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Salient. Victoria University of Wellington Students' Newspaper. Volume 31 Number 14. June 25, 1968

Editorial

Editorial

June 25, 1968

Opinions expressed in Salient are not necessarily those of VUWSA.

The Prime Minister has presented the Wednesday demonstrators, at the last minute with what can only be from their point of view of superb issue—the previously unnounced and frequently denied existence of an American base of serious military significance within New Zealand. The various Committees on Vietnam have had their most cynical predictions confirmed. As usual when dealing with military matters, the Government has taken its notorious short way of handling public opinion — leaving it in the dark—on what, in the event of a major Asian war, could well be the single act of a Government in the last decade on which the lives of New Zealanders will most depend. When the chips are down, the Government has proved again democracy is a mere propaganda slogan —something that may exist in South Vietnam, where we let our boys die for it, but is conspicuously absent in New Zealand.

This news dwarfs the other issues involved in the demonstrations of no confidence in the Government tomorrow, though for the average man the central issues will probably remain the refusal of a Court not even remotely resembling a responsible economic planning body to grant a wage increase to any section of wage-earners, while the Government's neglect of our universities, the academic paupers of the Southern Hemisphere, must remain an issue. If the Government had been less gauche, it might have hoped that these separate issues would not be fused by our present pitiful Labour Opposition into anything remotely coherent and that opposition to its foreign policy might disappear now talks on a negotiated peace in Vietnam have begun.

Now these hopes have been disappointed, and the Government has only itself to blame.