BOWDY STUDENTS

Evening Star, Issue 17320, 7 April 1920, Page 4

BOWDY STUDENTS

THE INTER-UNIVERSITY DEBATE. CONTEST NEARLY ABANDONED. The debating congest between the unieity coileges at Wellington on Saturday night appears to have been a bear garden. Ihe subject of debate was "That ins Comimons should not have separate vfttcs oa the deliberations of the of nations, but that the views of the Empire as a whole should be expressed by the view of the representatives appointed by an Empire Parliament or in some Other way by the Empire as a whole." Wellington and Auckland, took the affirmative and Canterbury and Otago the negative. Each college" was represented oy two speakera. and each speaker had a time limit of 15 minutes. The indues were the Rev. S. Robertson Orr. \l v °J. P. Firth, and Mr M. Myers, Professor i. A. Hunter was in the chair. Tho speakers were frequently interrupted and were kept under a> file of interjections. The Victoria. College representatives spoke at the beHnnintr 0 f the debate, and then the inferjectors, who seldom managed to sav anything apt or I amusing, proceeded to hamper the visit- I tog speakers?. The chairman without success appealed for order. When the first Auckland man was speaking the judges protested that they could not hear owing to tne uproar. The noise continued and presently the judges left the hall. ' The chairman announced that owing to the misconduct of a section of the audience tho contest was at an end. Some of the students then asked Mr T. Forsyth to take the chair. Mr Forsyth undertook to interview tho judges on their behalf, and he was able "to announce a, few minutes later, after some of the audience had gone, that the chairman and judges were willing to return if the students promised to behave in a reasonable manner. The content was then resumed ; The promise was not fully kept, the chairman having again to ask for order, but the speakers were able to complete the debate.