CRACCUM Registered at the G.P.O., Wellington, as a newspaper Editor: John Sanders. Literary Editor: Bruce Babington. Distribution Manager: Arch Thompson Requiem For Political Clowns

Text of NZBC Broadcast on 9 pm News, 13 November, 1963 “The Prime Minister has accused a number of Wellington students of repaying his courtesy by trying to break up one of his election meetings. “Addressing about two hundred and seventy people at Levin today, Mr Holyoake said he recently gave a courtesy one-hour hearing to the leaders of these students, who talked socialist and neo-communist ideas about defence, nuclear bombs, ban the bomb marches and, as he described it, ‘all the rest’.” (End of quote.) The PM’s tirade was, we gather from newspaper comments, part of an apologia for hoarseness. In the best traditions of Western democracy, the PM, during the G . r - r - r Students are bums electioneering, lined up some by no means totally inoffensive students in his sights (these students were dissenting from some aspect of the Government’s policy), and supposedly the students were to drop like the best or worst official communiques was forthcoming. And this ninepins. However, there was not even a ripple in the wave of content denied the involvement of a sanctimonious student body in such out­ which brought the present Government back for another term. No father raised his voice at the imputations raised against his son. (It landish frivolities. Even the students had become mesmerised b^ the eidetic imagery of the politicians — the poetry of the abstract of would now appear quite respectable to have at least one neo-com­ statistics, the contents of yellowing Hansard and velum volumes. The munist or right-wing fascist in the family.) If an inquest had been held, then the PM would have been found guilty of using a rhetorical students were as much mesmerised by this kind of genius as we all bludgeon. This was sufficiently effective to induce the Victoria Students’ are from time to time, and the resut was a velvet bomb. Was it not a coincidence that these very same “offenders” were Executive to dissociate themselves from the opinion of a minority of students. Instead the tyranny of a governmental minority reigned the enfants terrible of Victoria University — the men who dared to supreme. Such disloyalty is not surprising in an age of kinship severa- tell the French Government in the politest and most dimplomatic way tion and sibling rivalry. to go and boil its head over the Pacific bomb tests? It is rumoured that the French are proceeding with their insidious designs undeterred by What was most disappointing to us was the relative inaction of student dissent. It is therefore not surprising that some of us feel those under fire. One would have suspected that they were capable of slightly disconcerted by the incipient totalitarianism all around us giving as good as they received. Has the political vengeance feud and compounded of embalmed public prejudice and the venom of pressure the petty political wrangling which seems endemic in this country gone groups. We often have the feeling that the vital juices are being out of fashion? No one tossed rotten apples or soured eggs in retalia­ squeezed out of us, and that there is nothing that we can do about it. tion. No grey flannel suit was splattered. And indeed it would have Has the system of co-ordinative management intruded into student and constituted a most ungentlemanly act and one unworthy of students. university life to the extent that the community of scholars are in But the students concerned didn’t even throw a verbal brickbat. Instead danger of being overwhelmed by a new breed of organisation men they came down with a banal statement demanding an apology. Could they really have been so inept in the juggling of stereotypes at which posing as educationists? One suspects that there was nothing more insidious in the PM’s our politicians excel? Only a pontifical announcement in emulation of hostility towards the students than an admonition not to bite the tax­ collecting hand that feeds them. What we most have to fear is the perfection by unscrupulous politicians of the art of the pacification of conflicts. This would leave us with no causes to be won or lost. And then we would be forced to do what the general populace seems to have done —- i.e. adopt boredom as a way of life. We would like to think that there was little more than a healthy confrontation of generations implicit in the clash between the PM and the students. The PM learned, erudite, compelling, sincere and middle- aged, confronted the students — flippant, fatuous, imbecilic, youthful, and therefore by implication irresponsible. At least so goes the divine logic of our political mentors. But perhaps things would not have come to a head if the students concerned had not been a wee bit political. This, after all, is a privilege reserved only for the politicians. What are they paid for anyway? Ferhaps, in the best trade union manner, they would like to set up a closed and impenetrable shop, a kind of sacred preserve. So long as students have their fat faces jammed full of good things such as university buildings, any desire to explode the facade of student autonomy is bound to be misconstrued as subversion. Another contributing factor to the imputations of irresponsibility hurled at students’ heads (no doubt) is the notion that New Zealanders in general are incapable of self-discipline. We should all be grateful for the fact that the government of the day (per medium of in camera tribunals staffed by very nice and very decent university professors), is assuming self-discipline for us. If this conflicts with what we are lead to believe about the unimpeded exercise of our powers of dis­ crimination, then not to worry. A magnificent example of Janus-headed discrimination has been provided for us by those university officials who will help to police “voluntary” subscription while simultaneously reading great chunks of John Stuart Mill out to us. One consolation is that these gentlemen would at least appear, on the face of things, to Politicians are delinquents G - r * r - r be thoroughly in accord with the social norms of the day. 21/2/64 — CRACCUM CONGRESS MECCA OR MORASS Congress is the annual grand when opening Congress 1961: Do not mistake me. I am not session, the intellectual free-for- “Congress offers one of the finest being cynical about motions. I all, of New Zealand’s universities. opportunities that students have am sorry for those students who Delegates, speakers, professors, of living in an atmosphere of high are so swallowed up by the maw of partisans, parsons, artisans, artists, intellectual ferment, where good cynicism and existentialist con­ casual frails and interested yokels, talk, discussion and the search stipation that they cannot con­ asse7nble to remodel the universe for truth are considered in a re­ ceive of any motions whatsoever. in their own image. laxed atmosphere of friendship.” Dennis Glover has lamented the It is a time of wining and What is lacking in this defini­ lack of manifestos and political womaning; a cosmos of cruds and tion, and what was lacking at fire among contemporary students, intellectual cut-throats planning Congress 1964, is the traditional and Mr Conrad Bollinger in his for peace and pieces. This is the student occupation of heckling. It talk, “Sex, Grog, Religion and Mecca of fine minds, the Olympia was conspicuous that the speakers Politics”, also lamented the pre­ of oafs. were permitted to pontificate with sent cry exemplified by Jimmy At Curious Cove near Picton, little interruption from the sub­ Porter in John Osborne’s “Look steep, tonsured hills are the mute dued Brethren. Back in Anger”: “There aren’t witnesses of free discussion. Each It could be said that there was any good causes left”. Mr Bol­ day begins with seriousness at an unhealthy atmosphere of linger, famed author of “Grog’s 9.30 a.m., when the morning lec­ acceptance to academically quali­ Own Country”, is a scarred ture is delivered. Discussion, argu­ fied authority, though the ques­ polemicist and a Congress veteran ment, questions, comments — tions at the conclusion of the talks wrho attended the first Congress, anything verbal and remotely indicated that many had tempor­ in 1949. He related that the stud­ relevant is then conjured up in arily stifled their disagreement. ents of the ’49 Congress, some of an endeavour to prove that the Heckling is, however, essentially whom have fought in the Second mind is quicker than the ear. a stiletto with which to test the World War, were still sufficiently When the lecture is concluded, toughness of the speaker. If the idealistic to emblazon on a wall: usually an hour-long discussion testing is left until the conclusion “Youth Unite — Forward for a continues. Occasionally this may of the talk the speaker has, in a Lasting Peace”. The average con­ continue after lunch informally, sense, half-won the battle in con­ temporary student must be pre­ but the afternoons are free from ditioning us to his viewpoint. sumed to be a non-Congress-goer, any set function. Students are then Professor Lawden in particular perhaps cynical of good causes, free to indulge in diverse amuse­ read a complex dissertation on the and a fair proportion of the ments which include swimming, cosmos at a galloping gait, which students at Congress ’64 were sunbathing, volleyball, table- heckling would have helped to cynical of slogans, savants and tennis, water ski-ing on your arm- paragraph at the very least. saviours. Those who were not pits, and conserving matter and Each of the eleven talks, ,with passed motions. energy by sleep. the exception of Mr Woollaston’s, Evening is a repeat of the was followed by considerable Mr Bollinger’s cry was that morning in stronger doses (like questioning. Many of these ques­ here in New Zealand there is “a all good medicines, after a meal), tions were obviously hobby horses backyard full of good causes, followed by a late-night function screaming for someone with the of the questioners and were guts to take them up.” which differs every night — a largely irrelevant to the corpus dance, a film, a play, a black of the speech. Irrelevancy is, how­ Mr Bollinger then pin-pointed mass, etc. ever, one method by which a one of the good causes which he By the end of a strenuous week, tightly constructed speech may be felt could be muck-raked with fully tanned and brimming with considered in wider detail and benefit to the entire community visceral vigour, you are expected application. Professor Sampson’s — that of the liquor question. In to pass, and will pass, motion speech on “Mechanistic Theories particular at the new artificial after motion like a laxative tycoon. of Mind”, which concerned itself mushroom town at Porirua, there Resolutions, manifestos, political with three particular psychological has been much discussion con­ and sexual, pepper the air. Debate experiments, was subjected to this cerning the lack of community roars like a tidal wave. Motions enlargening process. This will be facilities. Attention therefore was are moved. Congress is Congress considered subsequently in an focused on the sole community is Congress. Thus moved Zara- examination of the individual talks. activity — a tavern. A Church of suthra. It is difficult to decide whether England newspaper reported on The final motions are forwarded the discussion time should consist this situation at length, but did to NZUSA (i.e. the New Zealand merely of questions by students, less than justice to its own case University Students’ Association and answers by the lecturer, or in Mr Bollinger’s opinion by fail­ in Wellington). The motions are whether actual conversations ing to take into account the anti­ considered and forwarded to the among the audience should be social tendencies inherent in our appropriate organisations, which attempted. Perhaps in order to society and by sadly confusing have an unfortunate tendency to ensure that everyone who wishes peripheral issues with basic ones, send back polite acknowledgments to speak is given an opportunity and causes with effects. As ex­ and take no further action. to do so, the question-answer amples of this confusion, he The motions passed at Congress system is initially the fairest. quoted other clergymen: A Pres­ are not typical of students as a More lengthy discussion can be byterian minister who said that whole, since, as Mr Gager pointed continued in private. the problem was the shortage of out in his report of the 1962 Con­ “professional people, skilled gress, they represent the views Professor Crowther,, who holds tradesmen and elderly folk” to of the untypical students who the Chair of Psychology at Can­ provide “community leadership”. terbury University, was an exem­ attend Congress. They are un­ Another commentator declared typical students, perhaps, because plary chairman who kept check of the questions with scrupulous grandly that “patrons accept this they are vociferous about their suffering of their own free will”. views whereas many students pre­ impartiality. From the onset he declared his credo that a chair­ Mr Bollinger pointed out that all fer to hide their world-shattering of the decisions concerning the discoveries and unspoken wisdoms man should be as unobtrusive as possible. Whether in the lotus inadequate social amenities, the under a guilt-edged bushel of archaic drinking laws and the silence. position or not,, Professor Crow­ ther was a model mentor of pub which was “designed like a The foregoing description in diplomacy. Woolshed”, were ordained by ex­ some measure outlines an ideal ternal factors beyond the control The climax of Congress is that of the free will of the inhabitants. Congress. It is now pertinent to senate of senility the rake’s rgress, consider whether the 1964 Con­ Forum. Reluctant Romans and Porirua provides an example gress can be considered an ideal hostile hedonists are gathered one. of a community trust pub. The from the Cove raft, the cabins, first of these was voted into exist­ A classic definition of Congress the bush, and the hills. Hold back ence through the local restoration was provided by Sir George the Red waters and let us enter vote in 1943 in Invercargill. The Currie, the then Vice-Chancellor the promised land — the Utopia community trust pub is a Labour of the University of New Zealand, constructed by motions. Government scheme which con- CRACCUM — 21/2/64 sists in vesting all liquor licences Mr Bollinger gave no consider­ infinite priority over the claim of in an elected trust, with profits ation to the problem of alcoholism any institution to proscribe the Pilgrimage returning to the community in the which has also been the subject morality or otherwise of contra­ form of investments and amenities of some research, recently in the ception in given cases, continued and grants for local charitable form of the first school of alcohol Mr Bollinger. On racy pilgrimage through our and recreational facilities. Mr studies carried out at Massey These issues were, however, all gallery, one’s pace slackens away Bollinger suggested that voting University last year. Numerous part of one cause, the most im­ from the journey’s objective. for a local option ensured that papers considered varying aspects portant issue facing us, that of Diverse talents direct your straight the profits were prevented from of this problem. Alan K. Gray in determining a man’s destiny, trail to detourages, so that, almost being distributed among the brew­ “A Look at some International which is a moral question. No man like a deviant anthropologist, you ery shareholders only and ex­ Problems of Alcoholism”, related has the moral right to determine stop to devour culture and cul­ pressed dissatisfaction with pre­ that only three places in the world another’s destiny from beer drink­ tures. (You will notice that one sent facilities. are known to have had no alcohol ing to his existence in a thermo­ is not merely the plural of the He went on to say that the indigenously: Polar peoples, Aus­ nuclear holocaust. But as long as other.) Contemplations. tralian aborigines and primitives men are isolated units where worst aspects of drinking today Arriving at the far corner of of Tierra del Fuego. The problem there is no chance of developing — the crowding, the lack of fur­ the mezzanine (furtively touching is therefore present in almost human solidarity and the mutual niture, the lack of food or danc­ metalling Torso II to see how it ing or entertainment, the disso­ every country in the world, the respect which is essential to the two countries suffering the most recognition of the right of fellow feels), you