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First Editor Looks Back

In the Beginning Was the Word . . . .

It was decided that in future the student association paper should try to link University life more closely with that of the outside world on the assumption that if the war which seemed likely to occur ever did begin, it would at least be an advantage to have a few clues what it was about. This change to a more serious attitude was shown elsewhere in University life by the passing of more radical motions at debates, in the formation of new clubs and discussion groups and in the frequent personal expression of grave doubt regarding the honesty of Mr. Neville Chamberlain's foreign policy.

The Exec appointed the editor and the editor appointed his staff. We were given carte blanche; there were no policy tags.

The original "Salient" staff were in full agreement with the proposed change, and Derek Freeman, Assistant Editor, suggested a new name was needed for the new paper. The present name was his suggestion. He also planned the layouts and wrote energetically and capably — verse, reports, reviews.

Derek is at the moment, I think, Professor of Anthropology at an Australian University. Ron Meek, of Extrav. fame, now lecturer in Economics at Glasgow, was Literary Editor and proved a news-hound with an infallible nose for game Among a number of first-rate scoops must be counted his interview with Count von Luckner, in the course of which the Count, in all innocence, confirmed our published doubts about the morality of pre-war British foreign policy. "You wait until Germany and Britain get together," Luckner told Ron. "Then everything will be fixed". Six months later came Munich and the fulfilment of his prophecy. Vesta Emmanuel, the late Mary Dowrick (then Mary Brisbo) and Harold Gretton wrote lively and interesting things in a wide variety of forms. Morrie Boyd's quiet efficiency as Assistant Editor kept us in good repute with the printer, a labour of Hercules, and gave us, as well, good material to publish. John Bullock, our Business Manager, procured a steady flow of advertisements for all pages but the first, which was never thus despoiled. Lara Sandford and Ruth Singleton were the Sports Editors and Eddie Robertson would emerge at a run from the lab, just in time to see the distribution of each issue.

This staff ran "Salient" as a fully co-operative effort: that was the reason for its success. At formal staff meetings ideas were pooled and policy decided. There was agreement that far from avoiding controversial subjects we should grapple earnestly with them; that the common editorial impartiality was usually not genuine and should be frankly abandoned. Instead, we would put our names to what we wrote, leaving the students to attach their own value to it.

But it was not all as grim or high-minded as it sounds. Most of the staff unbent in verse sooner or later and the "Cautionary Tales" of Ron Meek were by no means the only things which produced hearty laughter.

By the third issue the circulation had doubled and had reached the then-record total of 600 out of a roll of 900 students.

On the Wednesday evenings of its appearance, most heads in the Common Rooms were buried behind a spread of "Salients", of which, one would be lowered for a minute to allow the owner to take part in an argument going on about something said in it, before he hid himself again. The staff watched these reactions with keen interest and very often wrote with them in mind.

In review, it is probably this gadfly function of the students' paper which was among its best contributions to university thought; to stir the complacent, to question the accepted, to provoke argument. For this is a real and a necessary function of an undergraduate paper. If students don't question accepted values, they are not running according to their form. It is among the educated young people that intellectual curiosity should be most plainly shown. "Salient" partly embodied this idea.

It has usually embodied, too, a good deal of the liberal tradition of official student thought at Victoria as expressed in various clubs and societies, a tradition as real as it is honourable and long-lived. Moreover there has been general recognition of its right to do this. When it ceases to embody the liberal tradition of Victoria it will cease to be "Salient".

The original staff appreciated sincerely the attitude of the Student Association Exec., which commissioned the first issues. We knew they disagreed with much of what we said: sometimes they probably disagreed very strongly. But never once was there any suggestion of pressure on our policy or even the remotest hint of the humiliation of censorship. They had given us the job to do, they said, and provided we did the job well we would have a free hand. This was indeed the case and they thereby came to stand so much the higher in the yes of all their contemporaries. Congratulations to "Salient" on its twentieth birthday. May it continue to provoke and entertain, to sting and to amuse. All who have ever worked on it would, I know, like me to offer it their best wishes.