Scoop

For five short minutes, Mr. Evison then proceeded to dismember the Charter Society, whose leaflet provided the best laughs of the evening, The leaflet stated that the Charter Society "were told that the file of WFDY had been closed to scrutiny by students. These orders had been issued by the Secretary of the Exec." Mr. Evison denied ever having given such orders. In fact, he said, the secretary of the Charter Society. Mr. Cotton, had on the same day phoned him to ask for permission to use the office duplicator to print a leaflet, and had not mentioned anything about wanting the file. Moreover, he had pointed out the misstatement to Mr. Cotton, and told him he could see the file any time he liked, but the Charter Society Committee, nevertheless, decided to continue distributing the leafllet.

The leaflet claimed that WFDY literature was "prohibited to all except Mr. Evison and his henchmen" (laughter). "I would like to know." said Mr. Evison, "where these henchmen of mine are."

Mr. K. O'Brien: "Here!" (cheers).

Mr. Evison went on to speak about WFDY. The main criticism was that WFDY had become a political organisation. Mr. Evison denied that this was so, and quoted a written report received last year, from Mr. Holly-man in Paris, which Mr. O'Brien appeared to have overlooked. "The Federation is not a political organisation; but where activity towards the achievement of its aims requires the adoption of a political attitude, then it does not hesitate to do so. It should also be remarked that political discrimination is at times exercised against the WFDY in connection with activities which have no political character."

The opinion of the majority of the Executive was that we should not disaffiliate—he produced a written statement to this effect, signed by nine of the thirteen Executive members.