mount the polished ciation from women, the six stairs to Olympia. Food fresh as o’clock closing and the restriction being France and the USA. Mr beings to be free from others, and Bollinger was of the opinion that so long as our ethos results in dew gapes at you. You fumble in licences were largely the result for plates in the apoclyptic light. of prohibitionist pressures. New alcohol would take its own place alienation being the central fact in society if given the chance. This in our existence,, we shall have You look up. A forest of windows; Zealand’s licensing laws therefore behind, forests — which are —in the words of a New Ply­ seems to me to be a rather naive the dichotomy, the smug surface view, in view of the fact that in appearance of our homes and the actually genteel and planted: mouth magistrate — “are the Albert Park. result of a battle between greed France alcohol has had more than seething mass of petty hate and and fanaticism in which the inter­ a good chance to find its own You take the implements of war ests of ordinary, sensible citizens place, yet has resulted in the and salad-making, and lettuce as are being ignored”. This battle is greatest number of alcoholics of crisp as a new paperback, and a fought between the licensing any country in the world. firm phallic tomato glowing with trade, represented by the New Some of the speakers at the unconsumed desire, to the low- Zealand Licensed Victuallers’ Massey conference were of the slung, amoeba-freckled tables. Association, and the Prohibition­ opinion that the problem lies in McCahon’s curving textures are ists. people, and not in bottles. Whalen, written into these tables like The two largest breweries, New who was referred to in Mr Gray’s signatures. Shapes. Zealand Breweries and Dominion paper, was of the opinion that Breweries, were responsible for wives of alcoholics tended to fall You prepare your salad. Grasp 82 per cent of the liquor produced into four categories: suffering the tomato firmly in the sinister in 1955. The profits are enormous Susan, who feels the needs to hand. Sever it in twain, equally. and this was reflected in the divi­ punish herself; controlling Cath­ No! You cast democracy to the dends of one of the breweries, erine, who seeks to dominate her winds and slice off the edge which is currently 9 l-6th per husband; and wavering Winifred, squashily. Seeds squirt sexually. cent. This was stated to be who is obsessed with self-doubt You watch your neighbour with covered more than one and a half and “the need to be needed”; and secret intensity, hoping fatuously times by net profit, though, as Mr punitive Polly, who seeks to for a knowingly elite wink. Actu­ Bollinger pointed out, these figures punish her husband. In connect­ ally he does wink, but only be­ were misleading due to stock ing sex with grog, Mr Bollinger cause he has been looking at the watering, which gave an unreal could have considered this aspect; back-of-room trilogy of panels as capitalisation precisely for the however, he merely mentioned if they were naked women, and purpose of increasing the return the discriminating code whereby his eyelids plummeted to relieve on investment without showing it. women are excluded from hotels. the tension. And that’s a thought. The whole liquor question was Mr Bollinger then proceeded to If he was sufficiently sensitive the subject of a massive review consider the relation of religion prejudice which lurks behind the about forms (or reforms) he in 1945-46 by the Royal Com­ and sex in relation to Moral Re­ drawn Venetian blinds. Every might just stare in such a fashion mission on Licensing. The recom­ armament-type articles appearing time people say “that Jew bas­ and not merely to impress other mendations alone ran to a report in the daily press late last year. tard” or “I don’t want niggers petty artistic embryo-fascist ex- of 82 pages, which included the The writer of these articles stated near me”, it illustrates what a clusionists. But they flow and fit suggestion that all breweries in that the current elections were writer in the New York Herald and that is as much as any group New Zealand should be acquired being fought on material issues Tribune wrote following Ken­ of paintings should have to do at by a public corporation and the rather than moral ones. This he nedy’s shooting: “Dallas does not one time. McCahon’s. profits applied, after payment of condemned. He suggested that the own hate”. And every time people compensation, for cultural, philan­ real issues, which were moral stand off with pay checks and run You contemplate those tomato thropic and recreational purposes. ones, included the defence of our their lives on the basis of hate, seeds again. Damn things wriggle The second main recommenda­ privileged position in overseas it is the same story repeated. off your plate as if they were tion provided that should the elec­ trade (!). I have condensed Mr Bollinger’s alive. Think of lessons in Shelley Bermanship. With Rabelaisian tors of a licensing district so “Christ, whom this crusader bar­ talk greatly for reasons of space, abandon you kneel down (they decide by their vote, a local trust rister purported to revere, specific­ but I think that his capacity for would be established which would ally rejected the Old Testament, rhetoric is shown. It is splendid are low tables) and grovel before them. Slurp. You sit up. Non­ be entitled to priority in taking ‘Thou shalt not’, and replaced its and it is rousing — though its chalantly you wipe the plate clean up any additional licence or all principally negative decalogue provocative qualities were dis­ with your cuff. Slob. licences in a No-Licence district with two positive injunctions: to appointing in their effect at Con­ which had voted for restoration. love thy neighbour as thyself, and gress. Mr Bollinger is possessed You look — outside. You have In twenty-two areas in which the to do unto others as you would of a refreshing optimism in this done so already. White-collared Licensing Control Commission have them do unto you.” age of Camus, Sartre and Gins­ cruds, organisation men (and granted additional licences, the Apply these injunctions to sex berg. He sees the human race as women) — by the rigid immacu­ electors voted in favour of estab­ and what do you get? asked Mr being young (which it is) with lateness of their moronic creases lishing a local trust over the last Bollinger. This naturally gave rise plenty of time to evolve and solve and the too careful brush-off of fourteen years. Three only have to some bawdy mirth. Dr Alex its problems — provided it sur­ the honest mown grass — admire been successfully established. Mr Comfort, on a BBC television pro­ vives the present nuclear threat. casual pigeons — like flocks of Bollinger said that the reason for gramme, perhaps by indirect ap­ He used the true orator’s weapons: ambiguous Wallace Stevens’ mix­ this failure to fulfil the electors’ plication, formulated two com­ fluent, witty generalisations, sharp­ ing mediocre business and circum­ wishes was to be found in the mandments for moderns: “Thou shooting factual data, leaping scribed poetry. Conversations. lack of State-guaranteed finance shalt not exploit another person’s sequences of thought. It is pos­ and crippling legislation aimed at feelings” and “Thou shalt under sible to see his treatment of Coffee consumed, salad slung, busting the trusts, such as the no circumstances cause the birth alcohol as one-sided, excellent you tidy the loose dregs. You Act of 1962, which was concerned of an unwanted child”. though it was, his interpretation leave. Hell, those dangerous dis­ with the “unfair advantage” re­ “Hence”, Mr Bollinger elabor­ of Christ’s teachings as inaccur­ tractions again. Occasions of sin. You bolt. You make the door puted to be enjoyed by trust ated, “no male should use a female ate, since Christ did not reject having seen only Hercules throw­ hotels over private hotels, and the for his own gratification if she is the decalogue of Moses, but ful­ Bill at the end of the last session filled it with a life of love, and ing Lichas member uppermost. under a misapprehension as to You exit into the full F'ebruary, a of Parliament which was designed his intentions, and no female his attacks on New Zealanders as to prevent further district trusts. over-generalised. But his eloquence god-girthed denizen, a Socrates of should use the love and loyalty the southern hemispheres, belly Mr Bollinger asks, “Where are of a male for personal gratifica­ and his observation of simple socialism in New Zealand over quivering with coffee and cul­ our muck-rakers? Where are our tion short of intercourse (for ture. Visions. graduates entering politics? They which he may feel no pressing practical issues, e.g. local trust are climbing up greasy careerists need), when she knows perfectly pubs and his cry for more student Friends, artists and countrymen, ladders in established political well that his love and loyalty careers in politics in order to if this doesn’t create a Left Bank organisations or shouting shibbo­ demand just that.” annihilate social abuses, cannot nothing will. leths at unstable political organisa­ The moral right of children to be faulted. tions.” the love and care of parents has —Mike Morrissey —Mike Morrissey 21/2/64 CRACCUM APARTHEID IS NOT CRICKET By RICHARD THOMPSON The cause of human rights and dignity is challenged in many ways. Sharpeville, Little Rock, Birmingham (Alabama) — these are familiar names — symbols of ignorance, prejudice and injustice. It was not that the people of those places were worse than the rest of us. It was simply that they w7ere no better. They didn’t care enough. They remained silent when they should have spoken out. The Rev. Martin Luther King has emphasised that the great barrier to the social advancement of the negro in the USA is not the malice of the bad but the terrible silence of the good. The challenge which faces the Americans in the Deep South does not confront New Zealanders. The challenge which faces the South Africans dos not confront New Zealanders. Nevertheless the devotion in this country to human rights and dignity has been tested year by year. But the challenge has not been recognised. Good sportsmanship is incompatible with race discrimination. In our reciprocal sports tours with South Africa we have claimed, like the Americans of the Deep South and the South Africans before us, that in our case there are extenuating circumstances. We have failed to meet the challenge posed by the conditions governing these tours not because we are more lacking in moral fibre than others, but because we are no better than other people. We haven’t cared enough. We have remained silent when we should have spoken out. The challenge to human rights An exclusively white South Despite all this, during the last government, while professing sup­ that has faced us in New Zealand African cricket team is represen­ New Zealand cricket tour of port for the very people who pro­ has not required heroism. It has tative neither of South African South Africa, the Prime Minister, test against the racial restrictions not required an enlightened know­ cricket nor of the Republic itself. Mr Holyoake, recognised the test in the organisation of the sports ledge of racial and international The New Zealand Cricket Council status of the matches. The Prime tours, it is guilty of pure hypcrisy. issues. It has required only that is aware of the situation. In a Minister supported the claims of we accept the canons of good rash moment, during 1962, Mr the New Zealand Cricket Council Many New Zealanders will no sportsmanship: that we select Leggat even conceded the unrep­ and SA Cricket Association for doubt pay to watch white South representative sports teams on resentative character of the white test status against the challenge of African cricketers and will give merit regardless of race and with­ South Africans but defended the the SA Sports Association and the their financial support to an or­ hold recognition from overseas Council’s policy by declaring that Pakistan Cricket Board of Con­ ganisation which supports apart­ sports teams which are not since South Africa had failed to trol. Mr Holyoake has made no heid in cricket. How long are New selected on that same principle; gain readmission to the Imperial move to honour the undertaking Zealanders going to condone race that we recognise that non-white Cricket Conference, we were not given at the United Nations. When discrimination in sports tours with New Zealand and South African playing tests. the New Zealand Government South Africa? How long are New sportsmen have rights. We have gives its blessing to sports tours Zealanders going to ride rough­ with South Africa on terms accept­ failed to take seriously the Olym­ In the course of the present shod over the rights of non-white able to the present South African pic principle of no race discrimin­ tour, three test matches are to be South African sportsmen? ation in sport, or perhaps more played. The NZ Cricket Council accurately, we have claimed the has agreed to recognise the full right to exempt ourselves from representative and test status of the obligations of this principle. the white team and to ignore the existence of non-white South Afri­ If we have failed in the past, can cricketers. The matches re­ the challenge is still with us; main unofficial because the South New Zealand’s sports tours with African Cricket Association is no South Africa seem to be on the longer a member of the Imperial increase. If this is so, it would Cricket Conference. It is not a not be surprising. There are very member because Indian, Pakis­ few countries now which will tani and West Indian delegates accept the racial restrictions on objected to the South Africans’ which the South Africans insist. practice of race discrimination in Within about eight months we cricket. It would appear that New will have received visits from a Zealand cricketers feel a greater South African rugby league team, loyalty to white South Africa than a badminton team and now a they feel for non-white South cricket team, all exclusively white. African and Commonwealth cricketers. The South African Cricket Asso­ ciation operates a rigid colour bar. It did so long before the Nation­ This visit has not been arranged alist government came to power. without protest from non-white Even now, there is no law which South Africans. The SA Sports requires cricketers to set up such Association, a non-racial body a colour bar. More than 20,000 working for the recognition of African, Coloured and Indian non-white sportsmen and the cricketers were excluded from elimination of race discrimination selection in this team and from from sport, has twice protested the right to represent their coun­ to the NZ Cricket Council against try — simply because they are not New Zealand’s willingness to con­ white. The visiting players will done race discrimination in no doubt be fine men in many cricket. They protested at the end respects. Yet some of them owe of 1962 and again last month. The their place to the fact that the power of any organisation work­ cricketing body they represent ing for multi-racial co-operation is excludes players who are not inevitably limited in present-day white. South Africa. The secretary, Dennis Brutus, has recently been Even though the non-white imprisoned after an ill-fated cricketers have been starved of attempt to reach Baden-Baden to international competition by the present the case of non-white policy of the SA Cricket Associa­ sportsmen before the International tion, non-white South Africans Olympic Committee. have produced outstanding players. Basil D’Oliviera is a case in point. At the United Nations, the New He has recently agreed to play Zealand Government committed for Worcester in English county the Dominion to the support of cricket. In his first year in Eng­ bodies working for multi-racial land, playing on an unfamiliar co-operation in South Africa (the turf wicket, he topped both the SA Sports Association is an ex­ bowling and batting averages in cellent example of one of these) the Lancashire League, although and of men like Luthuli and Sobers actually scored more runs. Paton. Mr Paton is himself an Included in Ron Roberts’ Com­ officer of the SA Sports Associa­ monwealth team and a recent tion. Mr Luthuli, together with Commonwealth tour of Pakistan, the Indian Congress leader, Dr D’Oliviera is gradually building Naicker, has issued an appeal to up an international reputation all sportsmen to boycott all although barred from representing events which accept the conditions his country. of apartheid. CRACCUM — 21/2/64 5

