THE UNIVERSITY INQUIRY

Dominion, Volume 15, Issue 49, 21 November 1921, Page 6

THE UNIVERSITY INQUIRY

MINISTER AND COLLEGE COUNCIL MR. PARR’S CLOSING COMMENTS Before leaving for Auckland on Saturday, the Minister of Education was asked whether there was anything more to be eaid regarding ,?(is correspondence with the chairman of tho Victoria College Council and the latest action of the council. Mr. Parr remarked that "Mr. Levi and tho council have apparently had enough of the investigation. At Thursday’s meeting they passed to the next business on the order-paper with marked haste. I have no desire to pursue the council, and though the public anxiety existing for years past has not been allayed by Mr. Levi’s report, I hope the inquiry into the Weitzel incident will do good. It will clear tho atmosphere a- little, and I think as one result tho council will keep a more watchful eye on university activities than it has done in the past. I certainly shall do so.

"Of course, one regrets," the Minister added, "that tho council, 'in its recent findings, had no word of reproof for students who joined with Communists to pay a fine for seditious and unpatriotic behaviour, just as it was equally weak not to admonish the debating club and show it that intercourse with Communists and other unpatriotic folk only gets the university a bad name with 90 per cent, of the community. It is well to draw the line somewhere, even in a university debating club or in a heretics’ club. "The chairman found revolutionary literature in the possession of certain students, but he stopped short at the critical moment. He declined to ask the students the source of their supply. Mr. Levi’s excuse is that there was a risk* that some guilty person would be brought to justice. One naturally asks, but why not? We should possibly have had interesting revelations if this question had been answered. "I cannot allow the council to ignore my question about Mr. Winter’s appointment as a W.E.A. tutor. I hope they will take action. The Government is not going to pay money to the university to feo leading Communists as tutors. There was recently a case of another tutor appointed by the University Council whose conduct, was so unpatriotic and indiscreet that I had to ask for an inquiry, which resulted in a severe reprimand. These things v/quld ‘tern to indicate considerable laxity in making appointments. By such actions I hope the council will not compel me to advise the Government to withdraw its annual grant to a most deserving movement." z