
The front cover of the first issue of Critic this year has stimulated a minor controversy in Dunedin.
The cover features a full-page photograph of some cannabis plants next to a Students' Association tie. A caption to the photograph reads "Will no other vice content you?" (The quotation is from John Donne).
The cover photograph relates to a four-page article on cannabis. Critic Editor Peter Dickson said that he placed notices in the Student Union Building asking for anyone who had cannabis plants to supply Critic with a photograph. A roll of film found in the Critic delivery box provided the photograph which was used on the cover.
The photograph was brought to the attention of the Police by members of the press. Peter Dickson said that he had heard that the Police considered that submitting the photograph to Critic was "a particularly impertinent act" and if they caught the person responsible he would "get at least six months".
According to Peter Dickson the Otago Vice-Chancellor has said that he is fully prepared to back the Police up in any efforts they may make to locate the person who supplied the photograph to Critic.
The Executive has forwarded six remits to NZUSA for discussion at Easter Council. The remits had to be forwarded to NZUSA by 28 February in order that they be placed on the Council Agenda.
However, the Executive has told NZUSA that Victoria's attitude to the remits will depend on the outcome of discussion in the Students' Representation Council. The six remits will be discussed by the SRC at its first meeting tomorrow at 1.30pm.
Victoria's remits are as follows (the name of the executive member who proposed the remits appears in brackets):
"That NZUSA do support the staging of a symposium on conservation of the natural environment"
"That NZUSA do hold a seminar in July to be attended by representatives of all associations to discuss the particular role of NZUSA with particular reference to whether NZUSA should be involved mainly with liaison between student bodies and whether development in educational research in producing independent reviews etc, is within the desired goal of NZUSA future development"
"That NZUSA do support the demand of the Public Enquiry Committee into the actions of the police at the demonstrations in Auckland on the occasion of the visit of Vice-President Agnew"
"That NZUSA do support the abolition of all laws against abortion."
"That NZUSA do ask the
FocusAdministration Board to ensure that student affairs receive an adequate coverage inFocusin1969 "
"That NZUSA do support the PPTA in their claims for higher starting salaries for teachers."
"That NZUSA do strongly oppose increased state aid for private schools, serving as they do the interests of religion and elitism."
"That NZUSA do reaffirm its opposition to tours by New Zealand sports teams to South Africa"
"That NZUSA express its view that censorship laws in New Zealand should be liberalised and that a committee be established at Victoria under the auspices of the Winter Council on specific amendments which could be made to existing legislation."
"That NZUSA express its view that licensing laws in New Zealand should be liberalised and that a committee be established under the auspices of NZUSA to report to Winter Council on specific amendments which could be made to existing legislation."
Cock 8 has been referred to the Indecent Publications Tribunal.
This followed the appearance of Christopher Robin Wheeler before Mr Scully SM in the Wellington Magistrates Court on 20 February.
Christopher Robin was charged with printing an indecent document. The charge related specifically to a comic strip — The Phonus Balonus by Crum the Bum — printed on the centre pages and a cartoon on the inside back page of the magazine.
Mr Scully ruled that the magazine would have to be referred to the Tribunal in order to establish whether it was indecent before the charge could be proceeded with.
When interviewed by Salient Christopher Robin said "I didn't do it".
Student representatives in Auckland have made strong submissions to the University Policy Committee (a joint committee of Council and Senate) following police action against students and staff during the visit of Vice-President Agnew.
Mike Law, Auckland Students' Association President, told Salient that he hoped in future that the University would take steps to ensure that the right of staff and students to move freely in the University gounds would not be curtailed by police action. Law was very concerned about what he called the "unnecessary violence employed by police in moving some students from the University grounds" during the Agnew demonstrations.
In a letter to the University Council, written on behalf of the Executive on 12 February, Law wrote:
On the evening of January 15, students and members of staff were refused entry to the grounds (of the old Government House, now University property, which is directly opposite the Intercontinental—the Hotel where Agnew was staying) even though most could produce identification.On the morning of the 16th, I contacted Mr Maidment (the Vice-Chancellor) who reaffirmed the terms of his letter and I believe I communicated this to Inspector Cummings. On the night of the 16th, students and members of staff were admitted to the grounds, but only after being extensively questioned by the police.During the early part of the evening there were attempts by the police to clear the grounds. Again, between 11.30 and 12.30 there was a further attempt to clear students and staff from the grounds. In some cases, force was used against students.It should be noted also by Council that the police made no attempt to protect University property. It seemed that the purpose of their being in the grounds was to use that area as a base to control the crowd outside. Policemen repeatedly jumped the fence to make arrests and made no attempt to avoid walking over plants or shrubs.
The arrangement made by the Vice Chancellor with the Police provided that police would be allowed onto the University grounds to protect University property so long as students and staff could have free access to the grounds. The view has been expressed that the police were determined to station men in the grounds despite any protest from the University. The policemen in the grounds-about 20 in all—were criticised strongly after the 11.45 incident on the night of the 16th. As well as clearing out students and staff from the grounds, many of them jumped the fence and, it is alleged, attacked demonstrators on the footpath, from behind. Several demonstrators told Salient correspondent John Laird of being kneed in the back and generally subjected to vicious treatment.
Mike Law's view is that the Vice Chancellor, in allowing police into the grounds, did the only thing he could under the circumstances. Mr Maidment showed Law the letter he had sent to Inspector Cummings. "If the police had stuck to the terms of the letter, there would have been no trouble" Law said.
He said that the staff and students in the University grounds were spectators at the demonstration and that he had formed the opinion that the police had not the ability or the maturity to determine at what stage they should interfere with the staff and students. He said that the Vice-Chancellor had assured him on the phone that the police had guaranteed to respect the rights of students and lecturers.
The Policy Committee is now considering submissions made by staff and student representatives and will report to the Council on 16 March.
The most successful pressure group of Aid movement. Its activities were marked by the use of sophisticated techniques, and responsibility (as distinct from the violence and intimidation practiced by the Viet Nam and apartheid demonstrators). Its demands have in great part been met, with government accepting in principle that 1% of New Zealand's gross national income should be spent on foreign aid.
Nevertheless, despite its success, the campaign depended on false and dishonest reasoning (where any intellectual backing of the professed altruism was actually provided) and the essential arrogance of those behind the movement is best exposed in the short Opinion written by Kevin Clements for Salient 25, at the end of last year.
Clements, a doctoral student in sociology at Victoria, was one of the leaders of 1% Aid; indeed he was perhaps the main protagonist. His attitudes can be thus accepted as symptomatic of the whole movement. His Salient article commenced with an unproved assertion: " ... we have to take our international responsibilities a little more seriously than we have in the past", and ended with the epidemiological trick of bypassing logic by applying psychological pressure: unless we keep the pressure up, he says, "we might find ourselves in the middle of a white, right anglo-saxon protestant backlash." It is nonsense to claim that New Zealand has not taken her international responsibilities seriously: since World War II we have been militarily involved in four minor affairs — the Malayan Emergency, Korea, the Indonesian confrontation, and Viet Nam, all of which have taken the lives of New Zealanders, and spent the wealth of this country. If Mr Clements wants a redirection of our efforts, he should say so, and avoid total irrelevancy if he can. And who would care to be called part of a WASP backlash for daring to question Mr Clements' beliefs? Yet, if we are psychologically intimidated by this line of reasoning we have fallen for the old hoax that was played on the Emperor who bought a set of invisible robes.
For the 1% Aid arguments — and few and far between they actually are — fallacious. Clements and his ilk must resort to the smears of argument from intimidation, for their theses have no logical framework whatever to prop themselves up with. In their crudest forms, the arguments for foreign aid reduce to three propositions:
The first two claims have been proved by experience to be false. Aid as a bribe has appeared in many historical situations, each one marked by failure. Those who are hungry and envious will only be made more so by the realisation that someone has goods enough to give away. Hitler was hungry for lebensraum: Chamberlain and Daladier gave him Czechoslovakia. His appetite grew: Poland went. Stalin tried to appease the desire for more with the NonAgression Pact shipments of precious war materials to Germany. We know the result.
