Mudslingers Sling Back

Your political editor is well astray in his comments on University political Clubs, reported in the last issue of "Salient". Might I point out just a few of the errors in Mr. Haas's article.

We are accused of mud-slinging and lack of constructive political activity. Such accusations are at variance with the facts. Mr. Haas must surely agree that the meetings last year addressed by Mr. Nordmeyer and Mr. Nash were hardly of a destructive nature. Mr. Nordmeyer spoke on Labour's policy and Mr. Nash on the philosophy of the Labour party. The Labour Party Club held a meeting in December specifically to discuss and formulate remits for the Annual conference of the Party. This is certainly constructive politics and aiming at serious political thought. Perhaps Mr. Haas was not aware of this meeting.

I am pleased to see that he mentions the active part played by the Labour Party Club in the Election campaign. I can think of few things more constructive on the part of a political club than assisting its party in such a way. This involved a lot of hard work and sacrifice on the part of our members, hardly the "pure sophistry" that Mr. Haas speaks of.

Perhaps it was Mr. Norman Kirk's meeting that upset him. White I would agree that such a topic is not entirely constructive, surely criticism of the present government is a perfectly legitimate political activity. Criticism is not mudslinging which is what Mr. Haas seems confused with.

And incidentally regarding the attendance figure at Mr. Kirk's meeting, I am sure that this was intended to be 95, as this is the correct figure.

Mr. Haas's remarks are so wide of the mark that I am prompted to ask him to think in future before he makes such sweeping statements.

No Procesh

Sir,—How about having no Procesh this year? It would be interesting to see the effect on those deprived of their annual exhibitionist adolescent cavortings.

I think particulraly of the effect on the trouserless gentleman who, last year, paraded his toilet prowess greatly to the delight of only himself.

In fact I wonder whether Wellington's lavatory walls are the source of Procesh students' humour. or merely provide a further outlet.

Answers to Correspondents:

"Ba Choir go Mbdeadh Naire ort": Sorry, we do not print unsigned letters. They must carry name, address and usual signature.

Unwarranted Conclusions

I would like to warn against unwarranted conclusions which might be drawn from Mr, Lojkine's reference to Esperanto at the N.Z.U.S.A. Congress, as reported in your issue last week. Languages such as Esperanto are word oriented but this is a deliberate policy followed because, like the insistence on having no exceptions and rules, it maximises the ease of learning the language. A medium which is to be useful as a second language for people of diverse linguistic backgrounds and with a wide range of intellectual capacity (not merely university graduates) must be one which does not require eighteen years for a professional linguist to gain "instinctive use" of it. To learn new forms of word order is much more difficult than to learn new words for old concepts. Mr. Lojkine's remarks provide a further argument for the choice of a deliberately planned language for international use since the criteria of excellence cannot be quite the same as for a national language which is learned from birth and becomes the very basis of a person's thinking.

Cassius Crud

Sir,—Your Mr El Muhummad AI Crud is the greatest ... he is the king ... In fact Cassius had nothing on him.