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Salient. An Organ of Student Opinion at Victoria College, Wellington, N.Z. Vol. 14, No. 5. May 24, 1951

[Introduction]

Thursday evening April 5 saw the Socialist Club grow into its 6th year of existence. It was the occasion of the 5th annual general meeting of the Club, at which 40 students were present under the chairmanship of Pip Piper—the speaker being Doug Foy, just recently back from 3 months in Australia.

The content of Doug's address centred on his experiences in Australia. He analysed the present political situation over there, particularly with reference to the coming election—the great possibility that Labour will be returned because the people in general weren't interested in suppressing Communism, but more interested in raising their own living standards—a thing that Menzies is not doing. He also outlined the origin of the Victorian Rail strike. A settlement of the dispute had taken place, but the Commissioner did not ratify it because the worker representative happened to be a Communist Towards the end he mentioned a problem in Australia, which is very seldom discussed—that of the Aborigines. Compared with the treatment of the Aborigines, our own treatment of the Maoris has been angelic. With the compounds at Alice Springs and Darwin, the policy of the Australian authorities has been one of extermination.

The next items of the agenda centred on discussion on the Club's immediate aims. The executive policy of a drive within the College to collect signatures for Peace Appeal to ban the Atom Bomb and all weapons of mass destruction, was endorsed. The new executive was requested to draw up a campaign in the 2nd term to protest against increased exam fees, and to bring down proposals for an increased bursary scheme.

The healthy state of the Club was shown in the way that the appointments for officers were made. The United Front character can be seen from the results and that practically every position was contested—there were 10 nominations for the four positions on the committee.