Does aid as a bribe buy friendship? Look at America, a country which gives more in aid than any other. Dislike and distrust is the answer from the recipients. Strangely enough, the massive foreign aid bills of the U.S.A. have also bred a distrust of the recipients within the U.S.A., in the minds of those who see their hard-earned taxes being poured down a bottomless funnel. And for those who would like to blame this on capitalist selfishness, I would recommend the comments in Message from Moscow, by 'An Observer', (Jonathan Cape, London,
Does aid as an investment actually produce that return in the form of dividends? — for this is the purpose of investment. A very short course in the economics of primitive countries will serve to demonstrate that massive injections of outside aid will only serve to so distort an economy that it becomes totally impossible for it ever to reach a 'lift-off point, and attain self-sufficiency. There is no known case of aid of this nature stimulating the native economic power of a country to a degree that enabled it to compete with advanced nations.
Aid as a sop to the Christian ethic is perhaps the most pernicious of these three arguments. It offers no intellectual backing, but rests merely on the assertion that it is good in moral terms for us to suffer for the sake of others and conversely bad for anyone to desire to use the fruits of his labours for his own pleasure. To accept this as reasoning is to dissolve the difference between independent judgement based on perception of the facts of reality, and subjective whims based on — nothing. This is a case of the argument ending with its own statement: there is no basis whatever for it, it is a matter of blind faith, with all that that implies.
Those are the arguments for foreign aid: it is easy to see why they must be defended by name-calling of those who question them. Behind the bluster there only air, and Mr Clements and his friends walk as naked as did the Emperor before the little boy in the fable threw an indecent exposure rap at him.
Front Page photographs by John Miller (the food) and Alan Browne (enrolment); photos page 2 by John Miller; Blackburn photo page 5 by Alan Browne — lithograph by Bob Joiner; photo page 6 by Peter Craven; photos on pages 8 and 9 by John Miller and Bob Joiner (who took the big one at the bottom of page 8); photo page 14 published by courtesy of Warner Brothers — Seven Arts; photos page 16 by John Miller. The lithograph of Brian Talboys on page 5 of the last issue was by Bob Joiner.
Src Agenda
Notice is hereby given of a meeting of the Student Representative Council to be held in the Main Common Room, top floor, Sub on
Apologies.
Minutes.
Matters Arising.
Reports from representatives on University bodies.
Election of new student members of Professorial Board.
Report from Marijuana Sub-committee.
Remits for NZUSA Easter Council including the following topics: Manapouri; Abortion; Police brutality; State Aid to schools; student news in Focus; the environment; the development of NZUSA; the All Black Tour of South Africa; Teachers Salaries.
Chairmen and committee for SRC.
Moved Logan.
That this Association requests the University to provide for student representation on all committees recommending or appointing people to the academic staff.
Moved Logan
That this Association requests the University to provide for the appointment of two student representatives to the Committee of Vice-Chancellor and Deans.
Moved Logan.
That this Association requests the University to provide for the appointment of two student representatives to the Standing Committee of the Professorial Board.
Moved Logan.
That this Association request the University to provide for the appointment of two student representatives to the Academic Committee of the Professorial Board.
Moved Logan.
That this Association would support in principle any moves to increase the representation of sub-professorial staff on the University's decision-making bodies.
Moved Logan.
That this Association refer the policy embodied in the previous five resolutions to the Joint Committee of the Council, the Professorial Board, and the Students' Association.
Moved Phelps.
That VUWSA send a delegate or delegates to the National Save Manapouri Conference to be held in Wellington on
Accommodation.
Capping Week
General.
Robin Blackburn, described variously as an "English Left-Wing Revolutionary" and "England's version of Danny the Red" was employed as a lecturer in Sociology at the London School of Economics until he was dismissed for supporting some of the demands of student militants. Mr Blackburn spoke at this year's Curious Cove congress.
What do you find wrong with the present system of university administration in Britain?
Well it's what's wrong with the administration of Universities in a great many countries. That is that real decisions are made not by the people who work in the university—that is by students and staff—but are made rather by outside Governors. The Board of Governors at the school where I worked, the London School of Economics, was a real cameo of the British Establishment. The members included the Archbishop of Canterbury and a Trade Unionist (to represent that side). These people were responsible for making the long and medium range decisions. Of course, day to day running was left in the hands of a much smaller group. This smaller group included a number of professional administrators who had made a career of university administration. All these people made the decisions that governed the life and work of all the students. Now that's the first thing that's wrong—the general mode of government and running of the university. However, I would criticise also the decisions they make in substance; not just the way they reach them or who reaches them, but what those decisions are. I suppose, above all, the fact that the competitive exam system pushes people into a pattern. There is a mania for sorting people out into boxes—1st class mind, 2nd class mind, 3rd class mind..........
And the student power movement is a reaction to this?
Yes, I should say, though, that it is also a reaction to issues which originate outside the university. Student unrest often revolves around the involvement of our country in questions of national liberation. The universities in the advances capitalist countries have become deeply involved in the capitalist system. In Britain, for example, we found that members of London University were advising the American Government on how to conduct their war in Vietnam. However, Universities haven't suddenly acquired this role. I'm afraid that they've long had the role of assistants to the development of Imperialist Colonialism. There is a new sort of Colonialism within our society that the Universities are helping to evolve. It's not so much the colonisation of different lands, although that does go on, but rather more the colonisation of everyday life in our countries. What I mean by that is that, in order to preserve the structure of late Capitalist Society, it's necessary to produce a whole host of technicians and social engineers.
It was stated recently by a New Zealand educationalist, Mr Jack Shall or ass, that 'universities will become either vital communities with a clear ethical purpose or mere factories in the productive chain'. Do you agree with this?
Well, to some extent. The image of the factory certainly seems to apply so far as the idea of cranking out large members of students with the appropriate degree is concerned. I'm trying, however, to suggest another dimension to this. As your question implies universities are becoming degree factories; by doing this—cranking out more and more specialists—they are making capitalist society itself more like a machine or factory where the maximum amount is produced for the minimum cost. One of the most common features in the development of universities has been the burgeoning growth of the social sciences; here the people are trained who in the future are going to be the personnel managers, the political pundits, those working in the media and so on—the growing points of late capitalist society. These are the men who will make our societies more efficient in a machine-like sense.
How, specifically, are students in Britain reacting to this?
Well, one very often finds that the most militant advocates of student power come from precisely these areas. They don't want to become manipulators because the system requires that they shall manipulate themselves through the examination system. They find the role which they have been assigned degrading and they reject it and their rejection often spreads to many other sections.
So students seek the democratization of University administration in order that they may prevent this?
Yes, Also democratization in terms of entry to the University. Because of the entrance requirement Universities choose they often exclude racial minorities and make it difficult for the sons of members of the working-class to attend University. The proportion of working-class children going to University in Britain is now no higher than it was before the Second World War—2%. So when we talk about democratization of the Universities we know that this can't be achieved without changing society as a whole.
How far can students legitimately go in their demands?
Well, I think that all decisions which are made in the University which relate to the teaching which students receive are decisions which students ought to have a share in making. I think that both students and teachers ought to be in the position of making all such decisions together.
Obviously you don't see student power confining itself to the Universities but see it as affecting society as a whole. Do you see students as a strong pressure group?
Well, they already have become, in spite of their relatively small numbers, an important political factor. I think the reason is that, politically speaking, our society is rather dead. The reason why late capitalist society survives in spite of the evident fact that it suppresses much of the potentiality of modern technology is because most of the people most of the time are in a state of passivity towards the general organization. Obviously the militant students are rejecting the overall design. In this way they've come to have an influence greatly in excess of their actual numbers.
