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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Student's Newspaper. Volume 31, Number 9. May 21 1968

Letters To The Editor

Letters To The Editor

Off Beam, Outside

Sir,—Students are indeed fortunate to have as original a humorist working for their edification and amusement as the writer of the "Outside Left" column.

Last week he told us that when he wrote that nobody would risk their bourgeois career to become chairman of the COV he really meant that nobody would stand against Barry Mitcalfe. Perhaps this week he will reveal that when he referred to me as a physics student he really meant that I hold three degrees from this University; this would at least prove that he (or she) knows how to read the University calendar.

Although I sat my last units in 1964. I suppose that I still am a student in the sense that I am still prepared to learn—something apparently that certain Salient correspondents will never do.

(This letter was omitted from the previous issue in error, — Ed.)

Yours faithfully,

John Gough

Absent ?

Sir,—Salient's Hedda Hopper (the journalistic eunuch who created the "Outside Left" column of April 23) obviously was not at the Political Science Society/Labour Club wine and cheese evening which he reported in such detail. The only brands of wine served were: Corbans, Penfolds, Wahiri, Vidals and McWilliams, in equal quantities. To which of these does he refer in his statement "the well-made New Zealand wine is undrinkable"?

The "round half-dozen Labour M.P.'s" he mentions in fact numbered "round twenty-one", and his inference that the Society (and the Labour Club) made a sinister profit by economising on wine, cheese, ana other items (including the cost of glasses, publicity, breakages, etc.) would be libellous if anyone took him seriously—the evening ran at a loss of about $10.

Finally, the Pol. Sci. Society was not showing any unfair bias in its association with the Labour Club. Its aim is to give students direct contact with those in power and, with this in mind, a similar function will be held in conjunction with the National Club: probably on the Tuesday before Study week.

A. D. Jenkins
President, Political Science Society.

Heresy

Sir,—I feel moved to beg the courtesy of your columns for the purpose of drawing your readers' attention to the perpetration of an abdominable deceit.

On a recent Wednesday I hopefully attended a meeting of the Pooh Society, with the avowed intent of partaking of a modicum of honey, while at the same time being soothed by mellifluous voices reading extracts from the works of Pooh's confidante and biographer, Mr. A. A. Milne.

To my amazement, Sir, I was assailed with some vulgar lines from The Hunting of the Snark, These lines, written by one Lewis Carroll, a clergyman and mathematician of some note, while having a certain soi distant but decadent charm, are certainly not the work of a Pooh-fancier.

Although the ascetic beauty of Mr. John Hales' features cannot be denied, it was a shock to hear such perversions of the true, or Pooh, faith. As I sat, Sir, munching my farinaceous comestible, thinly coated with honey, I meditated upon this departure from the paths of doctrinal rectitude. It was like hearing the apocrypha read in a Methodist church.

Let us rise up as one to protest this violation of the accepted moral code. Hales is no Prof. Gerring, free to assail our cherished beliefs without harm. Therefore, may I suggest that we rend tins schismatic fiend in twain, and use the halves to while away an idle hour at Pooh-sticks? And as, Sir, we watch the halves of Hales float away down the harbour, let us remember the British Empire was made strong by honey and Pooh.

I remain, etc., Your obt. and humble servt., James (true-blue-Pooh) Mitchell.

Battle

Sir,—I regret the laying down of the stoney-concrete path outside the side entrance of R-B as an outright act of aggression. It was intended, no doubt as an escalation in the battle for student respectability, forcibly inducing the student to don footwear.

The only way the oppressed can read on defence is to tear up the concrete monstrosity. So ...

Mervyn P. Judge.

Thanks

Sir,—Thank you for the honour of being called "founder" of the Committee on Vietnam, but there were others responsible for the paternity of this lusty but illegitimate infant.

The Melser brothers, Jan McElwee, Nick Rosenberg and Adrian Webster set the Vietnam protest in motion on a momentous Easter in 1965 when they rallied a few friends, including me, to demonstrate to New Zealanders the implications behind Cabot Lodge's flying visit to New Zealand.

Incidentally, we were right—although the government denied it at the time, the visit was to ask for New Zealand troops to participate and hereby share the moral responsibility for a war most New Zealanders had barely noticed, let alone examined for justice or meaning.

So you might say the Melsers fostered the child. I was merely midwife, and not a very experienced or competent one.

B. Mitcalfe.