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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 12, No. 4. May 4th 1949

No Man's Land

No Man's Land

Sir,

The Charter Society, a newly formed Nationalist organisation, has recently obtained for itself publicity of one sort and another, but now, abandoning such things as broadsheets and notices, they have now begun to publish a small paper known modestly as "Charta." It is at present suffering badly from lack of copy, and is blatantly padded with oversize headings and meaningless self-advertisements, but once this initial difficulty is overcome, it should be able to propagandize in quite a satisfactory manner. The intention of the paper (it says here) is to arouse interest in politics. This in itself is a good thing, but it is to be hoped that the staff will not confine themselves purely to material which illustrates their own party line. There are a few Salient people on the staff, but most have had no previous journalistic experience. We wish them joy of it.

Mr. Hutchings enjoys himself making caustic references to the "mystic ritual of Communist justice" and says further that "any digression from the metaphysical ideal Communist society is a most horrible sin, to be suppressed by force ... it (Communism) is a philosophy and an eschatology claiming to regulate the whole life of society, all religion and culture and finally the state itself." But he doesn't make any reference to the time when Roman Catholicism maintained an identical position by identical methods. Nor, furiously enough, does he make any mention of the Great American Witch-hunt. Hmm.

"About People" is a charming little essay in veiled personalities, from one of the sub-editors. It is one of the few articles here that is up to any standard at all.

The Literary Editor expresses a desire to publish "strong meat," and then gives out with some rather rank parsnips. To be perfectly frank (and Ernest), it is a long time since I have read such sententious rubbish as—

"To go ahead is to prevent to prevent it is destruction of the significance image in the raindrop."

It is also incoherent, and if it is a joke, it is in extremely bad taste.

The Drama Club's major production is given an enthusiastic review, but the author should be more careful. To say "after three performances as a maid I would like to see her in some wider Tole," is a statement liable to be misunderstood by low-minded people like myself.

Mr. Reid states the orthodox position on conscription with more logic than is usually seen in such articles, and provided a very satisfactory excuse for blowing the dust off somebody's old picture of a tank.

"Children's Corner" is in the sympathetic little hands of Francis Cur-tin.

The Sports Editor invites progress reports from clubs and wants to foster club rivalry.

On the whole an entertaining little tuppence-worth, in a handy size on soft paper: it is only In it's infancy now, but we (An expect some good material from the paper when the editors grow up.—Anon.

(This letter does not necessarily reflect editorial opinion.—Ed.).