DOMINION POSTS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23400, 17 July 1939, Page 13

DOMINION POSTS

NOTED SCHOLAR NO INCENTIVE TO RETURN NEED FOR NEW OUTLOOK'; INTEREST IN COUNTRY ABROAD "The small proportion of New Zealanders who return to the Dominion after studying in England is regarded as fantastic by university people there/" said Dr. J. A. W. Bennett, formerly of Auckland, who after a brilliant career at Oxford arrived by the Mataroa on Saturday to spend two months in the Dominion. During his stay Dr. Bennett, who is now a Fellow of Queen's College, Oxford, will lecture on mediaeval literature, chiefly at tho Auckland University College. It could not be .expected that New Zealand should absorb into academic posts all the scholars who , went overseas, Dr. Bennett said. In England, however, a university training was considered to fit a man for important administrative work and the cream of Oxford students went each year into the civil servieo. There was a very definite need for reorganisation in tno civil service in New Zealand to make provision for the entry both of students returning from abroad and of those who had studied in the Dominion. Securing of Refugees There was a feeling among New Zealanders in England, Dr. Bennett said, that the Dominion was rather neglecting the opportunity of securing refugees of high culture and intelligence, who would be an asset* to the community. There was great scope for instituting the study of German, which was neglected in the Dominion. Apart from that, a number could be absorbed in other cultural fields. He knew refugees who would be a gain to any country and who would gladly come to New Zealand. The number that could be taken in this way was not large, but it would bo. a valuable gesture.

All classes in England had of late shown the greatest interest in New Zealand and he attributed this to the present Government's social experiments, such as the social security legislation, Dr. Bennett continued. There was a feeling that, whatever . mistakes the Government had made, it had at least done something more conf structive in government than had other democracies. His wife had been ..surprised to find that even peasants to whom she spoke while travelling by train in Russia had heard of recent developments in New Zealand.

Conscription and Universities Meanwhile in England to-day the weight of rearmainent and. the ininiinence of war were having a depressing and devitalising effect on intelligent people. Those who volunteered for service were doing so from a sense-of duty or to find relief in action rather than with fervour. There was iio doubt, however, that the Oxford Union would to-day heavily defeat the motion it carried some years ago that in no circumstances would it fight for King arid country. The new. conscription measures would have far-reaching effects 011 the disciplinary system of Oxford and Cambridge, Dr. Bennett added. Instead of going straight from school to the universities, young men would serve their term in the army, and, having seen something of life outside academic institutions, they would be less willing to conform to standards of discipline based on 'mediaeval ideas. There was to-day no basis for the idea that Oxford was a place of elegant aesthetes. People went there to work and , if .anything. they worked harder ancl better than in the Dominion.