Don't you think that by planning collectivist action, the Student Power Movement is moving further away from the individualism which, from what you have said, seems to be its goal?
Well, what they're doing is creating a new collective programme. All individualism rests, not on the isolated individual but on the particular collective framework. It requires the backdrop of a particular mode of social organization. The present mode of social organisation happens to be built on a very high degree of individual competition but actually results in an increasing loss of identity. People have to, in a way, resemble one another more and more in order to get ahead in the rat-race. They have to acquire the same skills, the same orientation to life. I think in a different social organization one could have a flowering of truer individuality.
Can you foresee any possibility of a strong student-worker alliance?
There are already some signs of it. For example, the Student Power Movement is ready to co-operate with Trade Unions and attracts quite a lot of support from the Union rank and file. Shop stewards are very interested both in the general idea of industry under worker control, and industrial democracy. Just as students are trying to assert some sort of control, even if only in University administration, workers are endeavouring to assert some minimal degree of control over management.
It has been said that many student activists see themselves and the universities as the sole remaining base for the transformation of society. What is your reaction to this?
Well, I think they're certainly the most active constant revolutionary clement in Western Society. However, there are other groups which are very militant—sometimes in a more important way than students. I'm thinking about the Black Power Movement in the United States, or, in my own country, the movement among the Irish in Northern Ireland. This movement of course, includes students. I don't think that students—although they're a very important element—are as isolated as you would imply there.
How much support do the militant students get from the general student body?
I would say that, at the present time, a disjunction has developed between the political awareness of the militant minority and the political awareness of the majority of students. This militant minority has undergone a process of politicisation and its members have very often been attracted to one or another forms of Marxism. The militant vanguards haven't yet learned how to orient themselves towards the majority of students without in any way abandoning the greater political clarity that they themselves gain through their own experiences of militant action.
Do you think this closer orientation will come?
This is rather an open question. I would say that in this sense we've got a crisis in the whole new left. That it has succeeded in producing a new generation of revolutionaries is in itself a remarkable fact. It may be a small number ofpeople but it makes a big change in the terms of the politics of the societies affected to have even small numbers of revolutionaries where previously there were practically none. The problem for these revolutionaries, however, is to achieve a means of communicating politically with both their fellow students and, of course, with other social classes outside the university.
Do you foresee a greater degree of co—operation between the students on an international basis?
Informally, yes. I don't think that the pre-conditions exist for any formal link-up between student organisations because these organisations are, as I say, themselves fairly fragmented within each country.
Have you gained any impression of the situation in New Zealand which could provide the basis of a comparison with the UK?
Well, obviously the student movement here is younger and has less experience of militant action that the movement has in some other countries. At the same time, I am quite struck by the similarity of the problems which the movement faces. Perhaps the thing which I have noticed most particularly is that the most militant wing of the youth movement is not purely student or indeed possibly not even predominantly student in recruitment. I'm speaking, of course, of the PYM. I think that this is a very interesting feature of the New Zealand situation—the emergence of a militant youth movement which is able to recruit from a section of working class as well as from the student population.
New Zealand universities are coming under increasing attack from the Minister of Finance who seems to be concerned with what he terms the wastage that goes on in universities. Do you think that students should endeavour to justify themselves?
I think that you'll find that there are a number of vested interests who will defend the function of the university within this society but whether this occurs or not, it is not the job of militant students to do so. I think it's very important for militant students not to try to fight other peoples' battles for them. Above all, I don't think they ought to be blackmailed by the threat of the right into restraining their own demands or actions. I think that the prevailing governments in the Western world are already very right-wing and repressive. But I don't think that there's any convincing case to be made that they can become decisively more right-wing or repressive. I don't think that fascism is a serious danger in our countries because I don't think that the ruling class in any of the advanced capitalist countries is sufficiently weak to be prepared to give up some of its power to an autonomous political force. Equally I don't think such an autonomous political force—that is a fascist movement—actually exists in any capitalist country.
In the following article David Butcher, President of the Labour Club and Labour Party candidate for Hawkes Bay in the Election last year, discusses the future of the Party.
"You won't win next Saturday but you'll win in April" was a fairly typical comment from people attuned to the political climate as I stumped Hawke's Bay Electorate putting forward the Labour viewpoint. It illustrates the two major features of the election from the electorate scene: the pessimism of the Labour Party's supporters during the election run up and the marginal nature of a contest in which particular results could change at a very late stage. The electorate was particularly sensitive to local issues and personalities.
The unsuccessful result, from the Labour view, leads one to ask what now? Will Labour dilute still further the remaining principles it promotes and hope to sneak into power under a different name? Will it shed its progressive elements and become a conservative party of functionaries and old faithfuls? Or will it become a radical party embracing a wider spectrum of socialist ideas, more tolerant of diversity? Will it fight back into office — leading a crusade for social equality, justice and an equality of power?
To the idealists and radicals, young and not so young, who comprise the progressive element within the Labour Party a choice like this is no choice at all. Labour must fight back with principles restated and policies renewed. "Labour a crusade or nothing" is still true, even if the source (Harold Wilson — frequently) is unquotable! There were signs in
Even so the years
As a direct result of the Lee Labour Party of
Whether intentionally or not, certain conventions and procedures prevent any issue being discussed fully at the Party's supreme governing body, the Annual Conference. No meaningful attempt at political education for new members can be made because such facilities simply do not exist. The result is that the Party organisation remains a moribund structure for three years except for the three weeks of the General Elections. Otherwise the organisation has only a creaking fund-raising function. It also means that Party organisations in areas remote from the principal centres rapidly decay simply for the lack of interesting activities.
Despite deficiencies of organisation, the quality and quantity of the
Not only in presentation but also in content the
This confusion on economics is probably a result of the ill-defined ideological position of a party to which economics has always been a fundamental tenet of ideology. Ideology and dogma can be a great drawback to a party when it strangles original thought — as, for instance, happened through the attachment of the western socialist parties to Stalinism during the thirties. This attachment was a natural reaction by basically working class parties to the establishment of a working class state, but ideology itself is necessary for a party which considers itself to have any sort of mission. The gradual evaporation of Labour's originally vague ideology and the appearance of another apparently radical ideology in the form of Social Credit may have been responsible as much as anything for the slump in Labour popularity in
For anybody who is only interested in the survival of the Labour Party as an institution, the most cheerful feature of
Social Credit revival by making a deal with the more pragmatic section of the Party on the issue of leadership.
For the future of reform within the Labour party — and also for progress in policy formation and election prospects — the most promising feature of the campaign was the personal success of Norm Kirk. Although, in theory, the Leader of the Parliamentary party has far less power in the Labour Party than does his National opposite number, the effect of a strong leader in Parliament permeates the rest of the organisation. Throughout the campaign one factor alone dominated the minds of supporters and detractors alike and that was the impact the Labour Leader had made. In Hawke's Bay, I constantly met supporters of all Parties who told me how much they had enjoyed the Compass debate or Kirk's Campaign opener. Backed by the good publicity campaign, relatively unknown figures such as Stan Whitehead and Sir Basil Arthur came over with sincerity and effect. This success only serves to underline what could have been achieved had the Labour Party had an election machine to back for a three year campaign the not inconsiderable ability of candidates and the quality of both policies and ideals.
It would be wrong to say that within the Labour party there is any gulf between 'Left' and 'Right'. As organised groupings these do not exist. Differences of viewpoint of course remain but are muffled by poor organisation and an obsolete constitution. In
Pot-smokers, homosexuals, abortionists, and (worse) moralising do-gooders. These it seems are the people who run NZUSA and pass all those God-forlorn motions concerning what (they think) is wrong with out great national heritage.
The image itself is laughable. How many of New Zealand's student leaders have, after all, smoked pot at some stage anyway? Probably very few. In fact the number of pot-smokers on campuses in New Zealand is nowhere particularly great. But one doesn't doesn't have to be a pervert to know that the state of sex education in schools is so outdated as to precede even the reign of Queen Victoria. Nor does one need to be a member of the Communist Party to presume to question the activities of New Zealand's Security Service.