The University of Pennsylvania University String Quartet, and is situated in West Philadelphia one by the Dave Brubeck Quar- " and is about 30 minutes walk tet; and two exhibitions, one of Japanese prints and the other of Wystan Curnow from the centre of the city. Phila­ delphia is like Christchurch in paintings by the Abstract Expres­ that it has a square in the middle sionist painter Clifford Still. which is dominated by a large A constant stream of visiting stone building; in Christchurch it lecturers entices the student from Reports is a cathedral, in Philadelphia the study. A fortnight ago Lewis town hall. Standing on the top of Mumford was on campus, last the town hall is Benjamin Frank­ week I heard a fine lecture on boys and, centred as they are most students have either gained lin, who, among other things, Modern American Poetry given by around certain religious denomin­ a reasonable standard of literacy founded the University of Penn­ the young Irish critic Denis ations or sports clubs, they domin­ or have been dropped from the sylvania in 1771 not too long after Donoghue, next week Archibald ate the extra-curricular life of course. Cook discovered New Zealand. MacLeish, who will be poet-in­ their inmates. Further, they seem While a student at Pennsylvania The city has, of course, grown residence for several weeks, will to interfere with the growth of may be no more interested in his around and beyond the university give a reading of his poems, and any system of cultural clubs such subject than the Auckland student, campus, which is still divided by We are soon to hear a number of as those which are found in he tends to be more serious about roads. talks by Karlheinz Stockhausen. Auckland. his work because his chances of There are many old buildings Apart from MacLeish, the artists- Since I tutored Stage I in Auck­ reasonable employment depend on on the campus — some are fine, in-residence programme includes land and am now teching fresh­ getting a degree. From memory, some hideous — which for much Louis Kahn, Henri Ricolet (archi­ man English here, I think I have many Arts students at Auckland of the year are covered in ivy. In tects), Clyfford Still (painter), some basis for comparison of don’t have much idea what they fact, to the untutored eye of a Herbert Ferber (sculptor) and academic performances. Penn­ are doing at university or are in New Zealand student like myself, George Rohcberg (composer). To sylvania is a privately endowed the process of making up their these buildings make the univer­ anyone interested in Arts, or the university and can set its own minds. Some of them vaguely sity more English than American. Humanities as they are called entrance standard. So I was not imagine they are there to get But there are new buildings also, here, the opportunities are over­ surprised to find a good percent­ knowledge, or to search for truth, some of them designed by leading whelming, but just because of this age ôf very bright students, but or some funny old-fashioned idea American architects like Louis the situation is not quite so excit­ I was rather surprised at how bad like that. Not so Pennsylvania Kahn, who is on the staff of the ing as it sounds. In Auckland the poorer students were. First- students. They take English so Architecture Department, and when a “big name” comes to town year English is a basic course in that they can write good business Saarinen. The new main library, one makes sure of hearing him writing — no literature. Such a reports, or Sociology because it which is a joy to work in, was because one is aware of how rare course is justified by the low will help them to adjust, or Poli­ completed in 1962 and has hold­ such opportunities are. At Penn­ standard of written English, since tical Science because it will make ings of over one and a half million sylvania, if you took advantage many of the students cannot spell them better citizens of a democ­ books. The university is now in of all these opportunities you to save themselves and can only racy. There is, perhaps, something the midst of a building programme would “flunk” your courses as write a sort of poor-man’s James to be said for the leisurely pace that has cost some $59,000,000 and they say and would be sent, post Bond English with any fluency. and “impractical” orientation of will cost an additional $130,000,000 haste, back to little old New In general, however, they work a small university like Auckland by 1975. This, to my untutored Zealand. very hard indeed. In this particu­ when one encounters the hectic eye, is making the university more The university has its own book lar course they have two lectures pace and earnest sense of social American than English. shop, which has a magnificent a week, a 15-minute “conference” responsibility that characterises The room in which I work — I stock of paperbacks and, in addi­ with their tutor, and hand in a the undergraduate part of a great am a Teaching Fellow in the Eng­ tion, there are two of the best 7 00-word essay every week, as American learnery. lish Department — is on the top small book stores in town on the well as reading in their four set floor of a building called Potter fringes of the campus. These two books. By the end of the term —Wystan Curnow Hall. It is a four-storeyed build­ shops form part of a small shop­ ing made of brick some 250 years ping area which deals almost ago. It was a convent (STC) and entirely with students and in­ more recently was graced with cludes clothes shops, jewellers, the presence of a promising young restaurants, bars, hairdressers and student named Ezra Pound. For all so forth. its ghostly presences, the creaking But what of the students them­ stairs, the cramped rooms, the selves? One is led to believe that draughty rooms and the narrow the American teenager is more corridors, make it an uncomfort­ mature than its New Zealand able building. counterpart. True enough, 12- The room in which I have my year-old girls with their hair in seminar courses is a different story curlers are a common sight, and — it is on the top floor of the new most undergraduates appear to be library building and is served by socially self-assured and sophistic­ fast automatic lifts. It is sound­ ated — there are very few rough proof except for the gentle sough­ edges left on them. (Please to ing of the wind in the air-condi­ remember that I am trying to tioning system; it is furnished with generalise on same 20,000 stud­ comfortable stainless-steel chairs ents!) But intellectually I would and a long wooden table; and say that, on average, they are less decorated tastefully and unobtru­ mature than the New Zealand sively. Such contrasts abound university student. They feed here. Leafy courtyards surrounded juke boxes like kids in a Pon­ by ivy-covered buildings, and in­ sonby Road milk-bar on Friday habited by squirrels and singing night, they are obsessed with birds are separated by but a block football and the shennanagans of from the great noisy surge of a Saturday afternoon at the Uni­ six-lane expressways. versity Stadium only bear com­ Student facilities are excellent parison with the Auckland Inter- in many respects. There are three Sec. sports. They drink coke large dining halls which provide rather than beer, they read pin-up breakfast, lunch and dinner at dolly magazines rather than reasonable prices. They serve food serious periodicals, they have very which makes the Auckland Uni­ few cultural clubs, they don’t versity cafe look like the hash- really have a literary magazine house it is. But I must say the or a newspaper like Craccum (a coffee house here doesn’t bear daily news sheet instead that is comparison with the new Auck­ ill-written and without substance) land one — the seating arrange­ and their political ideas are gener­ ments are uncomfortable, the ally set and conformist. lighting poor, the coffee is served Student life is more strongly in paper cups and it has a juke oriented to social activities here box (sic) which howls and moans than in Aurkland, and this seems cconstantly. However, there are to be a product of the general half a dozen drug stores on the outlook of the students, the fact campus which serve a very good that most of them live in campus cup of strong coffee. dormitories, and the influence of There are two theatres, two the fraternities. Fraternities are auditoriums and two art galleries, like school “houses” in a sense, all of which are in pretty constant but they are powerful “in-groups” use. For example, there have been in university life. They have three plays presented this term, “traditions”, they are supported two concerts by the excellent by private donations from old 6 21/2/64 CRACCUM

The Auckland University Stud­ base defamatory — though it may ents’ Association,, together with be fair — comment. Also many Mr Kurt von Meier of the Fine novelists, and perhaps most in their Arts School, are joint defendants first novels, cannot help introduc­ in a libel action. The plaintiffs are ing autobiographical material; and a firm of architects, Messrs. Massey, they may libel people, perhaps too jBeatson, Rix-Trott and Carter. thinly disguised, with no idea ■ Craccum has no comment to make beforehand of the consequences. on this matter right now, but we Publishers are sensitive to the are reprinting the (iTimes Liter­ impact of libel claims on a narrow ary Supplement” leader below, be­ profit margin. The right given by cause it seems to us to be a sound Section 4 of the Defamation Act, explanation of the anomalies in 1952, to make an Offer of Amends our libel laws as at 2oresent con­ and therefoi'e to avoid any liabil­ stituted. ity to pay damages, has not, in practice, helped publishers because too often they cannot, for techni­ There is a growing dissatisfac­ cal reasons (and in contrast to tion with the present state of our printers), rely on a claim to be libel laws. Few people can resist wholly innocent disseminators of something for nothing, when it is a libel. Except in the rare cases offered; and when someone has of libel by coincidence, it may been libelled — that is, has had seem hard that the publisher some real or imaginary human should share legal liability with PRESIDENT JUSTIFIES EXECUTIVE'S quirk or feeling attributed to him the author, though his “fault” is in writing which has been pub­ ATTITUDE TO CENSORSHIP often little worse than to have lished to a third party, giving him been misled by a source which, a legally valid claim for damages not unreasonably, he regarded as At an emergency meeting of the Executive of — he is likely to succumb to the reliable. Publishers generally re­ the Auckland University Students' Association on temptation to gain an unearned quire from their authors a full tax-free bonus, with a public contractual indemnity against all Tuesday, 25th February, it was resolved that a whitewash thrown in. Claims losses from libel claims, but being poem "Matilda Glubb", by J. K. Baxter, and the against newspapers and periodicals usually wealthier than their review of Mary McCarthy's book "The Group", by with huge circulations receive authors, they are the real target most publicity, and generally of most libel actions. Many pub­ 8. F. Babingfon, be deleted from Craccum No. 1 result in the larger awards; but lishers insure against libel risks, before distribution. authors and publishers of books so long as their libel record is are often hard hit, too. A law good enough to enable them to Mr Herb Romaniuk, in a written statement, intended only to give reasonable avoid quite uneconomic premiums; said: "It is unfortunate that it has once again be­ come necessary to take such action, but it became LET THERE clear to the Executive that, quite apart from any moral issues which some members thought might be involved, the Association could face legal and disciplinary action as the consequence of publica­ BE LIBEL tion of such articles. protection to reputations is now but a publisher’s freedom to nego­ widely thought to have become a tiate the terms of a settlement "The Executive came to its decision after source of easy money to anyone (e.g., to resist unreasonable giving careful consideration to the opinion of the fortunate enough to have been demands for calling in all copies Association's legal adviser, Mr L. P. Leary, Q.C., insulted in print. of the book) or, exceptionally, to defend a libel action on principle, and after consultation with the Vice-Chancellor, Mr Authors and publishers theoret­ ically share the risks of actions never itself a sensible motive in K. Maidment." brought in respect of libels in litigation, is naturally circum­ books. But they are affected by the scribed.. Further, a publisher with He continued: possibility of libels in quite dif­ a promising or an established "It is noted with concern the tendency to ferent ways. Truth, or at least the author who might be expected to leave him were he to seek to experiment in the field of law. If it is the opinion whole truth, cannot be expressed in words, so that recorded history, invoke the libel clause to the last of an editor that the law has not been sufficiently like news, consists largely of dis­ penny, may feel obliged to forgo developed, let him comment, but let him experi­ tortions, half-truths and inven­ the benefit of his policy, since underwriters reserve the right to ment in a publication of his own and not in a tions. Reportage is, like a photo­ graph, made of dots of different impose on any erring author the publication where the risk of liability rests on the intensities of grey, only a “flat” full penalty by way of indemnity. whole of the Association. representation of actual events and In their own and in their personalities; the impression it can 'authors’ interests, many publishers "I believe this is not the function of the Asso­ give is, at best, only an approxim­ therefore arrange for books ciation's official newspaper until it is clear that a ation. Writers must nevertheless thought to involve a possible libel try to describe circumstances and risk to be read in typescript or sufficient majority of members desire such people as well as they can, and in proof by a lawyer. This enables experimentation." more or less detail according to the author ignorant of the laws their purposes. But they have of libel, or feckless, to be warned another difficulty. They frequently in time, and sometimes at some have to compromise their integrity sacrifice of truth or his true views, because they could not, if it were a manuscript may then be necessary, prove by the evidence amended until it is regarded by on oath of witnesses the truth of the publisher as an acceptable the facts they wish to relate, business risk. At a meeting to dis­ either facts themselves defamatory cuss a libel report an author often or facts on which they wish to learns for the first time the use-

