OXFORD UNION DEBATES

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12093, 21 March 1925, Page 12

OXFORD UNION DEBATES

ARRIVING NEXT WEEK. WELLINGTON PROGRAMME. Three representatives of the Oxford Union Debating Society are to arrive in New Zealand next week, and will spend about a month from the local university colleges The, visitors in dude Afir Malcolm Macdonald, the eldest son of the ex-i'rime Minister of Great Britain, and himself an unsuccessful Labour aendidate for the House of Commons at the General elections of last year and 1923. Mr Macdonald’s colleagues are Messrs <J. D. Woodruff and H. C. Hollis, both ex-presidents of the union and, like Mr Macdonald, graduates of Oxford. The debaters will arrive in Wellington by the Auckland express next Saturday, and the first debate will be held in the Town Hall Concert Chamber that evening. A small charge is being made to cover expenses, and it is particularly desired that intending patrons should book their seats at the Bristol without delay. This is the first occasion on which representatives of the Oxford Union have been in New Zealand, and their visit is attracting considerable attention. For next Saturday’s debate the subject is: “That this House does not believe that the advent to nower of the British Labour Partv will materially improve national or international conditions.” For the affirmative Messr* Woodruff and Hollis will be sunported by Mr. It. M. Campbell, of Victoria

University College, and on the negative side Mr Macdonald will bo associated w4h two speakers from the local college, Messrs P. Martin-Smith and J. W. G. Davidson. A second debate will be held in the main Town Hall ten days later, on April Bth, on the subject of Prohibition, and for this also arrangement® have been made to book seats at the Bristol, In the second debate Mr Macdonald and two Victoria College speakers will support Prohibition, while the other two Oxford representatives and | one local University debater will oppose. The Oxonians have debated on a considerable number of tonic during the past six months in the United States and Canada, but on the whole they have debated; the Prohibition issue more frequently than any other subject.