Walk-Over

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 445, 2 January 1948, Page 6

Walk-Over

HE last of 2YA’s 1947 Discussions"Should New Zealand Invite Immigration from the Displaced Peoples of Europe?"-differed from its predecessors in giving the referee what amounted to a walk-on part. In the other discussions the participants tended to divide themselves into two opposing teams, with the chairman in the middle endeavouring to keep the conversational ball rolling without allowing any one team to get a veritable feast of it (as they say in the sporting papers) and keeping a sharp eye out to recall within the white lines any player who showed. a tendency to get beyond the confines of the subject. But this time his job was largely a simecure, since all the gentlemen concerned were anxious to get the pill between the same posts. In this they were completely successful, even though the referee did try to make things a little brighter for the audience by dropping that well-stubbed brick, Housing, just where one of the team was likely to trip over it on his unopposed trot to the touch-line. At one stage of the game Malcolm Mason, sensing the chairman’s dilemma, agreed to help provide a Roman holiday atmosphere, but it was obvious that his heart was still with the Home Team, and at the conclusion of the match he was back with the boys in time to share in the Affirmative’s walk-over victory. And even: the audience was happy, sincé deft handling of the ball made up for the fact that the Opposition hadn’t been able to field a team. ‘