EAT AND ENJOY A.M.C. First Grade MEATS MONARCH BACON, HAM AND SMALL GOODS

QUALITY PRODUCTS of T H E AUCKLAND MEAT CO. LTD. CRACCUM — 21/2/64 7 lessness of half-measures to dis-] not stop at legal costs which seem No obvious scheme of changes book, or else it should not be guise living prototypes for charac disproportionately high, for it may could be guaranteed to improve republished except by agreement ters in his novel. Even the creation| be necessary in the case of a the frequent apparent injustice, in with the claimant, when the libel­ of composite characters or com serious libel, to withdraw unsold practice, of the present law. How­ lous edition is sold out. Some such plete changes of name and o copies of a book from booksellers ever, it would be possible, unless measure would not only limit the some characteristics do not avail! (perhaps thereby losing for ever special damage be proved, to limit scope of many claims which, at if a single characteristic or event the impetus of sales resulting from to £250, or even as little as £100, the moment, must be settled at a be described so that it could apply serialisation, publicity related to an award of damages to any one loss of hundreds of pounds be­ only to one person, who can the date of first publication and plaintiff in respect of a libel or cause of their nuisance value, but therefore claim to be identifiable; reviews), or at least to scrap the libels in a book (newspapers and would also enhance that freedom and an invented characteristic unsold balance of an edition, or to periodicals with large circulations of expression which should be no may in such a case itself be substitute cancel sheets if the could pay rather more for careless less our concern than the protec­ regarded as defamatory. Barring (alleged) libel is confined to a or deliberate defamation); to tion of the individual against coincidence, only complete inven­ page or two. everyone’s advantage a much re­ unfair public denigration. tion can give protection in a novel, Is it time to revise the law of duced scale of compensation would (C) The Times Publishing Com­ of contemporary life — and surel; libel, perhaps, as has been sug­ perhaps deflate the assumed relyj pany Limited, 1963. A ll rights that would be rather a dull novel, v j gested, to require proof of special gravity of libel. A public apology damages — that is, actual mone­ and withdrawal or correction need reserved. Reprinted, by permis­ sion, from The Times Literary Few libel actions concerning tary loss? This is at presesnt not be required to involve the Supplement of 11 October, 1963. books are fought out"* because so required for an oral slander to be disproportionate costs of a State­ few losing claimants could be actionable per se, except one ment in Open Court — which is relied upon to pay the defendants’ liable to damage a man in his barely “public” anyway unless costs. The risk of responsibility profession or business, or alleging reproduced in a newspaper — but for costs, win or lose, out of pro­ a crime, unchastity in a woman, instead could be accepted as effec­ portion to any likely award of or venereal disease. In practice, tive if published in not more than CRACCUM damages, is, therefore, enough to however, relatively few libel two or three column inches in welcomes students interested in induce the publishers (or their claims could not be brought with­ the personal columns of three insurers) to seek a settlement of in one of the exceptions. Another national or local newspapers. With improving content and design. almost every claim, even if it has suggestion would deny to claim­ the resulting limitations on legal Editors, reporters, proof readers, to involve a payment of monetary ants the benefit of reliance upon costs (even in cases which might poets and designers, leave compensation larger than the the reputation of juries for be brought or fought in the High claimant would seem to deserve, generosity at the defendant’s ex­ Court) legal aid, not at present names at Students' Association and fairly substantial costs to en­ pense, by leaving the award of available in respect of Defamation office. able an agreed statement to be damages in all cases to a judge Proceedings, could be extended so read in open court unduly flatter­ alone. But, without a limit to the that poverty would no longer deny Copy for next Craccum closes ing of the claimants — which he damages which might be awarded, legal redress to anyone injured by 2 March, 1964. hopes will be published the fol­ judges could prove as unpredict­ a libel, or to an impoverished lowing day in The Times. But able as juries and, if there were author obliged to defend a claim. often the publisher’s losses less inducement to settle, any Any defamatory passage should, if (whether or not he can fairly look possible saving in damages would possible, be deleted or amended in ton in the role of Hermann to the author to share them), do be lost in costs. all subsequent printings of the Goering and the little-known Sammy Davis, Jnr., as Adolf Hit­ ler’s corpse after the burning) brought about von Braun’s change of heart. Even so, it took a promise by a high-ranking official to adopt a Germanic attitude to­ Foreign Exchange Students wards space and the assurance of a permanent advisory position for all space films produced by Twen­ tieth Century Fox, to win the expert over. As A Cause Of War Meanwhile a young man by the name of Francis Powers was Exchange students, a recent sur­ plane from a Kobe airbase. This ing and photography that com­ studying mosaic setting in Mos­ vey by the International Federa­ was such an unprecedented event bined professional photographic cow, USSR, under the Russo- tion for Abolition of Exchange in Japanese military history that know-how with the ability to American Mosaic Setters Mutual Student Programmes shows, cause the greater part of the Imperial change the face of any given land­ Exchange Agreement. Powers had two out of three major wars. Air Force was immediately alerted. scape. From this occupation it was been exchanged because of his only a step to flying that fateful fantastic ability to memorise even World War II, for example — The idea of using Pearl Harbour mission in 1945. the most complicated mosaics. He at least for this country (USA) — as an escape struck Kamuka on was to lecture to mosaic setters in was started by a former Japanese the way when he realised that he Barker, by that time an acknow­ Washington, DC, and other mosaic exchange student, Yoshai Kamuka. did not have a Chinaman’s chance ledged aerial landscaping archi­ setting centres. Kamuka dropped the first bomb of eluding his pursuers. Pretend­ tect, eagerly volunteered to take While in Moscow he discovered on Pearl Harbour. It was a kind ing to be on a top secret mission, the bomb to Japan, suggesting a new process of^glazing mosaics of a grudge bomb in a way. he told them over the radio that that he drop one in Nagasaki first by dropping th^m from great the American fleet was to be de­ and then fly on to Hiroshima to heights. However, other projects Kamuka had visited the US in stroyed at Pearl Harbour. The make it stick. Barker’s eagerness, kept him from following this up the fall of 1932 under the Gar­ operation was such a success that his experience in the field, and commercially until he was ap­ deners’ Mutual Exchange Pro­ Kamuka was promoted to the rank the fact that he was married to a proached by a public relations gramme in order to study garden­ of Air Marshal without portfolio remote granddaughter of Reuben man from Career Investment ing. In the summer of 1933 he after the attack. Teller, grandfather of Hungarian- Associates (CIA), who suggested started stealing apples, and ad­ born Edward Teller, father of the that he reopen his glaze-fusion mitted later under cross examina­ Unbeknownst to Kamuka, how­ atomic bomb, made the difference. experiments. With CIA support tion that he had been living off ever, a chain reaction involving and the promise of having his stolen potatoes for almost half a another exchange student had Another example of abnormal process patented should the aerial year. already been set off at that time. development of an exchange photographs taken during the ex­ periments justify such a move, He was just about to be sen­ Harold Barker, of Corpus Christi, student is German-born Wernher Texas, an architectural exchange von Braun, who studied genetic Powers did a number of high alti­ tenced and deported by Germany tude flights over Russia. A cynical when at the very last moment his student in Tokio from 1936 to sexology in the US during the 1938, had struck up a casual thirties and, after a harrowing Russian judge — himself an old lawyer invoked diplomatic im­ mosaic man — later sentenced the munity for Kamuka under the acquaintanceship with Kamuka in and near-fatal experience with a a local bar. Kamuka, probably young Boston sophomore, turned innocent American flyer to several McKinley Sons of Nippon law (a years of hard labour, to be served law, incidentally, which was later still smarting from the wounds to rockets after going back to received in the US, relieved the Germany. How deeply traumatic in an experimental fusion station amended and finally abolished). near Novaya-Zemelya. An irate Kamuka returned to Texan of his wallet, containing this experience must have been is Japan, where he became inter­ some 300 dollars and an old revealed by the fact that von There are other names: ested in the improvement of large photograph of the first family Braun, despite his almost para- well — which, being the only one noioc rejection of American sexual Oscar Horney, for example, garden areas through aerial spray­ whose study of borderline schizo­ ing with insecticides. From there that had survived time, was irre­ concepts (he is married to a pro­ placeable and cherished by its gressive Patagonian) has never phrenia in Israel led to the intro­ it was only a step to flying that duction of circumcision in the fateful mission in 1941. owner. abandoned the basic phallic shapes impressed on his young mind at United States; Walter F. Zysk- varney, a Hungarian exchange The facts behind the Pearl Har­ Barker was so upset by this the time. student, who, after doing road bour disaster are not generally betrayal of confidence that he engineering work in the US, known and will bear repeating returned to the United States Only a meeting with Kirk paved the way for Red tanks to here. On 7 December, 1941, Yoshai immediately and in disgust, where Douglas at Nuremberg in 1945 enter Budapest by capturing a Kamuka, a competent commercial he turned to aerial landscaping, a (Douglas was then planning a pilot at the time, stole a military modern combination of landscap­ court drama with Charles Laugh- —Continued on back page pared to see the ideal of the “open university” disappear? It seems that they were. Academic achieve­ STUDENTS IN ment and self-interest won, and the notion that a university exists to inform any person who wishes to attend it, who seeks an educa­ THE STREETS tion, whatever they may or may not have been, went down. It would be fair to say that ents appeared to be trying to Recently a columnist told us that the Auckland University student indicate their disapproval of free an anthropological classic, Malin­ is an uncontroversial fellow in speech in the noisiest and most general. Once a year he shocks demagogic fashion. This was not owski’s “The Sexual Life of the mock modesty of the city protest, it was fuzzy-minded hum­ Savages”, was on the “sell at your own risk list” for book dealers. fathers (but severe limitations bug. Within the last few months the have been imposed on this) with In what other ways has the the humour of the stink bomb and student body caught public atten­ iniquitous Indecent Publications advertises his concern for the tion? One needs to reach back to Act passed its final committee parish pump and lavatory bowl. 1960 to find a rather half-hearted stages without apparently excit­ ing much student comment. Why Rude stuff, perhaps — even shock­ little display of feeling over the ing, occasionally mildly laughable, All Black tour — a protest which not? Do students favour censor­ but good-humoured all the time; only gained public notice because ship? What have they to say? the high spirits of low fellows. of the defiance of authority by a Where were the student letters to For the rest of the year he plods ccouple of students at Whenuapai the editors of the local papers? along conscientiously sitting tests, Airport. handing in essays, stacking up the The fact is that neither the The Individual and Central neat little pile of credits which public nor the papers take student Authority add up to a degree. He can, in opinion seriously, and one won­ This question is the biggest and fact, emerge from the university ders, do the students themselves probably the one which embraces more learned but almost as pro­ take what they have to say most others. There has been little foundly uneducated as when he seriously? Have there been no student activity on this issue. To entered it. From there he dis­ issues since 1960 which might take an example, consider the appears into the colourless, con­ involve students? Is the uncon­ Government’s particularly invi­ trastless milieu which is Auckland troversial student the outcome of dious compulsory Military Train­ society. If he is one of the top the uncontroversial society? I ing Act. Under this system 5 per cent or so he will probably doubt this. There seem to be four several thousand young men can vanish overseas to sigh regretfully areas of controversy where stud­ be drafted annually for military for New Zealand as an expatriate ents might be heard. They are training. Why? For the defence will and even, as not a few have also by chance the four most of New Zealand? From whom? done, make his way back. important issues of the present No one knows. This is an intrusion time. ' by central authority upon the There are many, not all of them freedom of the individual. Is greybeards, who would have us • The issue of war and peace —New Zealand’s commitment. there justification for peace-time believe that this is the proper conscription? It is not a question business of a university; to send • . The issue of race relations. • The issue of academic liberty. of present expediencies but of the most fit where they can be­ general principles. And there is come intellectual kings and cour­ • The relation of the individual neither dignity nor courage in tiers (in short, elitists), and the ■ to central authority. passive acceptance of the situa­ rest to labour in the vineyards War and Peace tion. There are any number of instilling their misconceptions into Central to this is disarmament the heads of the young. Others similar cases to choose from. The and the relationship of New Zea­ private liberty is whittled away again would say that all this is land to its various defensive pacts, too easy, and that we must keep by the Indecent Publications Act, its accord in the United Nations by provisions which limit the up, indeed raise, our standards of — and most, concretely the ques­ scholarship. All this is very pro­ right of movement to the Cook tion of French or any other Islands, and which prevent an per; it leads to a regrettable con­ nuclear tests in the Pacific or centration on the top man or adult from sponsoring the immi­ elsewhere. If there has been gration of a Korean child. If the woman the rewarding 5 per cent student activity apart from CND for the teacher, and equally student body is at a loss, then support and the isolated effort of there are doubtless many more regrettable series of complaints a small group of students in Wel­ about the 50 per cent who are the areas where it can make its pre­ lington who were disowned by sence felt. teacher’s burden. But never mind. their own student executive, it has You get from it what you put in. not reached the daily press. Have How Can Student Protest A university is like a savings there been student pickets at the bank with, often enough, a mighty Devonport naval base? Have there Operate ? low rate of interest. been representative student pro­ It would seem that students tests over palled Government are in a position to move more If the student body is dull, quickly than anyone else on im­ whose fault is that? Not the uni­ protests? If so, they have passed unnoticed. There has been little portant issues. Students can talk versity staff’s for certain, for this and write. They can hold meet­ body is bright, witty, and some­ to tell the general body of the public that any sizeable body of ings, they can send telegrams, times controversial. It has a voice they can write to the newspapers, which now and again gets heard students either approves or dis­ approves. they can use their own press to outside. Witness the fairly recent pamphleteer, they can seek air Chapman letter. Race Relations time. You can’t blame the students Where do students stand? Re­ Students can walk, they can because they come from a society cently there has been a correspon­ carry placards, they can sit down. dedicated to “don’t rock the boat”. dence in the papers about Asian So far as I know, there is no need The parents are the worthy folk immigration. What is the student to invent the techniques of non­ who make Auckland tick, slowly, view on this? A while ago there violence. They have been well like a grandfather clock. For the was, and perhaps still is, active tried and tested elsewhere. At majority of students the problem discrimination in an Auckland Marham in May 1963, 300 people is absence of controversy in the satellite town. Has any student crossed an airfield. In the United community. Is it merely that in action been taken? Where do States teachers have refused to New Zealand the State is so well students stand regarding the con­ carry out Civil Defence drills. Is ordered that there is little to criti­ ditions under which people live in it necessary for Auckland students cise? Is there a consensus of Central Auckland? On education? to wait for an outside committee opinion to the effect that if you Job opportunities? The Cook before they can act independ­ deviate you are being a fool and Islands? Immigration? Relations are making a mountain out of a ently? If there is race discrimina­ with South Africa? tion in a pub, students can head a molehill? Academic Liberty stand in. If picketing is forbidden What instances of Auckland When in 1961 university fees in Queen Street, then students University student involvement were increased, a number of can picket and run the risk of have gained the attention of the people were automatically ex­ arrest if they feel strongly enough press in recent months? Apart cluded from the university by about an issue and are sufficiently from the annual Hiroshima Day reason of their inability to pay. well informed on it to merit Parade, where a student speaker These were not young students action. They can use all the means was remarkably platitudinous, the who qualified for bursaries, but of non-violent civil protest, and only occurrence in the last 12 to students who had no such quali­ by doing so can make the public 15 months was the deplorable fication. Were students content to at large realise that they are demonstration outside the Auck­ see the structure of New Zealand people with something to say. land Town Hall, in which stud­ education change? Were they pre­ —Roger Oppenheim CRACCUM 21/2/64 9

