Now Quiet

Today all is relatively quiet—at least on the surface; the present racial disturbances in Selma and Birmingham in the Deep South seem to have affected this town but little. However, it was not my impression that this town was complacent at the time of the crisis, or is so now.

At the time of the crisis the daily newspaper in Little Rock, the Arkansas Gazette, wrote a series of stringent Editorials castigating Governor Faubus and his supporters. As a direct result the Gazette won the 1958 Pulitzer Prize for public service. To my knowledge, there is no paper in New Zealand capable either of being responsible for such gifted editorials, or of taking such a clear, independent and unbiassed view of such a crisis situation.

Since 1957 progress has been made. Not as much as I would like to see, but social change is often slow. I would like now to document some of these changes, and make a few comments as and where these seem appropriate.