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Salient: An Organ of Student Opinion At Victoria University College, Wellington, N. Z. Vol. 24, No. 4. 1961

"Religious Legalist" Supported

"Religious Legalist" Supported

Dear Sir,—"Religious Legalist," in his reply to "Middle-Way" in the last issue, gives an admirable defence of individuality. He fails, however, to mention the saddening lack of it in the students of this university. To my mind the general conformity of behaviour of students at Victoria (and other N.Z. universities) is worst manifested in a general apathy towards the moral, political and social questions. In this connection, I note with approval that the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament is staging a march at Easter. One could wish, though, that Questions affecting life in this country more intimately were the subject of student marches or demonstrations, for example the monstrous powers of arrest and suppression recently granted to the N.Z. Police, and the die-hard attitude of the public censors, who, in their haste to protect young minds from "perversion," are preventing intelligent adults from enjoying what is elsewhere considered some of the world's great modern literature. It is sad to note that, far from being the leaders of the liberal element of society that reviles such measures, our students are in fact part of the apathetic, even ignorant public that accepts them without question.

Why must we leave it to the bodgies and the beats to be rebels? It is the duty of the student to be well-informed and critical of aspects of national life—to protest ii necessary, in no uncertain terms, against what he sees as injustice or repression. Unlike the Beats, we have Something to Rebel Against!

Yours faithfully,

J. K. Murphy.

(Abridged).