It is the violent reaction of New Zealanders to suggestions of change which should indicate to students just how important it is to take up social cudgels on behalf of depressed universities and in defiance of intransigent laws wherever they occur. This reaction appears in the pages of the Dominion every morning — and not simply in the letters to the Editor column either. "The Rev. Borrie described your excellent Editorial on race relations as scurrilous. I thought it gave some lucid and good middle-of-the-road advice to an organisation professing to be Christian in intent, yet determined to promote racial upheaval, and bloodshed in this more than liberal country".
Robin Blackburn, at least, would have laughed. If there was one thing which his visit here has done for us, it is to make more people aware of the social injustice crying for attention in our own back-yard. To many of our liberal student community, Blackburn was "Good stuff, but it hardly applies here of course". But it does. A visit to Ponsonby or Albert Park or the Intercontinental Hotel during the Agnew visit would show this. So would a perusal of our restrictive immigration legislation or an evaluation of New Zealand's role in he South Pacific where we grant political independence while imposing our own economic vice. And if things were really
They're there all right. The underlying attitudes of the New Zealand Joe Hunt which are fast turning this country into a fool's paradise. It is these attitudes which we, the student community, must accept or reject: there is no middle course. Either we drown in the deep waters of indifference which, like Manapouri, the Government would seek to raise, or we can turn what is now a trickle into a flood which will break the dam.
The two issues which in
Gradually the injustices imposed upon society (and us!) by an unenlightened establishment become clear. At this point (hopefully) NZUSA comes into the picture. As Gerard Curry said in Salient on February 18, NZUSA is potentially a highly effective political pressure group. Yet too often too little happens. It is not necessarily important that something must always happen. It is not for NZUSA to take up the cause of every would-be-Jesusfigure and do homage. Rather NZUSA, with the students of New Zealand, can concentrate on two or three issues which with balanced enthusiasm and restraint we can impressively place before the people of New Zealand.
But if nothing does happen, if students are inactive, in effect something has happened: our vote has gone to the status quo by default. The issues which lie before us are clear. Only our decision is uncertain. If local student leaders and the students they represent can write in open cause against what is wrong in the established order, then perhaps the changes which reformers imagine can begin to occur.
The Students' Association over the last few years has been a most striking example of the dynamics of change. When I first arrived at Vic (four years ago) the Association was composed of fewer than five thousand students and was completely run by an executive of fifteen students who made all policy and financial decisions (except certain important decisions which were taken by a General Meeting of the Association). Constant allegations of 'cliquishness' and 'in-group politics' were levelled at the Executive, both in Salient and in general conversation. The Executive of that time met every 2 or 3 weeks. Executive members were efficient and capable, Presidents had a genuine desire to be responsive to student views and the Executive elections were hard-fought and polls were high.
Now, four years later, the Association comprises 5,700 students and the Executive comprises eight students who make all financial decisions of the Association. The only link between the students elected to the Executive is an interest in the Association — this year's Executive form a good working group and get on very well together but did not know each other, except on a very casual basis, prior to election, and did not come from any clearly definable group of student interest. All policy decisions of the Association are to be made by weekly meetings of the SRC (which is open to all students). The Executive elections in
I believe that the changes which occurred had the following causes:
Salient during the year. I was on the Executive — I know that it did its work and did it well. But there was little spark of life except that provided by Gerard Curry.
Well we've got it, due largely to their efforts. We've got student participation on University committees and we've got student representation in its most direct, challenging and promising form, in the SRC. What we need now is action, not words. If the whole structure is not to collapse through inertia, we must get it moving. That's easy to say, I suppose, and again it is action we require. So let it now be understood — to give a fair choice for student reps on University Committees SRC will need at least 70 people standing for appointment. There is a great deal of work to be done by SRC sub-committees — especially Education and International Affairs. Large active committees are needed to work from the beginning of the year. You don't need to be an expert to work on these. Okay — advertisement ends.
Where do we go from here? I think we have reached, on paper, a most exciting concept of advanced democracy within the University. This year the paper theories of participation and representation must be made to work in fact and consolidated into a functioning system. That sounds dull — it needn't be. Basically, the future, particularly the long-term future, is up to you. We've come to the paper recognition that the Association is its students. Do you want to save Manapouri? To have a'charity week' during Capping? To put seats in the Mount Street Cemetry? To have a full discussion on whether marijuana should be legalized? To meet at SRC weekly? To have a new Student Union Building and/or a swimming pool? To halt the All Black tour? What do you want? The Association is what we make of it. What do you want in a biscuit?
Applications are hereby called for student representatives on the undermentioned University bodies. Appointments will be to
Committees of the University Council
Committees of the Professorial Board
Faculty Committees
The new representatives will be elected at the meeting of the Student Representative Council in the Main Common Room S. U.B. on
Applications close with the undersigned at the Students' Association Office on Wednesday 11 March at 4.30 p.m.
Recently I received a telephone call asking me if I would care to look around the new extensions to the Student Union building at Victoria, and express my thoughts on those extensions. I had already been wondering just what on earth was being constructed on top of the Union every time I lurched down the road from John Reid's, and was therefore pleased to have the opportunity to discover more. The tone of the caller told me what to expect.
"We'll have to go around it when the builders aren't there", he said. Not to mention the architect, I had thought. On this somewhat subversive footing we arranged to meet one evening after the five o'clock whistle had gone.
Before going I thought a little mental preparation was necessary. I thought that the architect's task-extending what is an architectural mistake from a previous decade — was an unenviable one, and that it would be as well to be open-minded and charitable about the new building. The trouble was that recent travels have allowed me to see the Student Unions at Auckland, Massey and Ilam, all of them designed by that very fashionable (and good) architect, Miles Warren. Superficially, at any rate, I had already decided that this odd structure was at the opposite end of the architectural social scale, and that objectivity on my part was going to be a pretty tough intellectual exercise. I gave much thought to the difficulties of extending the inextensible — Parliament Buildings say, or the Cathedral. I considered that the architect should either extend in precisely the same style as the original, which in this case would be a pretty hilarious happening, or design something in total architectural counterpoint to that original. The exterior of this building, through my postsquash fog, suggested that the architects — threatened with this Morton's Fork — had attempted to ignore it, and had fallen right into it.
"Well," I say to myself, walking up to meet my guide, "perhaps the exterior belies the virtues of the interior."
We make contact, and I am subjected to a ten-minute diatribe on the evils of the building, on the political ineptitude and chicanery that led to its commissioning, on the all-embracing incompetence of all who are connected with it. My objectivity is fast becoming a thing of the past although it is being replaced by a vague feeling of sympathy for the much-vilified architects. This last disappears in very short order.
A photographer lurks, ready to shoot anything I laugh at or walk into, and away we go through the original building, up towards the extension.
"This is the original Grand Staircase," says my guide. It's a shattering concatenation of yellow and green striped flooring colliding with red and black chequerboarding.
"Very regal." I reply. I can already see the difficulties ahead: the existing plan is of such weird shape and the consequent spaces so unresolved.
"I'll show you the main spaces first and the ancillary accommodation second," says my guide, or words to that effect.
"Lead on," I say, nervously. He leads on into the new rooms.
The first is the Great Hall, It is a huge, clanking space conies, divided in the minded with a ridiculous little
"The position of this
"However, there is a
"Show me," 1 reply.
It is a masterpiece.
I see something else.
"They lean," answers
"I think they are
Lounge, or something,
They do too, at just a
Actually the columns don't appear to have much reason for existence as their base is virtually in space, and anyway there is a line of unequivocally structural supports a few feet away. "Okay, so they're architectural expressions." The higher windows that these columns might or might not be reflecting, lean out like a Control Tower window, at about five times the angle of the columns. "Let's get the hell out of here," I plead, "all these divergent angles are making me cross-eyed."
