Brains from Abroad

New Zealand Listener, Volume 18, Issue 463, 7 May 1948, Page 8

Brains from Abroad

HE Dunedin session of the Brains Trust was a greater success than I had anticipated, mainly, I think, owing to the presence in our midst of Lord and Lady Beveridge, and the irreplaceable question-master Donald McCullough. I cannot imagine a Brains Trust

-- without this particular personality to introduce the speakers, and when the local sessions continue minus his effervescent presence, I hope they will try to get someone with a totally different style as question-master, rather than attempt to imitate the inimitable. Some really excellent questions were sent in to this session, and a full-length discussion on the best of them, "what is the most

urgent problem confronting New Zealand to-day?" would have been of intense interest. Instead, this question had to be dealt with quite briefly, some of the replies being rather frivolous compared with the succinct answer of Lord Beveridge, who pointed out that it is useless to discuss any of our many prvblems, however urgent we consider them, until we have solved the problem of how to stop the next war before it starts. There were only two local speakers on the panel, both of them acquitting themselves very well; the whole session, indeed, went with a swing-helped in this respect by the presence of people used to conversing naturally and easily even before a microphone. The only fault I found was that the time went too quickly, and that the shortness of the session and the importance of the questions made it seem that the questions were dismissed with brief and inadequate

answers, while one question failed to receive even the suggestion of a genuine reply.

HESE notes are not written by ) the staff of "The Listener" or by any member of the New Zealand Service. ent comments istener" pays They are indefor which "The outside contributors.