At Debating: Society

At the meeting of the V.U.C. Debating Society held on Friday evening, presided over by Mr. J. B. Aimers, the small audience decided by a majority of one, in favour of the motion that "Social violence is necessary in human affairs."

The judge, Mr. C. H. Arndt, said that he had allotted most marks for manner, and placed the speakers in the following order; Messrs. Andrews, Perry, Scotney, Freeman, Miss Stock.

Mr. Freeman, who opened the debate, followed this line of argument. Human affairs presupposed human beings, who presupposed a society, which presupposes a common organ which presupposes a coersive authority, which presupposes social violence, which presupposes . . . (sorry, that's all). Mr. Freeman showed how modern society was divided into two classes, and that, therefore, violence was inevitably the midwife of social change.

Miss Shortall, in opening the case for the negative, said that as a trial state means all the individuals in that state coercion of those individuals by the state, cannot be violence. She considered that in the modern world where there was enough food for everyone, and, therefore, there was no need for violence. Violence and war were the result of unwillingness to face up to crucial problems of life.

Mr. O'Reilly, seconding Mr. Free-man, said that all progressive ideals must sooner or later desert pacifism. Lenin's slogan was "Turn the imperialistic war into a proletarian revolution."

Miss M. J. Stock, Miss Shortall's seconder, adduced instances such as Ghandi's work, to prove that social change had been accomplished with-out violence. From her arguments it appears that she doesn't consider stay-in-strikes and boycotts to be forms of violence. We understand there is at present a difference of opinion between John L Lewis and President Roosevelt on this matter.