"Let us look at the mezzanine," the guide snarls, taking me back inside. This Minstrels' thing around the main hall is just about wide enough for one easy chair and a pair of obstructive outstretched legs. It is very long.
"Good for linear conversations," I observe.
"Good for ticket-collecting," he retorts. Still, it does have a view, provided the sun isn't shining too brightly. It also provides some of the most unresolved architectural detailing ever perpetrated. At one corner in particular, it looks as if several trades and their executors have all raced in towards each other, and on meeting, just stopped dead. Columns, windows, timber panels, balustrades, plaster, acoustic tiles, all sort of meet in a recess at the end of the mezzanine. At this point the mezzanine splits into a descending staircase, leaving a very functional, two feet wide approximately, flat space of incredible stupidity.
"Get me out of here," I choke. My open-minded critical faculties are now totally extinguished.
"Prepare yourself," say both the guide and the photographer in sepulchral tones.
"Christ, now what?" I ask.
"The greatest," the guide replies. We approach a pair of double doors. In the room beyond, just out of range of the door-swing, and to all practical purposes right in the middle of the route of travel, stands a large, round, concrete, column.
"No." I cannot believe my eyes.
"Yes," they laugh, "It's true."
This room is truly another masterpiece. It has four or five non-parallel walls, round columns, bits of round columns, bits of square columns, sharp re-entrant corners shamefacedly disguised by triangular meter-cupboards, windows again overlooking the kitchen and yard but positively not the view. Yes, students of architecture must not miss this room. Pevsner must record and immortalise it.
"What the bloody hell is it for?" I am practically screaming.
"I'm not sure yet, but I think it's going to be a music room of some sort."
"That would be it, perfect, in view of the acoustics," I reverberate. "Yes, that is all it needs. To be a music room."
Sadly I turn away from this fantastic room, thinking of the image my beloved profession must present to Academe.
"I'm going for a drink. In fact several." I say, as we totter past valedictory examples of bad building and nondesign, telephone cubicles in fantastically noisy lobbies, doors opening into circulation areas where they will hit someone, rhomboid rooms, inadequate toilet facilities, a cacophany of waste spaces in endless confusion.
"About fifteen hundred words then?" enquires my guide.
"Probably two would suffice," I say, "but I'll try and write something comprehensible." Writing comprehensibly on the incomprehensible is about the same as extending the inextensible, I think to myself.
Standing near the Cable Car on my way to the Western Park Hotel I look back towards the University. With the exception of the Gold-Medal Library Arts Block, it is a mediocre collection of architectural misfits, and I am tempted to think that somebody has got it in for Victoria. The culmination of this mediocrity, the Student Union and its extension, assures me that somebody Has got it in for the students.
Everton Hall — Helen Lowry Hall — Newman Hall — Trinity College — Victoria House
The Victoria University of Wellington Halls of Residence Foundation, Inc., gratefully acknowledges the generosity of the under-mentioned business houses and organisations who have contributed so generously to the appeal launched in 1967 for the budding of Halls of Residence for students of this University.
This list does not include the many hundreds of former students, parents, charitable organisations and trusts and members of the public who have given so freely to the Fund and whose gifts have been privately acknowledged.
In the United Stales, as in most Western countries today, we see a new radicalisation among certain sectors of the population Explosions in the black ghettoes, students occupations of campus buildings, and massive anti-war marches are the must outstanding examples of this, contrasting with the quiescence' of the fifties, — the era of the Cold War, of Joe McCarthy, and of the near-disappearance of left-wing politics to the U.S. This vacation I visited the United States and spoke to participant: in the various struggles across the country By attending the national convention of the Young Socialist Alliance, a revolutionary socialist youth organisation. I got s very dear picture of the direction in which these struggles are heading.
Without a doubt, the radical upsurge has been greatest among students, but already deep inroads have been made into other groups, such as the Afro-American and Mexican-American populations, and soldiers in the American forces — both draftees and lifers —who oppose the Vietnam War in significant numbers The movement against the War and the struggle of blacks and others for certain rights are at the heart of the whole upsurge.
The Black struggle has come a long way from the days of sit-ins at segregated restaurants and Martin Luther King's pacifism Undoubtedly the symbol of today's struggle is Malcolm X, who was developing a revolutionary nationalist perspective just before he was murdered in
Politically, there is s real crisis of leadership in these struggles In default of nationalist leaders the vacuum is filled by conservative and reformist elements such as the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and the Democratic Party.
The Black Panther Parry, which s year ago seemed to be on the point of achieving massive support from the black community, has dwindled everywhere. This is due to incredible pressure on and persecution of its leaders, notably Huey Newton, who has been in jail since mid-
The Black struggle has in recent months been supplemented by a very active and fast-growing movement among Chicanos (Mexican-Americans) for self-determination. There are probably as many as 15 million Mexican-Americans, Irving mainly in the West and Southwest, but also occupying their own ethnic communities in the bigger northern industrial cities Brutally suppressed by whites in the days of the early settlers, the Chicanos today have a greater number of frontline troops in Vietnam in proportion to their population than even the Blacks.
The movement is regrouping its forces after its greatest successes ever the November 15th demonstrations in Washington and San Francisco in which one million marched demanding an immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Vietnam, and the October 15th actions in which several times that number participated in demonstrations all over the country.
The Vietnam Moratorium Committee, mainly responsible for the October 15th actions, is planning to throw its support behind 'peace' candidates in the coming state elections, which means they no longer intend mass actions like the one they just built. The leadership of the New Mobilisation Committee. Largely responsible for November 15th, have turned New Mobe into a 'multi-issue radical' organisation, so that it will only mobilise a fraction of the support it formerly had as a single issue coalition. A key component of New Mobe, the Student Mobilisation Committee, is the only on-going nationwide antiwar group pressing for continuance of mass actions calling for immediate withdrawal from Vietnam The SMC is the only one of the three anti-War coalitions which calls national conferences to ensure democratic decision-making by the anti-War activities. The only New Mobe national conference led to November 15th, and the majority of the leadership does not want a repetition of that.
The leaders of the antiwar movement are more often than not interested only in pushing then own political line, and not in building the independent mass antiwar movement. They may want small 'confrontationist' actions (for example, SDS has not participated in a mass antiwar action since the first one they built in
The most important (and to some the most surprising) development in the student movement as a shole in
The Weatherman faction provides an example of a group going far 'left' anough to border on insanity Recently they held four days of rage' in Chicago in which they were going to "kick the ass of the ruling class" A few hundred Weathermen with helmets and sticks charged down a street in the business area smashing cars and windows.
Over Christmas the Weathermen held a national convention, called a 'war council', attended by about 400 people. One top Weatherman, Ted Gold, stated that the U.S. would have to be run by an "agency of the people of the world" after the revolution, as white Americans had forfeited this right. To Weathermen, white workers are reactionary and impossible to organise and the revolution must be started now "without them".
Bernadine Dohrn, Weatherman leader, opened the Council with a call for armed struggle, a pan of which is terrorism. Political assassination and any kind of violence that is considered anti-social were put forward as legitimate forms of armed struggle "We were in an airplane." Dohrn said, "and we went up and down the aisle borrowing food from peoples' plates. They didn't know we were Weathermen, they just knew we were crazy. That's what we're about, being crazy motherfuckers and scaring the shit out of hanky America."
The Weather Bureau (the leaders) digs Charles Manson (accused murderer of Sharon Tate and others) not only for his understanding of white America —Manson allegedly wrote 'pig' in blood on the wall after murders but also because he's a "bad motherfucker". "Dig it — first they killed those pigs, then they are dinner in the same room with them, then they even shoved a fork into a victim's stomach! Wild!" said Bernadine Dohrn.