Bonded Bursaries — Iniquitous ANOMALIES IN STATUS Writing in the New Zealand Medical News, Dr Erich Geirenger New Zealand Government from has attacked the whole iniquitous In 1962 there were 590 overseas student programme. What it has students from 37 countries study­ is a series of separate schemes offering scholarships to Fiji or system of bonded bursaries. superimposed on one another, ad­ from urging that proper selection In 1957 the Abolition of Forced ing in New Zealand. They have ministered independently by procedures be adopted in deter­ Labour Convention was signed in become a familiar sight in univer­ separate government departments. mining the academic suitability of Geneva by 55 countries. They sities, teacher training colleges and special training schools. The Anomalies are therefore only to students who are come to New undertook not to support “any be expected. It is time that the Zealand schools and universities, form of forced or compulsory idea of helping under-developed countries by giving some of their whole situation be reviewed and or from ensuring that such labour” including any “method of an attempt made to relate the students as come to New Zealand mobilising and using labour for students technical and professional training is one which has received various schemes in an over-all are made welcome and given the purposes of economic develop­ student programme. The Govern­ same official status as overseas ment”. Among the 55 signatories enthusiastic endorsement from most articulate sections of the ment has not yet recognised that students from other countries. were the UK, Australia and Can­ the success of any particular ada. Soviet Russia and New community, especially the It seems reasonable to suggest churches. New Zealand, as a student scheme depends not so that in any future overseas student Zealand were among the countries much on what it provides relative which did not sign. wealthy country, has, it is felt, a programme the conditions under moral obligation to help countries to conditions at home as on what which the non-European British That the State has the right to it provides relative to the other dispose of the individual, who which are both overcrowded and citizens study should be brought under-developed, and in many schemes under which overseas closer to those of the Europeans exists for the sake of the State, is students work. an idea which probably emerged cases students from overseas can from the same country who also in its modern form about the time help to break down local insular­ As far as Fiji is concerned, study at New Zealand universities. of the French Revolution. The so- ity, build up ties of personal ultimately the tension can only be Further, if considerations of en­ called democracies have on the friendship, and improve inter­ resolved by some action as modi­ lightened self-interest suggest that whole rejected this principle. In national relations. fying New Zealand’s immigration overseas students under the wartime, it is accepted that the Despite a widespread concern policy in favour of non-white Colombo Plan should be made burden of coercion should be for the welfare of the “overseas Fijians or by the development of welcome in the country, the same evenly distributed. student”, it is not generally appre­ the islands and the reduction in considerations suggest that a wel­ In the Soviet Union the State ciated that this is a purely imagin­ the disparity between the stan­ come should be extended to their sponsors university students on ary figure. In fact, the individual dards of living and Fiji. As a overseas students, especially those condition that they accept one of students differ widely in aptitudes, British Crown Colony, the deci­ from the Pacific. several positions offered them by personality, wealth, religion and sions regarding the rapid develop­ the State Distributing Commis­ cultural background. Many over­ ment of Fiji are not for the New —Richard Thompson sion. A State-sponsored student seas students find New Zealanders Zealand Government to make. In Condensed from “Race”, May can be legally compelled to take less strange than they find their the meantime, New Zealand 1963, by kind permission of the up a position selected for him by fellow-students from other Asian accepts students from Fiji, for to author.) this body. In democratic countries countries. Most are in the Domin­ exclude them would create poli­ graduates are supposed to be able ion on scholarships from the New tical complications, but it does not to dispose of their skills as their Zealand Government; some are on offer them the assistance which it conscience, fancy or economic scholarships from their own State offers to remote countries under necessity dictates. governments; some are sponsored the Colombo Plan. Although any In this country a youth of 17 or by churches and theological col­ major improvement in the situa­ BETRAYED 18 can sell three years of his life leges, while others have no tion is perhaps dependent on sub­ to the Crown in return for £150 sponsors and are paying their own stantial changes in policy, there is The Government of Ceylon is plus fees p.a. while studying for way. Largely as a result of his­ nothing to prevent the New Zea­ one of the many of the recently a medical degree. torical circumstances and New land Government from taking a de-colonialised Afro-Asian States Of the bursars, 95 per cent sign Zealand’s immigration policy on close look at its overseas student which has been betrayed into their contract under the age of the one hand, and the increasing schemes. There is nothing to pre­ assuming the outward trappings 21. All they know at that stage political significance of Asian and vent the immediate abolition of of Nationalism in the hope that is that they want to be doctors. African countries on the other, the deposit at present required of this will bring about real national They do not realise that the first there are anomalies in the treat­ non-scholarship students from strength and unity. My complaint three years after graduation are ment accorded the various cate­ Fiji and the adoption of the refers not to the nationalising of the most important for their gories of overseas students. simpler Australian procedure. foreign firms by the Government, future career. New Zealand lacks an overseas There is nothing to prevent the although this step can hardly be upheld as the ultimate in political wisdom, but to the change of the official language from English to Sinhalese. We can sympathise with a people wishing to preserve their national culture against pressures from outside, and we can recog­ nise that the Sinhalese Lave been correct in seeing language as the most important part of culture, along with which everything else stands or falls. (Not that it is most important intrinsically, per­ haps, but it is the medium of ordinary business, and is therefore taught in every school — few people study music and painting to the degree that they do lan­ guage, even fewer architecture, typography, ceramics.) It cannot be hoped that cultural nationalism in Ceylon will have effects which will justify the en­ thusiasm of its undertaking. The English language is the vehicle of modern technology, and any country which does not en­ courage the learning of English will find it hard to equip its scientists with the printed tools of their trade. French, German and, more particularly, Russian language presses are still turning out greater-than-ever supplies of technical material, both “native” and translated, but their bulk can­ not match that of British and American prir.f. —A. E. Thomson 10 21/2/64 — CRACCUM

(

This article has been deleted. For explanation, see statement on Page 6.

