Meeting Held In Spite Of Council’s Refusal

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31030, 9 April 1966, Page 16

Meeting Held In Spite Of Council’s Refusal

Mr Bruce Jesson, aged 21, defied the City Council on Thursday by addressing a public meeting without authority. Mr Jesson is a fourthyear law student. About 200 persons, mostly university students, gathered on the banks of the Avon river opposite the Public Library to hear him denounce Royal tours. His speech, lasting 20 minutes, aroused little response from the listeners. Even the few policemen there merely stood straining to catch Mr Jesson’s voice, which barely carried to them.

Mr Jesson, who is a key man in the Committee to Oppose Royal Tours (C.0.R.T.), said it was the principles involved in such tours to which his organisation objected. “We don’t object to the Queen Mother as a person or to the expense involved in the tour,” he said. “We oppose everything implied in the tour." New Zealanders were not British but a nation ta the South Pacific, he said. New Zealand had followed

Britain so closely that it had fallen into the same “old. archaic, outmoded traditions" of Britain. “By transplanting these traditions, we get a country with plenty of past but not much future,” he said. “By opposing Royal tours we hope that many New Zealanders will think about their country in future. “If we can get one New Zealander to think about his nation's future, national status, and independence, what we do will be worth while." Council Criticised Mr Jesson said the City Council had refused permission for C.O.R.T. to hold the meeting while other organisations had been allowed to hold public meetings when and where they liked. The ■council’s offer to authorise a meeting in Latimer square was an insult rather than a genuine offer. The holding of the meeting in spite of the council would deter the council and similar organisations from preventing such meetings in | future.