Women's Liberation is the newest stream in the radical upsurge in the U.S. today, and it is spreading like wildfire. In New York City alone there are over 100 Women's Liberation groups already Women's Liberation as a whole is still developing its theory, but its starring
The American radical scene, then, is characterised by a major contradiction: at a period of the greatest upsurge for many years, the leadership of the three main streams, Antiwar, Black and Student struggles, are in deep crisis. In fact, all left-wing organisations except one are faced with crises of one sort or another at this point. The Panthers and the SDS have fragmented, Moratorium and New Mobe are bent on suicidal courses, the Communist Party is still scratching its head to find a way of launching a 'youth movement', the Maoists have split into several groups. What then are the aims of the only healthy group?
The Young Socialist Alliance (YSA) Convention which I attended grought together nearly one thousand activists from all over the country. Now larger than any faction of SDS, YSA leaders confidently expect the Alliance to more than double its membership in the next two years, largely among students. Recently several SDS branch leaders — and even whole chapters — joined the YSA en bloc, and more are expected to do so. The YSA magazine Young Socialist, already sells more copies than Monthly Review (an international left-wing journal of long standing) The Socialist Workers Party's Militant has surpassed the well-known Guardian's circulation. Nevertheless, there still remains a base for an old-style SDS — a loose radical formation — among America's seven million university students, and it is only a matter of time before something of this sort emerges.
YSA aims for mass action, democratic decision making, and non-exclusion in the anti-War movement; for control by blacks of their own communities and for the formation of a black political party; for support and participation in Chicano and Women's Liberation struggles; for defence of the Cuban Revolution, the Arab Revolution and the movement for Socialist Democracy in Eastern Europe; and support for the election campaigns of the Socialist Workers Party.
SWP/YSA's strategy is based on the analysis that the American working class, which has not engaged in militant action on a large scale since the mid-forties, will eventually be pressured by economic cutbacks into action again. They hope to be in the right places at the right moments to be large enough to take the lead in those struggles when they emerge and to build them into a mass revolutionary movement which can topple capitalist rule in America. This task is the most crucial in the history of the human race.
The small magazines: Argot — Freed — Frontiers. Each with a personal vision, each extending the realm of literary consciousness, each in the main tribal centres.
Mark Young — escaping a past of promise and the creditors that a man of letters collects;
Dave Mitchell — a delicate fear of publication yet with 3 volumes to shame the Elders unprinted;
Ian Wedde — high for a week in Northern Spain, then strange messages from Jordan, an individual muse of gentle construction, patronised by Landfall;
Russell Haley — scientific-fictive from Leeds gracing us now with his knowledge of the literary grabbag;
Richard Brooke — savage proseur and recently total dramatist exploring the sexual mythos of the insular mind;
Norm Bilbrough — the fear of the individual, also recordist of his masters in subtle portraits;
Sam Hunt — searching for a subject more necessary than himself along the estuaries of boozeheaved brain.
Over these names the bureaucrats sit stupidly unaware that this is where a literature is taking place and not in the fraudulent promulgations of the past. These people need cash to survive and not simply as a token for the services of buffoon or swiver of the Elders' daughters. They are beyond your command yet political patronage controls the pursestrings, be not afraid to cross their palms with silver! They may hang their mad heads in the pines at a later date but they will give you a motherfucking literature in the process. You burned out the brain of Brother Jim Baxter and, although each be a bastard to the muse, you will screw these to death in Thanatos unless you make over the profits of your system to their minds. And there are the other names to plough their deviant ways into your pockets around the comer from these. Largess now and not simply in the erection of shitcreek monuments.
"We have, however, entered quite another time — apocalyptic, anti-rational, blatantly romantic and sentimental ; an age dedicated to joyous misology and prophetic irresponsibility; one distrustful of self-protective irony and too-great self-awareness." Leslie Fiedler, Playboy,
The ungainly spectacle of N.Z.'s largest and most affluent university wasting its resources on preparing for publication a series of local 'classics' (may the good Lord forgive them) when a literature could be made by putting the present company of creators into pamphlet form, examples could be found in Yale, Wesley and Leeds publishing programmes.
The programme to teach N.Z. Lit. in the universities is based on inferior examples, badly researched and criminally misleading — a farce for all seasons.
Landfall — which everybody knows to be a shit of journal and not worth the lingering death it indulges itself in.
The tradition of criticism that has formulated those inferior models, we weep for the coming of a scholar or erudition, sympathy and humanity.
The weekend schools of writing that convince the gullible, the untalented, the schoolteachers, the housewives that literature is accessible to the mediocre.
The presses that print the bullshit that issues hard upon these schools.
The State literary Fund for condescension to the writers it should be rescuing with generosity and grace.
The anthologies which have proclaimed the mediocre to be masters and which removed dignity from the genuinely talented, their philosophies which tainted our minds with the crap their conceit and arrogance lead them to state as fact.
Kurt Von Meier who introduced a number of teachers to Pound's A.B.C. of Reading and made our first serious art criticism.
Phoenix, which was the model for all future literary magazines and which gave us Curnow.
The introduction of the American Lit. teaching programme in Auckland University, now imitated elsewhere, and its two teachers: Doyle and Horrocks.
Ken Smithyman for the poetry and for A Way of Saying which helped us to take ourselves seriously in a time of need.
Allen Curnow's later poetry.
The small magazines which aided the eccentric in his definition of a literature and sustained him in his outside stance. The Arts Festival Literary Yearbook and its, mostly, intuitive editors.
The introduction of the Grove Press 6c City Lights Books catalogues into the country by inspired booksellers.
Janet Frame who did her own thing in her own time and was proud, and who created The Edge Of The Alphabet.
Keith Sinclair, who gave us a history.
The State Literary Fund which gave finance to some of the above was also necessary.
Language and Silence, George Steiner, to aid the spiritual.
The Cantos of Ezra Pound, to keep us humble.
Selected Works of Alfred Jarry, Watson Taylor 6c Shattuck, to keep us insane.
Eros and Civilisation, Marcuse, to keep us sane.
Understanding Media, McLuhan, which is provocative.
The Young American Poets, Carroll, because it's helpful.
This slim but costly volume of verse contains work published since Our Burning Time (
The central failing of this poet is his inconsistency of method. Most often his style is One thing literature would be greatly the better for Would be more restricted employment of simile and metaphor.
Like Matthew Arnold, O'Sullivan is fascinated by the sea as a symbol of human hope and reason. His Island Bay is almost an echo of Arnold's Isolation. Associated images of rivers, winds, harbours and bridges reinforce the poet's concern for what is unplumbed in this world. If one is a bad poet, one should always attempt to fathom the unfathomable. He writes that seas/Rub down rockiest quartz to smooth as glass, and does his best to convey intimations of a mystic way — entirely Other — of seeing the earth and men:
And the thin muffling, oh how far above,Of nothing we name for certain.
And again:
I know the vase of flowers beside the gameIs on the verge of nothing,Is on the edge of something.
He does tire one's patience, however, by re-opening the debate between passion and reason. His poems about women ('girls'), too, weary the reader with their one-sidedness. He sees women as mediocre and threatening, even cruel. Chaucer's Man of Law could see the serpent under femynynytee, and O'Sullivan associates snakes with women in three separate poems. Love is one of the many subjects which encourage the poet to subside into a slough of sentimentality: as he himself puts it — sentiment in my head/Roaring and roaring like some unnatural bird. The verse grows tacky and tear-spotted as O'Sullivan dedicates to his beloved some blades of grass her skirt has brushed: Hers too till earth on its last track has run . . . And, oh joy! when his soul claps with delight in In Every Casual Flower. The six stanzas of How to forget ... are not, after all, as maudlin as they first appear; but large tears of nausea trickled down the reviewer's cheeks as he read Each Poem I Write Is Yours. In matters poetical, sentimentality spreads a pall over this isolated land of ours.
