UNIVERSITY APPOINTMENTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23338, 5 May 1939, Page 13

UNIVERSITY APPOINTMENTS

Sir, —In a letter appearing in the Herald 011 Monday last, the Rev. P. Gladstone Hughes exhorts the University College Council to take its courage in both hands and "to do the just and honourable thing" with respect to two members of the college staff. Mr. Hughes also inquires whether I am prepared to consent to his publishing a letter which he has addressed to me on the matter. I have no objection on any grounds personal to myself, but I feel strongly that a newspaper correspondence is ah. entirely inappropriate medium, for the discussion of the personal qualifications of members of a university staff or of their right to preferment. Such a discussion must inevitably cause embarrassment to the persons concerned and to those on whom lies the responsibility for making a decision, and may weil lead to serious injustice. .The council is anxious to arrive at a wise and just decision, but to exhort the council to do what is "just and honourable" is simply to beg the question; the council's concern is to decide what is in the circumstances "just and honourable." I feel sure that all members of the council, whatever their views on the matters in issue, will resent very strongly any suggestion that the council or any members of it are not giving the question sincere and impartial consideration. W. H. CoCKKR, President, Auckland University College.