matter. All the paintings in the Ikon show were produced in the pre­ vious two years. Their source is frequently Auckland’s west coast, around Bethell’s Beach where the sense of horizons — sandhill ridges, foreshore, sea-sky horizon, cloud-banks — forces both painter and spectator to rationalise the landscape’s perspectives into a pattern of foreground and back­ ground shapes and colours in or­ Don Binney's Exhibition der that the eye can assimilate the rather Cinemascopic sweeps Ikon Gallery, Oct. 1963 of line and colour. Binney’s Don Binney’s one-man show at rationalisation within the form of the Ikon Gallery last October has his frame is effected by counter­ apparently confirmed in the rather ing this sense of the horizontal cautious mind of the Auckland with colour-shapes rising vertical­ public the impression that his ly or at angles oblique to the paintings in earlier exhibitions vertical on his canvas, as in had begun to create — that of a “Solomon’s Hill,” “Taumaiti II” painter whose pictorial inspiration and “Fairytale” where the thrust was happily complemented by a of colours from foreground to sense of form and colour whose background gives order to the end result was an exhibition of landscape without reducing the paintings of high quality. Though sense of expanse and distance. Binney’s work has been known Line in Binney’s landscape is the locally for a couple of years now, strong demarcation of colour, but the fact that a full acknowledge­ the first impression of an extreme ment of its merit has been forth­ reliance upon the primary colours coming only after this Exhibition is modified as the awareness grows seems to me indictive of the dis­ of his precise choice of tones to couraging caution with which we depict the subtleties of light in­ approach the work of most of our tensity. Binney exploits the whole artists whose names are not yet range of his whites, yellows, established in painting, writing reds and blues, and achieves not or music. Uncritical enthusiasm merely a pleasing balance of and a lack of discrimination are colours that merge, contrast and too often encountered by a refusal inter-relate (and his eyes seem to acknowledge the new and good faultless here) but also a state­ until someone else has jumped in ment of the fluctuation of light in first and declared it fit for cultural his landscape which he has cap­ consumption. Criticism is always tured at one instant during the easier if it is left to someone else. process of continuous change. It The effect of a delay in recog­ is this sense of immediacy deriv­ nition upon a painter of talent is, ing from his awareness of the of course, unimportant to all ex­ effect of light upon a static land­ cept the painter himself. Never­ scape that gives much of their theless, Binney has peristsed in power to Binney’s paintings. His painting (how many others like paintings are “regional” and “per­ him did not?) and we are now in sonal,” and they demand that a position to judge his work in these words be used as terms of retrospect. Whether we have earn­ praise rather than as pejoratives ed such an opportunity, in the because they imply the qualities case of Binney or any other and not the faults of his work. “new” artist, is of course another The paintings seem to me a good CRACCUM 21/2/64 11

time and existence, as in “Ash remote and echoing phrases from Wednesday” and the “Four Quar­ the lesser known medieval T. S. Eliot — tets”, his poetry deteriorates. Spanish poets”. This withdrawal of Eliot’s from While Eliot’s attitude was the The Great Romantic everyday life is typical of the same as that of the romantics, he nineteenth century. The artist realised that their poetry was in­ When you first read T. S. Eliot it on the great traditions of the hated the brashness and vulgarity adequate. He reacted against he seems to be a realist, wholly past. He failed to see the import­ of machine-produced ornament, Wordsworth’s definition of poetry unromantic. He writes about shop­ ance and the potential of the and the taste of the nouveau- as “the spontaneous overflow of keepers, clerks and labourers, revolution taking place about him. riche. Because of this hatred of powerful feelings” by saying that about pubs, alleyways and cities, He failed to appreciate the new the philistinism of the age, the “poetry is not a turning loose of instead of the usual nightingales industry, the new science, the new artist tried to divorce himself emotion but an escape from emo­ and larks of the Georgian poets. creativity, and the art which they from it and hense, also, from tion”, “the poet has not a person­ He denies the Keatsian dictum needed and deserved. In this lies reality. He despised the masses ality to express, but a particular “Beauty is truth, truth beauty . the inadequacy of his poetry. and thought of himself as some­ medium which is only a medium”. Instead, modern life is very ugly Compare “Burnt Norton”: thing nobler and more spiritual. Eliot cut himself away from the indeed. “Time present and time past His audience was an educated nature poets with their personal Eliot does not hesitate to write Are both perhaps present in elite. The artist as a craftsman or expression but he shared their about this ugliness. He attacks it. time future, minstrel in constant contact with disgust of modern life. His A society where spiritual and And time future contained in the people disappeared. The art of achievement was that he expressed artistic understanding has been time past. the Middle Ages, the plays of this disgust. Unfortunately his con­ If all time is eternally present replaced by mass education, news­ Shakespeare, could be understood tempt for the present made him All time is unreedemable”. papers, canned art, canned know­ by everyone, but in the nineteenth over-glorify the past — to write ledge, canned response: with a painting by Picasso or a century the separation of the in the tradition of Dante, St. “And short square fingers stuff­ building by Corbusier. It just artist and the populace which had Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, ing pipes won’t do — metaphysical specula­ begun in the renaissance, had been today is as false as to write -in the Assured of certain certainties tion, sterile scholasticism. completed. The artist was now a tradition of Wordsworth and The conscience of a blackened In fact, Eliot is not really a scholar, an academician, appre­ Keats. street modern poet at all. Pevsner’s ciated only by connoisseurs, use­ He achieved his aim of making Impatient to assume the world 99 definition: “The romantic attitude less to the great mass of the his poetry impersonal. The feel­ is one of longing, that is antagon­ population. ings of revulsion, contempt, fear, He writes in the idiom of the ism to the present which some Eliot had the same sympathies in the earlier poems have been street, exposes the squalor of saw as . . . ugly industrialism as these men. He hated the indus­ removed in “Ash Wednesday” and mind, the nauseating colloquial­ and commercialism” applies to trial age, he despised the unedu­ the “Four Quartets”. They are isms: him. He could not appreciate the cated and insensitive. The ordinary completely impersonal, but they “You ought to be ashamed, 1 beauty of the industrial system, man became a sort of crass moron, are also poor poetry. They have said, to look so antique. saw only the spiritual squalor typified by “Ape Neck Sweeney”. degenerated into rhetoric. (And her only thirty-one.) produced, not by the new His poetry becomes full of obscure Eliot’s attitude became that of a I can’t help it, she said, pulling machines, but by the outdated allusions to literature of the past, a long face, scholar; poetry became “a superior social order in which they worked. incomprehensible to all but the amusement”, “art for art’s sake”. It’s them pills I took, to bring When he attacks this squalor he most learned of scholars: “We do it off, she said. It is the attitude which debilitated writes good poetry, but when he not all know our Webster and nineteenth century art. It is an (She’s had five already, and turns away from comment on our Middleton as he does”, Charles nearly died of young attitude which is still popular to­ real world and the people in it, Williams said. Eventually “Poems day, still hindering true art. It is George.) to abstract questions, faith, hope, will be composed wholly of Now every man must have a the attitude which Louis Sullivan philosophy or some code of beliefs attacked. “So ever works the pallid to live by; Eliot destroys that academic mind, denying the real, accepted by our society, the aver­ exalting the fictitious and false”. age morality of the middle class. —Elwyn Evans In his hatred of this he also turns away from any other modern system. He sees the achievement NEW ZEALAND — STUDIES IN and serenity of the past standing A SMALL DEMOCRACY. out against the inadequacy and Published by Paul’s. Price unbalance of the present. He 27/6. bases his hope and beliefs on the New Zealand — Studies in a past: “I am royalist in politics, Small Democracy, is significant as Anglo-Catholic in religion”. a collection of historical mono­ The nineteenth century was a graphs on New Zealand. But a cultural nadir. Eliot hated this survey of these is best left to the degradation of art and, like Wil­ critical devices of a practised liam Morris, tried to re-establish historian. But of equal interest is the controversial introduction to the book by Professors Sinclair Continued from page 10 and Chapman, which reveals to exemplification of the remark of the public for the first time the an Australian critic (Robert extent to which Professor emeritus Hughes) in another context — Airey, doyen of the History De­ “Landscape is not a passive thing partment at Auckland University, that you can sit down and paint. was harassed by unthinking and It is the physical form of a human prejudiced elements of the com­ emotion.” Binney’s response to munity who knew nothing of what he has seen infuses his Airey’s work or development, but landscapes with the sense of dy­ would have been prepared to do namic immediacy. him in for daring to have contrary The sense of the arrested motion views to their own on many poli­ of light in the landscapes is found tical and social questions. “He is again in Binney’s birds, where a New Zealander and an intellec­ movement in line — a kind of tual in the sense of one who cares aerodynamics — is implicit greatly for ideas. Unlike Reeves whether the birds are flying or and most of his other precursors, at rest. His pipiwharauroa, his Airey stayed in New Zealand and keruru and matuku, are living helped to change it.” This is the extensions of the landscapes on considered opinion of Chapman which they appear and are por­ and Sinclair. trayed, I think, in the same terms. Protests about Airey’s public Each bird “captured” in the paint­ views and proceedings were made ings is seen at one point of rest, known to the University College or stasis, yet each, moving or Council by people knowing noth­ standing, contains the kinetic ing of his academic activities. potential of its flight and move­ These complaints were repelled by ment in its body lines and shapes. the President (later Chancellor) The wings of the lower bird in Mr W. H. Cocker, who was elected “Pipiwharauroa, Late Summer,” to the Council in 1933 after a are down and the beak is open, campaign in defence of academic yet the wings and beak caught freedom. After the war, when thus live precisely through the Airey on one occasion was implicit statement of movement, attacked in the House of Repre­ rising or closing. sentatives, the University again —W. S. Broughton ignored such criticism. 12 21/2/64 — CRACCUM

THE TIME HAS COME. A Catho­ regions . . . e.g., “Three eminent ENCOUNTERS. Edited by Stephen lic doctor’s proposals to end Vatican theologians, for example, Spender, Irving Kristol and the battle over birth control. have recently come to the conclu­ Melvin J. Lasky. Introduction By John Rock, MD. (Long­ sion that it is licit for at least by D. W. Brogan (an antho­ mans, Green & Co., 1963. 216 some women in danger of rape to logy from the first 10 years of PP. 18/-.) use the pills in order to prevent “Encounter”). (Weidenfeld & conception. Their findings, appar­ Nicholson, 1963. 562 pp. 42/-.) The Time Has Come is one of ently occasioned by the rape of those ephemeral “important” nuns in the Congo, were reported This anthology deserves far books that are released to try us in the authoritative Vatican pub­ more reviewing space than the every now and then. Dr Rock’s lication Studi Cattolici. Monsignor rather attenuate note that I allow thesis is that the use of a sub­ Ferdinando Lamhruschini, profes­ it here — but it is so big, so filled stance chemically related to pre- sor of moral theology at the with outstanding contributions, gesterone, a substance derived Lateran University, pointed out that to deal fairly with even the from the roots of a wild Mexican that victims of rape do not have very best of its contents would be yam (known to the masses as “The the alternative of abstention to to usurp the whole of this week’s Pill”), to induce a regular safe which married couples can resort Literary Section. This is by way period, is not outside the Catholic in order to avoid conception.” I fear, never get beyond the of a preface to the apology, which Church’s concept of Natural Law, obscenely sentimental preface . . I make now, for taking the easy which has, till now, forbidden the When he is not distracted, Dr “. . . Through the years those way out: that of briefly listing use of contraceptive devices. He Rock’s argument is interesting, but words of Father Finnick have re­ the jewels in the treasure chest. argues that the Intellect is not it will have to wait for a more sounded, quietly but firmly, in The ubiquitous Mary McCarthy excluded from the functioning of authoritative pleading. The results my mind . . . ‘John, always stick makes a Confession, Hugh Trevor- the Natural Law — a reasonable of this might be worthwhile. The to your conscience’ . . . I liked Roper vents his wrath on Arnold point, but, unfortunately, his final section of the book, on the him — in spite of the fact that he Toynbee in an essay entitled grasp of theological matters seems battle over birth control laws in took at least five minutes longer Arnold Toynbee’s Millenium too hazy to give the book any the USA, is of interest, but many to say Mass than either Father (“The drowsy doggerel of the real authority, and he is continu­ readers (unhampered by the re­ Sullivan . . . or Father Lowney”. Founder’s Litany ‘Mother Mary, ally sidetracked into ludicrous viewer’s devotion to duty) would, —B. F. Babington —Continued on Page 14

COLD BEER COLD BEER

ALSO WINES — SPIRITS TEA — SOFT DRINKS JOHN REID & CO. LTD. ANZAC AVENUE

Your Nearest Wholesaler

Open: 9 a.m. to 5.30 p.m. MONDAY TO SATURDAY

MINERVA Bookshop

We're all ready for you. Lots of students have already visited us to buy their books — but we are waiting for YOU ! You should Ustpairs we have University books all over the place — including the floor! But you'll find what you want have with the help of our assistants. your own BNZ • cheque Come to Minerva, where you will be well looked after. account Our Educational Dept, is now AIR CONDITIONED.