O'Sullivan makes up for his loftiness of sensibility by occasionally posing as a man in the street. Well then, he will say in the middle of stanza; and where simile fails he can say almost, a kind of and or nearly. His uninventiveness in matters metaphoric drives him into neo-hopkinsian efforts like guirky, skying, silkily and an odd group of negatives including
The reasons for the poet's failure are manifold but could be severally ascribed to his self-consciousness. This author, I feel, wants to be a 'poet'. He drops the occasional hint that his soul is not that of an ordinary mortal (as in No Secret and Evening), but he gives us meagre evidence to substantiate this claim. O'Sullivan is at his best when describing what affects him alone and not when he attempts to give strong thematic lines to his verse. So it is that his observations of nature are sometimes acute and startling, and almost always engaging.
Revenants is worth reading for the passable prose of Gaugin Painted a Lizard, the purely descriptive part of Time-piece and the wholly competent study of religious insanity in his prize-winning sonnet-sequence. As for the remainder, however, its obscurity, its violent shifts of tone, its perversity, its sentimentality and its self-consciousness will daunt all but the most selfless of readers.
Sonny Boy Williamson, real name Willie or Rice Miller, was born in Glendora, Mississippi about
This is the fourth Chess album made by Sonny Boy and the second to be released here, and it would probably be the best, by a slight edge, over the other Chess album More of the Real Folk Blues.
The music on this album was recorded around
His absolute control over the harp is amazing, particularly on Checkin' Up On My Baby, Mr Downchild, Too Young To Die, and Bring It On Home To Me, which are the outstanding tracks on this set. Sonny Boy's fusion of instrument and vocal is only part of the pathos and cunning skill of this artist — one of the most colorful and memorable artists in blues history.
Take a listen to this album—especially if you like Chicago blues—Sonny Boy Williamson—or simply good old Rhythm and Blues.
At one time Blind Lemon Jefferson was the best known of the rural blues singers. Then, with interest in blues music increasing, he fell out of favour for some unknown reason and was sadly overlooked in the reissue programme. This omission has been made good in recent years by the issuing overseas of at least Four albums. One of these—and it's the best in my opinion—has been released here in New Zealand.
An objective assessment of blues would have to concede that Blind Lemon was amone the greatest ten singers and his advanced guitar work would rank him even higher in some opinions. He was very influential, he stands as an epitome of Texas bluesmen and his lyrical inventiveness if rivalled by few others.
His intricate guitar technique complements his unstrained voice to perfection—especially listen to Hangman's Blues on this album which is one of the outstanding tracks. Although this technique was complex it never seems to be decorative or unnecessary but provides an integral part of his style.
Blind Lemon was a great influence on the Texas style', if such a style exists, of such singers as Lightnin' Hopkins and Huddie Lead better even on T-Bone Walker who was once his "lead boy" as was Josh White.
Blind Lemon Jefferson died in See That My Grave Is Kept Clean has been fulfilled in recent years by the efforts of blues lovers in America, with the assistance of Alan Lomax. The sound quality of this LP is quite the best I have heard considering the fact that the original pressings were the product of the Paramount Record Company, who were notorious for the dubious quality of their products, especially the excessive surface noise. The recording on this album—made from 78's recorded in the late 20's—must have been made from either exceptionally clear masters or else in reprocessing 'cleaning up' has been achieved without affecting the original sound.
I strongly recommend this album as essential to all blues lovers and would like to add that if this LP sells well there could be a second volume released that is almost as good.
To the National Government and rising prices, add another of life's dismal inevitables: a continuing decline in the standard of cinema attractions during the holidays.
Unfortunately I only left Wellington for a few days and landed up in Nelson. The choice there was even more diabolical: The Longest Day and The Battle of Britain each running in the same fortnight in the city's only theatres.
Meanwhile, in the Capital, things improved briefly during November when the chains used the "silly season" to unload a few embarrassments. Amalgamated went on a culture plunge before the roadshows camped down. The Plaza blazed off with a couple of strong pieces on military/social themes.
Rod Steiger let all stops out in The Sergeant (WarnerSeven Arts), as a man caught between the forces of an authoritarian complex and the inability to find expression for his emotional needs. His vague homosexual attraction to a soldier (John Philip Law) was suppressed in the interests of pride, which became twisted into a dominating possessiveness. The sergeant's self-destructive bent was not guilt about homosexuality, but was connected with his bowing to "weakness", something shameful to the military mind. If the acting was sometimes over-done and the message occasionally delivered with hammer blows, its moments of sensitive direction (by newcomer John Flynn) and careful photography made it one of the more thoughtful recent films.
The Long Day's Dying (Paramount) was even less inhibited, almost to the point of violent hysteria, as it followed the fortunes of three British soldiers trapped behind enemy lines. Charles Wood's script concerned itself in part with one soldier's dilemma of pacifist/professional killer mentality and in general dwelt on the horror of physical violence rather than the stupidities and futility of war (as in Wood's scripts for Charge of the Light Brigade and How I Won the War, the latter still unreleased in Wellington). At times Peter Collinson's direction showed a tendency to make as much as possible from every minor incident. Too often he underlined the obvious when subtlety was needed. But if he couldn't always control the special effects, he did extract some fine performances from his actors.
Baby Love (Avco Embassy-20th Century Fox) wasn't particularly good but it went about as far as one would want it to. A Lolita-ish teeny-bopper, possessed presumably with the curse of her dead mother (a rejected prostitute), moves in with the household of a former lover of her mother's who is now a respectable doctor. The girl soon sets things rolling when she awakens the wife's lesbian tendencies. The girl then sexually ridicules the son, and in one sequence is gang raped military-style in front of him, before she accidentally kills him in the shower. The doctor is not free from her advances either and she does her best to seduce him.
Vittorio de Sica's A Place for Lovers" (MGM) was a stylish but mindless glossy in which Faye Dunaway again showed off a flashy wardrobe, this time to impress Marcello Mastroianni.
Over the road, the Kings flowered with the sex-pot-comedy I Love You, Alice B Toklas, which featured Peter Sellers in a good role as the lawyer-cum-hippie along with a bevy of gags and a delicious performance by Leigh Taylor Young. Unfortunately Alice was struck down by the prevailing morality on drugs and the censor found little amusement in pot cookies and consequently went to work with the scissors.
The year's most under-rated film. The Gypsy Moths, did a box-office sky-dive thanks to MGM's total lack of confidence in it. Perhaps Metro, a company which can ill afford to throw away any film, was so relieved at ending John Frankenheimer's contract it couldn't wait. Frankenheimer is one of the many directors whose films are being released out of sequence in Wellington. His two previously made films for MGM (The Extraordinary Seaman and The Fixer) have yet to be seen.
True to form, Frankenheimer turned what could have been just an ordinary action film into strong drama. The sky-diving sequences are excellent and Burt Lancaster gives an assured performance resembling that of The Swimmer. Frenkenheimer's handling of nudity was more confident than in Seconds, ranging from a very lady-like Deborah Kerr in the buff to the seedy bosomy go-go tart of Sheree North. The small-town mid-West setting spoke volumes about the type of society which gives full backing to Nixon and the Bible.
The Lido continued to alternate between art and crap, with the former getting a good run early on. Truffaut's Stolen Kisses (United Artists) was another screened out of sequence in the director's career, though the fate of The Bride Wore Black (United Artists) is no fault of Amalgamated's. Stolen Kisses continued the quasi-auto-biographical story begun in 400 Blows, taking it on past adolescent love to include a brief Mrs Robinson-style affair. The whole piece was charming if unevenly strung together. Truffaut's quirkish tricks were again evident but the humour was captivatingly appealing.
