World Student Federation To Meet in Java

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 7192, 26 June 1933, Page 2

World Student Federation To Meet in Java

"The New Zealand movement cannot carry on unless every member of it considers it worth while,’’ said Aliss Joan Archibald, Dominion secretary of the New Zealand Student Christian movement, speaking at Canterbury College recently. "Each member should be prepared to face up to the pressing problems of organisation, finance and constructive study.’ ’

New Zealand, said Aliss Archibald, really belonged to tho Pacific group of countries and not, to the Atlantic and European group with England as their centre. This was tho reason for the representation of New Zealand at the World Student Christian Federation Conference to be held in Java from August to September this year. Delegates from India, China, Japan, Australia and. America would also be represented. Tho underlying object of this conference was to obtain a better international understanding among the nations embraced by the federation, to which two delegates from this country hoped to contribute their share. The conference which might possibly be condemned as a waste of money on superficial grounds, would, said Aliss Archibald, be jnvaluablo in bringing about a free discussion of vital international issues, arid give each delegate a truer understanding of other nations to carry back again. The World Federation had at last penetrated into Spain, continued the speaker, and gained a footing in a country that had long refused to recognise any other national religion but Roman Catholicism. A member of the French Student Christian Alovcmcnt had used her influence to initiate a group of 20 men and women, in Atadrid for a study of Christian life and thought. Aliss Archibald outlined the situation in the Japanese student world, as revealed by her foreign correspondence, and showed the vital issue at stake resulting from the clash of Communism and Christian thought among many students there. Front further correspondence the speaker touched on the situation in Germany 'stand Russia, concluding with a summing-up of the New Zealand position.