STUDENTS AND DEFENCE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22195, 23 February 1934, Page 10

STUDENTS AND DEFENCE

PACIFISM AT OXFORD SHOWMEN OF THE QUADRANGLES. (From Our Own. Correspondent.* LONDON, January 12. At the conference of the Federation of University Conservative and Unionist Associations at Manchester, the subject of "Fighting for King and Country" was raised on a motion from Edinburgh. The resolution deplored bellicose pacifism and a reassurance was given that, should the necessity arise, the students represented at the conference would fight. Mr A. J. Mackenzie (Edinburgh) said: "The great majority of students jare intensely loyal, and it has, been overlooked that a vast number have refused to bo associated with this socalled controversy. They would not hesitate to give their services should the necessity arise. "The great majority of those who decided not to fight are merely showmen of the quadrangles and of the coffee shops. They deserve to be refuted for we cannot allow people elsewhere to think that our universities are full of spineless bigots. That won!'! \v n weakening influence to- this country." The motion was carried unanimously without discussion. RECONSTRUCTED LEAGUE. A resolution urging that a reconstructed League of Nations would be the best safeguard for the preservation of world peace led to criticism of the rcsolution passed at the last Conservative Party Conference, urging a strengthening of Imperial defence. Mr Quas-Cohen (Manchester) described Lord Lloyd's resolution- as the most disastrous passed by the National Conference for eyears. Mr K. Steel-Maitland (Oxford), who proposed the resolution, referred to the horrors of another war, and said that a real and effective League of Nations, supported by the British Empire, was the best guarantee of world peace. "I would like the conference to die abuse its mind, in view of the pacifist motion passed a year ago, that Oxford is in any way lily-livered or whiteskinned," ho added. Tlio resolution was carried by a large majority with the addition of a rider, in the name of Manchester, expressing the opinion that in view of the present crisis in disarmament, an advocacy of immediate rearmament was directly against the interests of the party, the country, and the cause of peace.