WHO IS PROFESSOR ALGIE?

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 83, Issue 46, 24 February 1939, Page 6

WHO IS PROFESSOR ALGIE?

"VV/HO is Professor Algie?” asks Mr. Savage contemptuously. “Is he the same gentleman who, a few months ago, dropped a fairly lucrative position with the Auckland University College to take up the cudgels against the Government during the last election campaign?”

It must he humbly confessed that it is the same gentleman. He did believe that freedom of the individual was being seriously challenged by the policy of the Government at the last General Election and he exercised the right of every citizen to express his opinions. To have exercised such a right of cititzenship in opposition to the Government was undoubtedly wrong of the learned professor. Liberty in New Zealand is coming more and more to mean the willingness to express opinions suitable to Mr. Savage. Mr. Scrimgeour, for instance, has absolute liberty over the air. He is quite entitled, as a free citizen of New Zealand, to say what he likes in the choicest of language, and he knows that his liberty will be defended by his personal friend, the Prime Minister. That is what personal friends are for. But grant a similar condition of affairs for Professor Algic to express his opinion on the unwillingness of the Government to submit its actions to the arbitrament of the Law Court—an opinion which would be valuable because Professor Algie has been lecturing in the law in Auckland possibly for more years than Mr. Savage has been in New Zealand—that would be intolerable. It would be manifestly unfair to allow opponents of the Government equal opportunity for advancing their views. However, Professor Algie has the satisfaction of knowing that Mr. Savage is afraid of him.