The David O. Selznick season revived the sprawling, extravagant classic Duel in the Sun and some good vintage Hitchcocks, of the which the best Notorious, wasn't a Selznick at all. Louis Malle's Thief of Paris (United Artists) was a sophisticated tum-of-the-century tale of a slick gentleman anarchist burglar (a suave Jean-Paul Belmondo— who never got caught. Sidney Lumet's The Appointment (MGM) was a Belle de Jour/A Man and a Woman hybrid in which the green-eyed monster chomped its way through acres of mise-en-scene. Lumet s two previous films (it's no longer a trend but a disease), both made for Warners — Seven Arts (Bye, Bye Braverman and The Seagull), have yet to be released.
Kerridge-Odeon, battling to release a huge backlog of films, really got things moving down at the Embassy after Funny Girl departed. Following up Isadora, Universal provided the lively, spectacular musical Sweet Charity which made a welcome change from the usual overbudgetted bombs. Shirley MacLaine and director Bob Fosse showed how musicals ought to be made and turned out the best since West Side Story — a three-week season was far less than it deserved.
Sidney Poitier rejoined the human race after his long sojourn in never-never land with his militant role in the thriller The Lost Man (Universal). It's good to see that a studio whose American production is based mainly on formula TV action melodrama can move with the times to the extent that it will back something like this on racialism and violence. Word is that Poitier felt the original was too strong and would hurt his image but, even with the cuts he ordered. The Lost Man still came over hard and fast.
Goodbye Columbus (Paramount) hit the market just at the right time: when people would rather think about sex and summer than exams. Director Larry Pcerce (The Incident) knew where to place the emphasis: liberal sprinklings from Philip Roth's novella, plenty of beautiful Ali McGraw and an irreverence which made it seem so easy to be entertaining.
The Embassy rounded off the year with The Wild Bunch (Warners-Seven Arts), a western of such magnificence and violence that Sam Peckinpah can assure himself of a glowing place in the cinema pantheon. Using a thoroughly professional cast of veterans, Peckinpah crafted an action spectacular which leaves all the others way behind.
The shocking thine at the Embassy, however, is its penny-pinching policy of showing films intended for 70mm in 35mm when 70mm equipment is on hand. No concession for the patrons tnough: you pay the inflated prices but don't see the big-screen original.
At the Majestic, an early release was given to Sergio Leone's Once Upon a Time in the West (Paramount) in which the fatner of the Italian sagebrush sagas acquired the big-budget, big-star, big-story carte-blanche only to have it trimmed down to just over two hours, thus destroying a lot of the film's continuity. But with Henry Fonda, Jason Robards and Charles Bronson on hand, Leone's West still had the mark of an original, even if he has learned the hard way that while big budgets may make better films in some cases, they also make studios more nervous.
Well, here I am in Wellington. Orientation was like we imagined with everyone telling us how we must go to parties, join all those clubs and have a real ball instead of just sitting around and vegetating. I don't think much of the Varsity birds. Most of them look like school teachers, and about thirty. None of them are as nice as you, and I keep thinking about you, especially that last Saturday night. Gee, I don't think I will ever forget that night, although it was unfortunate about the handbrake, wasn't it? Oh, by the way, I found one of your hair clips the other day. You'll never guess where, you won't believe it — in the washing machine! Isn't that a scream? Too much, I thought. Must go now.
Thank-you for your letter. I am glad you found my hair clip, I wonder how it got into the washing machine. Are you going to shave your beard now? The wether here is fab, it was nearly 80 yesterday, but it is colder today, thats what the TV said, anyhow.
Did anyone ever tell you that you have beautiful handwriting? I thought it must have been your letter when it arrived so I locked myself in the outhouse and read it over and over, hundreds of times. Every word is engraved on my memory forever. I have enclosed a photograph of me that I had taken the other day specially for you. Please send me one of yourself, so that when I get lonely I can take it to bed with me, sort of as a substitute, you know. Every time I put on my handbrake I think of you, dearest. See you in May.
Thank-you for the photo. I am sending you one taken at school. I am eleventh from the right in the back row, with a fringe. Yesterday our cat Tommy had eight kittens in the clothes cupboard. Dad was very annoyed because she did it all over his clean shirts, and Mum had to iron him a clean one. Ross cleaned it up, and I went to work early. The wether is still fab. I hope it is good in Wellington.
I have been thinking of you all the time, in bed, in the shower, in all sorts of funny places like that. I have put some poetry that echoes in my soul on paper, just for you. You have to fill in the blank spaces, but don't write them in in case your mother finds it. Oh Zelda, Zelda, when I see the moon at night I think of the glorious nights we spent under the same golden glow, and the stars remind me of the tiny lights I saw in your eyes on those long languid evenings after sunset, when we lay on the riverbank together. In the universe of my life you, Zelda, are the sun about which all meaning and truth and beauty revolve. Without you, my life would be as the earth without gravity: a vacuum, asterile lifeless monotony relieved only by bitter-sweet memories. Memories of those few, those all too brief, those pain and pleasure days of our togetherness. I love you, love you, love you, my sweetheart, my life. It is almost as much as I can bear to wait until May. Won't it be fantastic? Just like the night in the car — remember — when I bent the handbrake.
The flowers were very nice, Mum made an arrangement and put it in the toilet, it looked very nice. I told her Mary sent them. Brian and I got engaged last week, and we are getting married in May, so you can come to the wedding if you like. I missed this month, so we have to get married in a hurry, I don't mind really, cause I will be able to lie in all morning, and ring my friends in the afternoon.
The only problem associated with the television death of Young Turk Shand is that of deciding whether it was murder or suicide. (Give a man enough cathode ray tube and he'll electrocute himself?) There is, however, no doubt in my mind that WNTV1 has come up with an entirely new technique of political death-dealing. Briefly, it might be described as the rebirth of cock-fighting. All the political animals are bundled into the same cage and left to claw each others eyes out with no interference from their handlers. Despicable events then ensue. Obstructionism, irrelevance, name-calling and incoherence. The most despicable is declared the winner or loser, depending on whether he is an Old Turk (a la Muldoon) or a Young Turk (Shand). Satisfying though the result may occasionally be it is a sad comment on local television's ability to create the atmosphere where important issues can be properly put forward.
From the ridiculous to the sublime and at the risk of being labelled a snivelling capitalist crypto-fascist errand boy, might I record that by far the best programme screening at this time is The Life and Times of Lord Mountbatten. To call this offering (made by an independent commercial company, surprisingly enough) a documentary is to do it less than justice. Rather it represents an extremely well-executed re-run of modern history—courtesy of Mountbatten himself whose unique approach could easily be dubbed 'involved detachment'. Whiskery newsreels take on a new life and immediacy and Mountbatten elucidates rather than supplies footnotes. He exudes a controlled excitement which in anyone else (Muggeridge particularly) would come across as bored cynicism. He is at his most devastating when quoting from his own letters—as they appear in a multitude of other people's memoirs. With seven more in the series to go this programme is highly recommended.
Perhaps the NZBC might be prevailed upon to hire Mountbatten as replacement for Ian Cross whose long-heralded End of a Decade showed us the '60's as they never were. Granted, the research and film facilities of the NZBC are not exactly encouraging but this is no excuse for compressing so much history into so little screen time or for allowing a decade of New Zealand's past to be trivialised to the point where the only hint of progress was that Jack Marshall is looking older these days. One man's eyes were clearly insufficient in this case a team job would have been much more satisfying. But then again that would have cost more money and that's what buys us "Coronation Street" and "Peyton Place". We must get our priorities right, mustn't we?
First class way of making All Gas and Gaiters bearable. Imagine the Archdeacon is Arnold Nordmeyer.
New news time is a definite step in the right direction and this is particularly noticeable on Sunday evenings where, prior to the changeover, the evening's viewing rarely got off the ground until 8.15. Much dead wood has been pruned from the news which, when it loses those appalling blackouts, could have a fair degree of punch (give or take a satellite receiving station or two). Then the next objective must surely be a television version of the excellent radio feature Checkpoint.
Finally: my message to that lovable trio of samaritans who, through no fault of their own, have slaved through many a series to ease the excruciating lot of the Tannochbrae sick and infirm—piss off.