New Zealanders First

Dominion, Volume 33, Issue 105, 27 January 1940, Page 8

New Zealanders First

Sir,— May I be allowed to reply to some of the remarks in your commentary on my letter published in Tuesday’s “Dominion”?

in the first place, there was no suggestion in my letter that your contention that “our first duty clearly is to our own people” amounted to an act of aggression. What I did say was that the words quoted from your article savoured of nationalism, which my dictionary dolines as “devotion to one’s nation: a policy of national independence.” The reply, therefore, that your contention is not an act of aggression but purely a defensive measure is rather beside the point and does not answer my criticism. Secondly, yon say that there was no exhortation on your part or that of anyone else to follow the example of Herr Hitler and expel Jewish students from our universities. But here you are attributing to me words that I did not use. What 1 did say was that we are being exhorted to adopt a “like” attitude (carefully avoiding file use of the word "same”) and to refuse these students the right to complete their studies at our own universiy. I’erhiqis “exhort” was the wrong term to use. but a parfial justification of my statement comes from the report, of the Council of the University of Otago to the Senate of the University of New Zealand, published in "The Dominion” of January 17. There the council said that they had decided that no foreign students should be admitted in the immediate future unless the circumstances were very exceptional.

Finally, in your last remark you suggest that my “strangely distorted sense of justice” arises from the fact that I expect foreign students to come here and make use of our institutions at the expense of our own people. Perhaps my own sense of justice is

distorted, but I should like to point out that the popular sense of justice with regard to refugees is a somewhat cold one. These unfortunate people are victims of the worst tyranny and persecution that the world Ims ever known. They have looked to the “free” countries of the world to help them in their distress. We have admitted a small number from among the many thousands to this country. But it seems to me that our chief concern is not how we can help these unhappy fugitives, but. how their coming here is going to affect us. If by allowing them to come here we are going to benefit the country, let them come, we say. If we can receive them only at some expense and inconvenience to ourselves, tiiey must stay out. Little, if anything, seems to have been done for these people on humanitarian grounds except by a small and unofficial section of the community, and those who act from humanitarian motives know that they cannot so act without expense, inconvenience and self-sacrifice. —1 am, etc., EDWARD O. SHEILD. January 24