The answer to Mr Fyson's little piece about RAT in the 12th issue of Salient is primarily logical, secondarily zoological, and finally factual.

Mr Fyson would seem to agree that a socialist election campaign should aim to at least start to make some who are more or less ignorant of socialism less so. Those ignorant of socialist meetings or read socialist pamphlets or programmes, Mr Fyson's campaign plan of meetings and publications highlighting only the dry technical aspects of socialism is worse than useless.

If such a campaign did make a recruit to socialism, the chances are that it would be a dry technical recruit to a dry technical socialism. RAT is essentially Human, and trying to make human recruits to a human socialism.

Mr Fyson's criticism that the candidates "failed miserably" to "push the programme" is, of course, inaccurate. Two thousand copies of the full programme, and a further two thousand copies of an abbreviated version of it distributed. This programme was socialist, that is, it was a series of serious proposals to make peoples lives less desperately serious.

Mr Fyson's dissaproval of RAT seems based on its honesty in proclaiming its anti—serious ends as part of its effort to make people curious about its serious means.

Of course Mr Fyson is quite right. An attach on the seriousness of conditions in society is not attractive to a student electorate.

It disturbs a status quo in which, compared with other social groups, students are very well off.