DR. HARROP'S STATEMENT

Evening Post, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 16, 20 January 1944, Page 6

DR. HARROP'S STATEMENT

The circumstances leading up to Dr. Harrop's resignation, which came into force on December 31 last, were set out by him in his letter. He said that on May 19 last he was informed of a heavy cut in salary, to operate from the previous January I.' As he was then immersed in important and exacting work for prisoners of war wishing to sit New Zealand examinations or their London equivalents, he declined to accept this five-months-late ultimatum. He told the executive committee that he would accept the reduction from June 1, provided £50 were allowed to cover housing of the university office (which he had been doing free of charge since the Gower Street office had been bombed in 1940) and expenses other than cables to Wellington. The committee cancelled the retrospective reduction, but declined the condition about housing the office and the resignation therefore came into force at the end of six months. He stated that in a report to the Senate through the Chancellor, he wrote: "The considerations which led the committee to its action are of public interest at a time when the war is probably nearing its end in Europe, and there will be many of our students seeking entry before long into the universities of Britain—universities which will be crowded by students from this country. That the committee should so lightly make a change in the English agency at this stage can easily be explained only on the assumption that it is indifferent to everything but short-term financial consideration." Dr. Harrop mentioned that as the university had recently been able to finance a fine building for its offices in Wellington, he did not feel that it was incumbent on the agent to endow the university in perpetuity with free accommodation—especially as-he was acting as honorary editor for the duration of the war of the "New Zealand News," the journal supplying virtually their only news from home to thousands of New Zealanders in the Services in Europe. He said he had no regrets at refusing to accept the committee's estimate of the value and extent of the work done for prisoners of war—an estimate based, he hoped, on ignorance rather than on indifference. "I should like the public, and especially the relatives of prisoners of war, to understand the reasons for the change in the agency," he said. "At a time when the Government is showing signs of recognition of the value of university training, the university goes out of its way for the sake of less than £50 a year to depreciate it. When every possible link with Britain is necessary now that t'je external examination system has lapsed, the Senate dissipates experience and good will built up over years. This is a matter of more tha nacademic interest. That is why I make this statement."