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The Spike: or, Victoria College Review, June 1928

Editorial

Editorial

"If the history of civilization has any lesson to teach us, it is this: There is one supreme condition of mental and moral progress which it is completely within the power of man himself to secure, and that is perfect liberty of thought and discussion."

J. B. Bury.

Man looking into microscope with reaper and woman holding sword and scales appearing out of lamp smoke below

We have hesitated for some time over the matter of choosing a subject suitable for an editorial. Quite a number suggested themselves. There is for instance the case of Samoa, an editorial on which would no doubt make interesting reading. But we refuse to be drawn into a political argument, specially where the trouble lies, we believe, in the stupid policy which appoints military officers—with all the failings associated with the military caste and the military mentality—to govern native races and not civil administrators skilled in more peaceful pursuits and in the sciences of anthropology and ethnology. At a long call from Samoa, there is the consideration of those recent events constituting Capping, 1928. This again, however, has been treated elsewhere in "Spike" page 2 and we would avoid duplication. A final problem suggested itself: the attitude of the Government, acting through its magistrates, towards students seeking exemption from military service on grounds of conscience. We have thought it might be worth while to set forth in as brief a fashion as possible what we conceive should be the attitude of the University towards such a problem.

Leaving on one side as strictly unimportant to our argument the ultimate grounds—theological, social or what not—on which those students at Auckland are basing their claim for exemption from military service, it is evident that the question at issue between them and Mr. Magistrate Hunt is one involving the principle of freedom of thought, freedom of conscience and freedom of action. Mr. Hunt is apparently one who, priding himself on his wit, has few brains, and fewer powers still, of using what brains he has. As such, his humour is feeble and his bullying quite absurdly magisterial. As such again, he takes up a totally uncompromising attitude in regard to granting exemptions from military service, and in result, has entirely disregarded taking into account in any of his rulings, the implications of all that freedom of conscience means.

In this connection we are not arguing for or against the value Or necessity of compulsory military training. In our opinion such training is futile for any other purpose than that of bringing nearer and nearer the next war—the way to get war is to prepare for war—but this, as we have said, is beside the point. The question is as to how far people in New Zealand, and students in particular, are prepared to stand by the principle of freedom of thought and conscience. In the past innumerable battles have been fought about the validity or otherwise of such freedom, and it is only in comparatively recent times that this principle has received full conscious recognition as one of the foundations on which civilization must build. We may justify liberty of thought as J. S. Mill did, not on abstract rights, but on "utility, in the largest sense, grounded on the permanent interests of man as a progressive being." Or we may justify it on somewhat wider grounds; on the fact that the progress of civilization, though partly conditioned by circumstances beyond man's control, depends more, and in an increasing measure, on things, such as advancement of knowledge, deliberate adaptation of institutions to new conditions, which are within his own power. To advance knowledge and to correct errors, unrestricted freedom of thought, discussion and action is required. As Bury wrote from this point of view: "The establishment of this liberty may be considered the most valuable achievement of modern civilization and as a condition of social progress it should be deemed fundamental. The considerations of permanent utility on which it rests must outweigh any calculations of present advantages which from time to time might be thought to demand its violation."

Such being the importance of the principle which we think to be at stake between Mr. Hunt and his student conscientious objectors, what attitude should the University take up in regard to it? It is almost a platitude to say that the University should be the home of free thought within a community. It should be its task to tend the Flame of freedom of belief unhampered by the distractions, the sophisms and the cynicism of everyday life. It should hand on the torch from one generation of students to another, so that when his student days are over, the young man or woman sets out to make his way in the world, he should page 3 carry with him not a little of that tolerance, that freedom from prejudice, that faith in the power of creative thought, that belief in the value of detachment, which is one of the Universities' most precious gifts to her students. Thus the University should recognise that though freedom of conscience is now taken for granted, nevertheless, just because it has been won only in arduous conflict and bitter struggle, it is always in danger of being attacked by ignorant opponents.

Thus we still have in Auckland, A.D. 1928, Mr. Magistrate Hunt refusing to recognise a clear claim to freedom of belief and action on behalf of earnest and sincere students; we have also the criminal immorality of a wholesale Bible in Schools campaign against freedom of education; we have the enchainment of men's minds that comes from an unscrupulous use of propaganda. And while we have these among us—three among many—it is the task of the University, as the guardian of wisdom and freedom, to wage a ceaseless war against the foes of that fundamental condition of social progress—freedom of thought.