THE VON ZEDLITZ CASE.

Free Lance, Volume XV, Issue 789, 13 August 1915, Page 6

THE VON ZEDLITZ CASE.

A Mysterious Board and a Mysterious Verdict.,

T HE Prime Minister, sc we observe, has declared that he cannot ' 'amplify" the report of the Aliens Board in the case of Professor Von Zedlitz, the unnaturalised German gentlemen who draws £700 a year of public money for his services at ■ Victoria College. Perhaps, if Mr. Massey cannot amplify the report he will be good enough to explain it! The public of 'Wellington can . not be satisfied with . a report which sidetracks and practically ignores the actual question aifc issue— should or not an unnaturalised German, and therefore, by law, an "enemy alien," be kept on in full and undisturbed enjoyment of has position and salary at a State-aided university whilst other unnaturalised Germans, not socially so high placed as this fortunate professor, have been dismissed, and very properly dismissed, from the public service. , .

The Prime Minister says the Victoria College "Council appointed or dismissed its teachers, and the Government had not the authority in these matters that it had in regard to the Public Service. To .this, we simply _ replv "Walker!" Victoria College deriyes by far the major part of its income from the Education vote, and if the Council does!, not, and will not, do its duty, it is quite competent for the Government to step in and see that' those who administer the affairs of what is, to all intents and purposes, a State institution, should be compelled to do that dutv even were it necessary to compel them to do so by stopiiiner supplies.

Two other questions in connection with, this remarkable "shelving" of the •Von Zedlitz case may be asked. The first is, who was responsible for the "order of reference" which ignored the main point raised by Mr. - Charles Wilson on the College Council', and the second is. how was it thait Mr. Wilson, although the first and chief person to move in the matter, was never informed of the sifcting of the Aliens Board, or called upon to give evidence before it?