Defenders Defeated In Students’ Debate

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30779, 17 June 1965, Page 4

Defenders Defeated In Students’ Debate

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, June 16. Defenders of Queen and country were declared defeated on the basis of argument presented at a privately conducted debate on Monday at Victoria University. There was a vote to this effect by about 75 per cent of the some 250 students present. The debate was open to the press, but reporters were asked not to report it, as it was a private one organised by the students’ association. The debate was not connected with the Vietnam situation, an association spokesman said today. The result “did not reflect the political, pacifist or other viewpoints of the voters or any other reason apart from their judgment of the way the proposition was argued,” said the spokesman. At another recent debate,

held by the university’s National Club, there had been a resolution of no confidence in the National Government but again voting was purely on the arguments presented, not as a matter of principle. The proposition argued yesterday was “that this house would not fight for Queen and country.” Messrs J. L. Roberts and A. Ashenden, both of the political science department, argued the affirmative and Dr. S. G. Culliford, assistant principal of the university, and Mr P. V. O’Brien, association representative on the university council, argued the negative.