Warning Against Demonstrations

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31187, 11 October 1966, Page 16

Warning Against Demonstrations

The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Canterbury (Professor N. C. Phillips) yesterday warned students against demonstrating when the Governor-General (Sir Bernard Fergusson) receives the honorary degree of doctor of laws tomorrow evening.

Professor Phillips said that an appeal has been made to students to take part in such a demonstration. “There is, of course, a legtimate place for the orderly and peaceful expression of opinion, but I should be failing in my duty if I did not point out to students the possible serious consequences of a demonstration that became rowdy, disorderly, and a breach of the peace,” he said. “I hope that everyone in a university will defend freedom of speech and opinion, but this is a freedom which, like others, must be limited

in order to be possessed. No university can be expected to tolerate conduct calculated to give offence or insult to guests of honour or deliberately to disrupt or disturb a formal ceremony. “Students are warned that such conduct could have consequences of two kinds. "First, the university itself could exercise its disciplinary powers to suspend or exclude offending students, who could thereby be prevented from writing their degree examinations. Second, since the visit of the Governor-General necessitates the presence of the police as a matter of routine, students giving offence could find themselves prosecuted in the courts of law. “I trust that all students, and not merely the great majority will heed this caution, which is issued in their own interests.”