VICTORIA COLLEGE DEBATERS

Dominion, Volume 14, Issue 280, 20 August 1921, Page 7

VICTORIA COLLEGE DEBATERS

Sir, —With reference to the remarks made in your columns re the debate on the activities of Hie Navy League held by the Victoria College Debating Society, may I he permitted to point out that a university is a place where men think, and not a place where tho thinking is done for them. If the power of the student body to debate any matter—religious, political, economic, or academio—is in any way curtailed then the university as such is falling short of its function. In a college of the University of New Zealand students are entitled to hold and to express freely whatever political views they may happen to hold. If any section of the community considers some or any of these views to be wrong, let it ref ute them by means of reasoned argument, and not by an attempt at censorship. By bringing the question of the Navy League and its operations before the pub lie, the College Debating Society has rendered excellent service. Two ideas are struggling for supremacy in the world to-day. There is the idea of international brotherhood as expressed in the world-wide movement for the establishment of a League of Nations. The League stands for disarmament, co-operation, and world peace, (based, on good-will, mutual understanding, and equal justice tor all peoples, great and small. Then there is the powerful reactionary influence -which has no vision except a return to Hie old ■ secret diplomacy, the old racial jealousies, the exploded theory of the balance of power, and that armament race which will inevitably end in a war that will bid fair to utterly destroy civilisation. The Navy League (and similar associations, backed by armament firms and the Imperialist factions of all countries) is the handmaid of the reactionary idea. This league is unquestionably working in direct opposition to the spirit of the League of Nations. I New Zealand is a member of the League of Nations. We are pledged to uphold and support it, and yet we find that the Minister of Education is stating publicly that he intends to permit the Navy League to extend its activities in the primary schools of the Dominion. It is evident that the mind and soul of the child is to be the battlefield upon which the issue is to lie fought out. Tho Navy League stands for British supremacy at sea. While any one Power holds a dominant position on sea or land, the League of Nations as a practical possibility is out of the question. Bitter though the realisation may be to prejudices inherited through centuries, we may as well look the fact fairly in the face—peace on earth is impossible while great Britain holds the sea paths which by nature and right belong equally to all peoples. If the NavyLeague of this or any other country prevails, and successfully instils its ideas into the minds of the rising generation, then the hope of the future is blasted. Militarism and civilisation are incompatible. The one inevitably destroys the other. If militarism wins civilisation will temporarily perish. . It is the business of all nght-thinking people to see that warmongers of all types are kept far from the schools of oiir land. The principles of the League of Nations, international brotherhood, co-operation, and service should be carefully taught. Children should be taught to -regard war with tha utmost horroi—as a plague that has swept the world for a"es,*but a plague that science has mastered and which need nover again afflict mankind. There is no glory in war The ■dory of sacrifice that shines through its murkv hells no more belongs to war than the sacrifice of the doctor and nurse, who die to stamp out -a. plague, belongs to tha Pl Ther’o are some of us who taught through the campaigns of Gallipoli, Klenders, and France who genuinely believed that we were fighting to end war and bring new hope to the children of men. On those fields of blood, by the graves of our comrades, we pledged ourselves never to rest until wo saw some return for the sacrifice they made. We cannot believe that they have died in vain Mothers who gave their boys did not give them for glory or revenge, but that the hearts of other mothers might not lie broken. For centuries we have been bound by the enchantments of tho war god. It lies with us to break the spcll am, etc., ONWARD.