• BANK Enjoy the double safeguard of paying by BNZ cheques . . . an automatic receipt for payment and protection of your funds against theft, A BNZ cheque account also gives you full control MINERVA BOOKSHOP BNZI of your finances, and standing in the community, too. Enquire at any BNZ Branch or Agency. 13 COMMERCE STREET, AUCKLAND Baniu New Zealand Telephone 32-960 New Zealand*s Leading Bank BANK WITH THE BNZ CRACCUM — 21/2/64 13

Are letters addressed to “the more newspaper-minded. At a For affiliation: Katavich, Wily, Students’ Association” really able meeting of 24 October, however, Jannif, Quennell. to reach their destination? Appar­ a number of Exec members ex­ Against: Lindberg, Laird, Fris, ently, after recent “tightening-up” EXEC pressed their usual concern with Gavin, Matheson. measures by Exec, this is not the regard to money. Outspoke enthusiasts have since case. Members of the Association No one was at first willing formed themselves into an incor­ may examine the Inwards Corre­ even to second the motion to affi­ porated society called the Auck­ spondence file only with respect liate the “Auckland University land University Amalgamated to a particular letter, and then NOTES Independent Newspaper Society”, Independent Critics’ Society (Inc). only when such letter has been intending publishers of Outspoke. The juggling with the words in received officially by the Execu-s Matheson’s pro forma seconding this title seems to have been tive, and then only with the per­ and the other advantages offered allowed discussion on the topic to caused by legal requirements. mission of the portfolio-holder by a more expensive print-job, begin, but he later refused to give They have obtained permission to whom the letter concerns. would draw such an increase of a firm seconding; Treasurer Kata- sell the paper on University and These rules can have been made readers and advertisers as to cover vich became seconder. Students’ Association premises. only with the idea that they are the additional cost. But — readers Exec was most worried about An attempt on 5 February to get to be enforced; and what their and advertisers would be more the Society running into financial official recognition from the Exe­ enforcement is most likely to satisfied if the format were better difficulties, and involving the cutive that the society existed, achieve is the protection of Exec . . . contributors would be more Association in its debts, although this in order to obtain a news­ members from justifiable criticism. proud to write for the paper . . . no one present had any exact paper office in the form of a wash­ Persons sending letters to “the it would, in short, be a better legal knowledge to offer. Mr house in one of the old buildings Association”, and who want them paper, and a better advertisement Erskine assured them that after recently bought by the University, to go elsewhere than into the files for the University . . . the Stud­ three issues an AGM of the resulted only in a letter being of an Information Suppression ents’ Association does not under­ Society would be considering the sent to Admin, asking that they League, are advised to send a take the publishing of Craccum winding up of the newspaper ven­ give the AUAICS (Inc.) any second copy to the editor of as a commercial venture. That is, ture if necessary. assistance they could. Craccum, as Professor Beadle did it does not expect to make a last year in the case of his criti­ profit, nor, we hope, simply to cisms of Exec attitudes towards a break even, if such consideration nude painting — one letter which of economics means sacrifices in most of the Exec would have essential quality. THE TREASURY liked. An attempt to dodge respon­ Why there was no After Degree sibility for the decision by passing Function last year. Social Com­ the matter back to Finance Cdm- mittee had been “thrown round”, mittee was unsuccessful. Economist1 ccomplained chairman Matheson We now proceed to the con­ at an Exec meeting of 9 October, sideration of a student named Treasury has a vacancy for a graduate with a good pass in Economics, 1963. At a previous meeting he Robert J. Erskine, at present in had attempted to overcome the his second year of study for an preferably with first class honours. A knowledge of mathematics would be an advantage. problem of not being able to arts degree. Faced, at the end of obtain any suitable hall at reason­ last year, with the appointment The work involves preparation of papers and of reports on a wide range able price by simply getting of a Craccum editor who was of subjects connected with New Zealand’s economic policy both internal Exec’s permission not to hold the likely to produce a rather differ­ and external. hop at all. But Exec had refused ent type of paper than that this permission, and had implied favoured by himself, Erskine, in­ The appointee may be called on to attend overseas conferences as a that if necessary the function spired with a spirit of independ­ member of New Zealand delegations and opportunities exist for second­ should be held at a more expen­ ence, an extensive megalomania ment to overseas posts for specific terms. sive venue, e.g. Peter Pan. and a particularly durable egotism, Matheson went ahead with For further details as to salary, conditions of employment, etc., contact set out to edit his own student the Administration Officer, P.0. Box 5010, Wellington (Phone 47-215). plans, but Jack White of the newspaper. He succeeded in get­ Peter Pan made one stipulation: ting considerable support from no grog. Finance Committee ac­ both staff and students, and then • cordingly rejected all of the four hopefully applied for affiliation of budgets offered by Social Com­ his “society” with the Students’ mittee on the grounds that fewer Association. Investigating Accountants people would come to a no-grog The direct financial assistance function than any of the budgets likely to be gained from such Vacancies exist in the Treasury for qualified accountants to undertake assumed. They evidently remem­ affiliation would have been slight; investigation of financial proposals. bered without pleasure that the but various fringe benefits, status, Capping Ball at Peter Pan earlier recognition, permission to sell the The Investigation Division is associated with the wide ramifications of the Government’s financial policy and administration. The role of Treasury in the year had made a loss of paper in the University, etc., £538. would have amounted to a con­ Investigation is largely one of unbiased critical analysis of expenditure Unable to proceed, Matheson siderable total. From the point of proposals in the light of economic conditions. again sought permission at the view of the Craccum staff, the The work is extremely varied and of absorbing interest. meeting of 9 October to abandon setting up of another newspaper the whole scheme, but the chair­ is likely to be beneficial, introduc­ For further details as to salary, conditions of employment, etc., contact man’s casting vote required him ing an element of competition and the Administration Officer, P.O. Box 5010, Wellington (Phone 47-215). to continue seeking some means encouraging the students to be of holding the function; Exec would not assume the responsibil­ ity of excusing Social Committee and Controller from further effort. Possibly he made such effort; quite certainly he did not succeed. No official function was held to follow last year’s degree exams. LIBRARIANSHIP Suffocating Executive attitude towards the press. Two examples of more-than-customary caution offers graduates in arts and science occupied most of the Exec meeting of 32-24 October. a wide range of professional careers The choice of a printer for Craccum was found to involve a question of principle. Following a regrettable econom­ NEW ZEALAND LIBRARY SCHOOL ising tendency which resulted in 1961 in the substitution of news­ WELLINGTON print for a white calendared paper for printing Craccum, most One-year diploma course; of the Executive argued against any extra expenditure. Such ex­ generous living allowances paid to penditure, it was claimed, would students. not be returned from increased sales or advertising. This argu­ ment is perfectly watertight: this argument also shows the limita­ PROSPECTUS FROM UNIVERSITY LIBRARIAN, OR WRITE TO THE DIRECTOR, tions of Exec’s thinking on the NEW ZEALAND LIBRARY SCHOOL, PRIVATE BAG, WELLINGTON subject. No one claims that a greater range of text and display faces, 21/2/64 CRACCUM

The film “The Picasso Mystery” was screened on 16 February at the Tudor Theatre in Remuera. It is scheduled to be re-screened on the 23rd. All screenings are in aid of the Auckland Art Gallery’s Picture Purchase Fund. The title MYSTERE of the film “The Picasso Mystery” is a translation of the French “Le Mystere Picasso” of Cluzot. Al­ though the film was first made in 1956 it has continued to stun critics despite the fact that its PICASSO survival over such a period of time has already placed it in the ture on film the development and suspense which manifests itself in tact. Cluzot then photographed the annals of film history. creation of the paintings. He the above films was sufficient work in progress from the back. The Gallery Society of NSW aimed for a configuration of the indication of his ability to succeed If one interprets Picasso’s art has acquired the Australian rights creative process. His intention was in capturing the creative process in terms of the developing con­ for the next five years and plans to place the cameras at the artist’s remained to be seen. Picasso’s co­ tours of paint on the paper, then to show it to society members and shoulder, capturing each phase operation was acquired for this painting becomes dancing and guests. It is to be made available and stroke of his technique. venture. If it had not been forth­ rhythmic. A catharsis takes place at a minimum cost to educational coming the producer would have in the beholder and he is mes­ bodies, art and university students. Picasso’s fame and widespread been hopelessly limited to secur­ merised into imagining that he This film is not a pictorial in­ popularity, and also what one may ing only the mechanics of art, actually participated in the crea­ ventory of Picasso masterpieces, term the Picasso legend which mere brush strokes and move­ tion of the work of art. The which is what one has come to has enshrined Picasso while he is ments of the hand. However, in answer to this one, of course, is expect from the documentary film still continuing to paint, made him this film the work is presented that the quickness of the camera about fine art. Cluzot broke new the logical choice for a candid film as a projection of the artist’s deceives the human eye. ground when he decided to cap- of explication. Cluzot’s own repu­ mind. Each work of art is shown Cluzot’s endeavours to photo­ tation as a film-make fgave him materialising as if by magic on graph the growth of a large oil sufficient standing to undertake a a blank surface. painting presented what seemed film about a living legend. For to be almost insuperable difficul­ Continued from Page 12 those who appreciate “The Wages Cluzot created an illusion of ties. The paraphernalia and bright of Fear” and “The Fiends”, Cluzot “instant art”. Picasso used a lights of the photographers would Mother Isis, Mother Cybele, is no inconsiderable artist him­ special type of absorbent paper have unnerved many artists. But Mother Ishtar, Mother Kwanyin, self. But whether or not the crea­ that allowed coloured inks to despite the strain Picasso’s powers have compassion on us . . .’ is tion of an ethos of tension and penetrate at the moment of con­ of concentration did not seem to rhythmically sounding in all the Churches of Mish-Mash”), and Arthur Koestler writes brilliantly in The Trail of the Dinosaur of the problems of mankind in the Atomic Age. (“The new determin­ ant’s of man’s fate — mechanical laws, atoms, glands, genes — which gradually took over, were of a lower order than man him­ self; they defined his condition, but could provide no guidance whatever for his conscience.”) From C. P. Snow there is an Afterthought on the “Two Cul­ tures” Controversy. In the section devoted to Arts and Letters, Katherine Anne Por­ ter attacks D. H. Lawrence’s novel “Lady Chatterley’s Lover”, Leslie Fiedler writes entertainingly about love and death in the American comic book, and W. H. Auden contributes a wonderful essay (“The Fallen City”) on Falstaff, the worldly man whose “idleness and drinking . . . surrender to immediacy and . . . refusal to accept reality, become signs for the Unworldly Man as contrasted with Frince Hal, who represents worldliness at its best . . . The highest religious and temporal authorities condemn him (Fal­ staff) as a blasphemer and a Lord of Misrule, as a bad Companion for Mankind. Inevitable because, as Richelieu said, ‘the salvation of States is in this world’, and his­ tory has not as yet provided us with any evidence that the Prince of this world has changed his character.” Erich Heller writes on Ludwig Wittgenstein, Anthony West on H. G. Wells, and Irving Kristol on Tacitus. The sections devoted to short stories and fiction contain work by Edmund Wilson, Cyril Connolly, Auden, Robert Lowell, Theodore Roethke, Elizabeth Jennings, Spender, Amis, McNiece and Dylan Thomas, among others. Roy Fuller’s poem, The Final Period, stands out even in the distin­ guished company that surrounds it. Forty-two shillings is a hefty price to pay, but this book would justify the expense. I recommend it without reservation. —B. F. Babmgton 15 CRACCUM — 21/2/64

