Spying On Students

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31081, 9 June 1966, Page 16

Spying On Students

Sir, —1 note with considerable concern that students of Auckland University are seeking an assurance from the Prime Minister that security agents will not be permitted to operate within the university. Surely the first duty of a Government is to protect its people. If students, who are at university on substantial bursaries met by the New Zealand taxpayer, are not engaged in treason, they have no need for concern. On the other hand, if students wish to assist communism, with its rape of humanity, and stand idly by while we see the horrors of Hungary, Korea, and Vietnam repeated here, then they will certainly want an assurance from the Prime Minister that he will not stand in the way of communism. Ail power to Mr Holyoake in his stand to keep New Zealand a decent place to live in.—Yours, etc., MOTHER. June 7, 1966.

Sir, —In reply to “Millicent Sproggs’s” letter, we would agree that she has good reason to be alarmed at the reports of spying at Auckland University. Everyone has a right to be alarmed at infiltrators. Our suspicions were aroused not merely by the hue of her mini-skirt, which was a revolutionary scarlet; no, it was the yellow hammer and sickle sewed on the back that attracted our attention. Three lusty cheers for all New Zealand’s security men (both of them). We wholeheartedly endorse their efforts to protect our universities from Communist under-cover aggression. But “Millicent Sproggs’s” position as a student is at best 'a tenuous one.— Yours, etc.,

THREE EXASPERATED STUDENTS. June 7, 1966

Sir, —“Miss Sproggs’s" friends are seriously concerned that her worry, induced by fears of spying, may affect her performance at the university; in the absence of an assurance that there is no spying on students at Canterbury the security department must bear some responsibility for her reduced performance.— Yours etc. FRIEND. OF JUSTICE AND MILLICENT. June 7, 1966.