Mob Psychology.

(The Editor, "Smad," V.U.C.)

Would you allow me to offer through your rotten little magazine (adequate adjectives from G.B.S.) a few thoughts for its limited clientele of a few comely maidens, a few handsome innocents of men and those other students who all comprise our dear University College?

You note that I say University College?—it seems to be a word that has rapidly changed in meaning. It used to imply those who were looked upon as our leaders, our hopes, our intelligentsia—dear laddies and lassies—but they seem to have lost those essentials of leadership and intelligence, an appreciation of proportion, an ability to clarify issues, and a capacity to act on their own initiative.

You doubt me, sir? Think of and remember the Annual General Meeting of the Victoria University College Debating Society for the academic year 1934. In the election of officers, freshers, explicitly because of their ignorance of the real merit of the proffered candidates, were not allowed to vote. An hour later, on an issue infinitely more complex and dependent on specific knowledge—namely, the motion virtually of protest against the banning of certain subjects for open debate—with no presentation of the opposite case (surely a contravention of the very society's tenets) and with cheap and nasty ridicule for the dissentient voters, the votes of the freshers, all of which under the conditions almost certainly would be cast in favour of the motion, were included even numerically recorded. Where was that sense of proportion ?

I would suggest in all seriousness. Sir, that the above case is just an indication of a remarkable state which has arisen in our College. When one considers the motives of the contestants of the issue of freedom of speech one can see in much of the student advocation a remarkable case of group feeling aroused by a few individuals appealing to the ever present desire for self-assertion possessed by the young.

To your readers. Sir, I make an appeal to resume their status as University men and women—not mere chattels.