Continued from page 14 Mr Vidal’s work in this genre is as good as I have read. He writes be impaired. It seems that he is with passion, clarity and a devas­ possessed of infinite patience, be­ ROCKING THE tating wit. I leave you with this cause after each brush stroke in snippet: oil paints he has to stop to allow “Recently, at a public dinner, 1 the photographers to line it up had a thoughtful conversation and photograph it. He had also to with Harry Truman. He was explain to the photographers what BOAT making a particularly solemn his next move was going to be so point when suddenly, though his that they could whir their photo­ tone did not change, his face ROCKING THE BOAT. Gore Caesarean sensuality as simply graphic equipment in the right the viciousness of twelve abnor­ jerked abruptly into a euphoric direction. Picasso, it seems, dis­ Vidal. (Heinemann, 1963. 300 grin, all teeth showing. I thought pp. 30/-.) mal men . . . They differed from played magnificent fortitude. He us and their contemporaries only he had gone mad, until I noticed photographers had appeared in persisted in erasing and revising Gore Vidal, like Mary McCar­ in the fact of power, which made the middle distance.” details in his painting oblivious to thy and other American writers, it possible for each to act out his the demands of the cameramen, has left the sheltered groves of most recondite sexual fantasies. —B. F. Babington who would have liked to see a Academe for the mass platform This is the psychological fascina­ masterpiece uncorrected emerge of public utterance. His last novel tion of Suetonius. What will men instantaneously. One of the most was published in 1954. Apart from so placed do? The answer, appar­ perplexing things about observing his plays, this volume of essays ently, is anything and everything the creation of a painting is the (political, theatrical, literary and Cricket disparity between our predictions . . . Suetonius assumes that any personal), contains the best of his young man would like to conquer as to what we expect to follow work since then. on from a series of strokes and the world. And why did Julius Tour the eventual image which emerges Frustrated by the decline in the Caesar, a man of first-rate mind, as a result of the eidos of the serious novel-reading public, and want the world? Simply, to have artist himself. Following his whim by the commercial stranglehold it .. . we have got so into the Denounced Picasso constantly amends a de­ on the American theatre, it is habit of dissembling motives, of sign or a pattern, cancelling out understandable that some Ameri­ denying certain dark constants of On the occasion of the South the beauty achieved and substitut­ can intellectuals have sought new human behaviour, that it is diffi­ African cricket tour of Australia, ing a new beauty to replace it. fields for their work. But, of cult to find a reputable American the National Union of Australian As what we see is molten art, i.e. course, there are obvious dangers historian who will acknowledge University Students, operating in art in formation, the viewer in a switch to the pulpit of the the crude fact that a Franklin Melbourne, produced a news sheet suffers a certain amount of frus­ popular magazine, and more than Roosevelt, say, wanted to be Pre­ on apartheid. In August 1963, the tration when he sees what he con­ a few have succumbed to them. sident merely to wield power, to delegates of the Students’ Repre­ siders to be a perfect and The transvested novelist/drama- be famed and to be feared.” sentative Councils, meeting as the admirable creation erased or tist is exposed to the temptation National Union of Australian Uni­ amended by the artist himself to lower his standards to the level Love — Love — Love* versity Students, decided that they before his eyes. However, the of his public’s, and that carnal The book also contains Mr would support a campaign to in­ completed work of art has its own seductress, the slick turn of wit, Vidal’s celebrated attack on the form people of the situation in integrity and makes our piecemeal (rhymes with) is likely to prove American theatre — Love, Love, South ..Africa., and ..encourage predictions seem like exercises in fatal to the chastity of the accur­ Love. Here he condemns the uni­ thinking about measures to restore futility. ate phrase-maker. But, happily, versal panacea of the “warm human rights. Groups were set up Waves of colour alternate with Mr Vidal avoids most of the pit- druggedness, a surrender of the in most Australian universities, speckled showers of colour filling falls most of the time, and bearing will and the mind to inchoate and research got under way...... up the interstices of the canvas. in mind his own words — “the feelings of Togetherness . . . The Melbourne group arrived The kind of binary fission applic­ road to kitsch is paved with good which has now replaced the third- at the conclusion that expressions able to lower microscopic organ­ . intentions” .— he combines his act Marines of a simpler time.” of moral indignation at apartheid isms appears to happen to the flair for the effective epigram with were justified but inadequate. close, penetrating argument and Writing of the divorce of intel­ What was needed was a thorough images which are created, then lect from the American theatre, re-created, until constancy is a combustible imagination. appreciation of the problems and he says: then, based on this, a policy for achieved. The continuous meta­ Among the literary essays are “With some justice, intellectuals morphosis in which the artist is action to improve the lot of the two on the novel, one on Norman hold our popular theatre in con­ oppressed. engaged seems to consist of the Mailer, an appreciation of Carson tempt, and one of the reasons consummation of an image in the They asked themselves if it was McCullers, and virulent attacks on seldom explicitly stated is not so any use refraining from smoking mind’s eye of the artist which we Messrs Don Passos and Penn War­ much the meretriciousness of the cannot even hint at. Possibly this Rothmans and Peter Stuyvesant. ren. Mr Vidal also makes a plea exhibits — popular art is oppor­ Should their Government support bears no relation to the finished for contemporary satire (interest­ tunist at best — as its moments product, and we shall never know sanctions? Should there be armed ing, especially in view of similar of would-be seriousness . . . Ear­ intervention? Were trade cuts in what precise forms and hopes pleadings from the local Group), nest Neanderthals implore us not were the impetus. order? What about consumer boy­ and his essay on Evelyn Waugh, to persecute minority groups; they cotts? It seems, however, that The poetry of creation is mag­ “our time’s first satirist”, is out­ exhort us to tenderness; they these students were well aware of nificently captured in this film, but standing. inform us that war is destructive; the needs to have the community the socio-economic derivatives of “To deal properly with the sins they remind us that love is the with them, hence the desire to dis­ art forms are ignored and we get of the present, the satirist needs only connection.” seminate information. less than a holistic knowledge of an alternate view of the way life And of the Kim Stanley school The news sheet issued on apart­ the artist. His creative and intui­ should he. He does not need to of method-acting, he writes: heid attempts two things: firstly, tive moods and phases in their stress it. Few satirists mean to he to provide background informa­ uniqueness are awesome to the taken seriously as political or even “It is not acting, but group tion on the history, economics and non-artist. For most of us a com moral reformers, hut the alterna­ therapy. And the sad thing is politics of apartheid; secondly, to plementary objective account of tive way must exist for them, if that though this kind of acting is stimulate discussion among stud­ the artist’s work would have been only as a contrast. In Waugh’s usually disagreeable to watch, it ents about what Australian policy helpful in confirming whatever case that alternative is old Catho­ is delightful to do .. . The final should be by presenting one view. prejudices we had of him. A syn­ lic England, where one’s place was effect is onanistic.” What of the cricketers? The chronic study of artistic creation one’s place and to protest it was National Union of Students has rules out any possibility of an to quarrel with God’s appoint­ Kennedy and Goldwater declared its opposition to the evolutionary approach to Picasso’s ment . . . Since Brideshead Re­ The book also contains some cricket tour on the grounds that work. Only a diachronic study visited (1945) Waugh has tended ventures into the more ephemeral the team that toured Australia was could suggest this approach. But to extol his dream world at the regions of political journalism. not representative of South Africa within 75 minutes we see the expense of satirising that world’s There are articles on the late since only one racial grouping was creation of 15 new works of art. implacable enemy, the twentieth President Kennedy (“essentially, eligible for selection. NUAUS ob­ This is a condensation of the century . . . His great precursor, he is a pragmatist, working within jected to the application of apart­ creative process with a vengeance. Juvenal, preferred the Old Roman a generally liberal context”), and heid regulations as being contrary It reminds one of those slow Republic to the parvenu Empire, Barry Goldwater (“it is a clue to to the ethics of sport; to accept a motion microscopic films of hut he was too shrewd an artist Goldwater’s recent success that he racially exclusive team as repre­ natural phenomena shot with the to write hooks celebrating the was primarily a salesman in the sentative would have been tanta­ slow motion camera, e.g. a sunset, political continence of Sulla or the family business (his one creative mount to condoning apartheid. or the unfolding petals of a flower. fine austerity of Cato.” contribution was the invention One very immediate and prac­ Three techniques are demon­ Mr Vidal’s great merits as a and promotion of men’s shorts tical policy which NUAUS adopted strated — drawing, oil painting critic of literature are his lack of decorated with large red ants in was support for a World Univer­ and water colour. academic restriction and his the pants) . . .”, on the American sity Service scheme called the George Auric has written music imaginative ability to find con­ Conservative reactionary (“The South African Study Freedom suggested by the paintings. Claude temporary relevance in what he United States is a republic, not a Fund, which is appealing for Renoir’s inevitably magnificent reviews. Of The Twelve Caesars democracy”), and the House Un- money for scholarships for Afri­ photography combined with the of Suetonius, translated by Robert American Activities Committee. cans from whom the South Afri­ impressionistic music gives to the Graves, he writes — (“HUAC is against un-American can Government has withheld the film a magnificent technical “It would he wrong, however, activities. Mr Blank is against opportunity for higher education. finesse. to dismiss, as so many commen­ HUAC. Therefore, Mr Blank What have New Zealand students —John Sanders tators have, the wide variety of favours un-American activities.”) done about it? 16 21/2/64 wmKmmmmKmmammammmmmBmm CRACCUM Continued from page 15 Papal influence on the United apples but our methods as well. exchange student. However, as radio station and announcing States Navy through the ages. Our own exchange students if French-born Charles L. Minute, | that this move was fully sanc­ I have outlined a few of the they can be sent out under these Commander of the Exchange As­ tioned by two assistant district better known histories of dan­ circumstances should be thorough­ sociation of American Minutemen, attorneys in Montgomery, Ala­ gerous exchange students. The ly briefed to prevent recurrences so aptly puts it: “It is never too bama; and there is Cullers X. exchange student programmes of Powers-type incidents. Career early to fly to the defense of our Papacantelopus, a Greek Ortho­ now in progress should be gradu­ Investment Associates should have beloved country.” __Peter Edler dox exchange student, who later ally abandoned, but in such a known (a) that Powers is a com­ became a Black Muslim convert fashion that exchange students pulsive liar and (b) that there are Reprinted by kind permission and caused riots in front of the would not be abnormally upset easier and less spectacular ways of of Paul Krassner, the editor of American Embassy in Salonika or frustrated. This in itself will avoiding summits than to fly over the “Realist,” the magazine of free by announcing that the film present quite a problem. The them at great heights. thought, criticism and satire. “Never on Sunday” was a cleverly United States of America should The two out of three statistics Jeanne Johnson is Scapegoat and camouflaged plagiarism of “The be sealed hermetically against that I mentioned earlier seem to a subscription costs three dollars Vatican Story”, a lesser known official intruders who come here indicate that the next war will for ten issues from Box 242 Madi­ American documentary tracing not only to steal our potatoes and not be started by a misguided son Sq Sta., NYNY 10010 USA. STUDENTS/ Graduates Portraits

See remarkable Special Offer on Stud. Ass. Notice Board

FULL RANGE

AVAILABLE NOW

IN ALL SUBJECTS STEELE DRAWING INSTRUMENTS AND MATERIALS PHOTOGRAPHY ARTISTS SUPPLIES AND ALL STUDENT STATIONERY

at OPP. ATWATERS WHITCOMBE & TOMBS LTD. BELOW TOWN HALL Queen Street and High Street, AUCKLAND Victoria Street, HAMILTON

It is written . . . George' OFFICIAL For good books Courts! STOCKISTS

University of Auckland PAUL'S BLAZERS Full range of stock fittings for men and women are always available, complete with Badge BOOK Men’s £6/5/-; Women’s £5/17/6 or from 6/- deposit, 6/- weekly ACADEMIC ARCADE GOWNS \ . ■ , Laws and Arts faculties designs in 49 HIGH STREET stock. Hoods made to order. (And at Hamilton) Men’s Clothing — Ground Floor GEORGE COURT'S (STUDENTS DISCOUNT, OF COURSE) T EL. 32-040 KARANGAHAPE RD. and at Papakura and Papatoetoe

Published by the Auckland University Students’ Association, and printed by Takapuna Printers Ltd., Barry’s Point Road, Takapuna, N.2.