A Voice for Survival

A Giles-style choirboy could have been added in our cartoon, poking out his tongue at the choirmistress and singing the wrong hymn—probably "Peace, perfect peace." He would have been labelled "The Auckland Star."

"While the bulk of our dailies apparently approve of the endless vista of H-bomb tests, the "Star" has launched a lone' star campaign on behalf of human survival—echoed, subsequently, by the Christchurch "Star-Sun" and one Invercargill paper.

This very practical suggestion was hailed by one solitary M.P.—Mr. Warren Freer—who, in telegrams to the Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition, commented on the number of messages he had received from his constituents expressing approval of the idea.

But Mr. Holland practically called the idea disloyal, and Mr. Nash, pooh-poohed its practicability.

A week later the "Star" commented again: "There is no logical stopping-place in nuclear development. There is only the simple conviction of ordinary people everywhree that the whole thing is wrong, and hideously wrong. ... As both Mr. Holand and Mr. Nash are humane men, the best comment on their attitudes is the biblical 'Oh ye of little faith'."

It went on to remind them both of the koral force of an earlier New Zealand venture into independent foreign policy—Sir William Jordan's stand at Geneva over collective security in 1936. "He said the League had lapsed into futility as the result of the vacillation of governments, 'and not because of the indecision of peoples. He, and the Government for which he spoke, that dad did honour to New Zealand.

"Today there is a far greater cause, a far greater opportunity, for a leader—one who is not frightened or flattered either by London or by Washington—to speak plainly and boldly for New Zealand and all have-not nations."

Salient heartily endorses these comments, both as a welcome break in the press's right-wing unanimity, and for their own sakes. We also welcome the publicity given (largely through the offices of the same paper) to the protests raised at Auckland University College, especially by Dr. J. M. Farley and a number of island students, against the danger which the Christmas Island tests will constitute to New Zealand's island territories.

This protest, and [unclear: the] stand of O.U. Council and N.Z.U.S.A. over Apartheid in South African universities, and recent issues of the student papers at Otago and Auckland, assure us that (like unexpected samples of the daily press) the New Zealand university community still has some guts.