STUDENTS' PROCESSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22889, 25 May 1936, Page 18

STUDENTS' PROCESSION

THROUGH SYDNEY STREETS UNIVERSITY SENATE LIFTS BAN (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY, May Ifi. Sydney University students have scored a bloodless victory. By intense agitation, they have forced the University senate to relinquish a ban on their street commemoration procession. This procession was a feature of Sydney undergraduate life for many years; indeed, a feature of the city's life itself. But the wave of recklessness and abandonment which swept the world immediately after the war infected the undergraduates, and the procession deteriorated into grotesque displays of disorderliness, larrikinism, and coarseness that ended 11 years ago in the senate banning the procession through city streets. The Police Department and City Council each concerned with the evil effects of the "common rag" had much to do with influencing the senate to make that decision. For some years the procession as part of the students' annual festival was abandoned., Then it was revived to pass through the university grounds only, and during the last couple of years it ha* emerged timidly into a stretch of street bordering those grounds. This year the Students' Representative which organises and con-

trols the festival week, set out with the one object of having the procession through the city streets restored. It persuaded both the police and civic authorities to withdraw opposition to the city procession, and, armed with this ammunition, stormed the senate fortress. But the senate refused to surrender. It seemed that once again the students would have to waste their festival spirits on the desert air of the university grounds. The student body organised a huge meeting of protest and overwhelmingly voted to hold the procession through the city streets, in defiance of the senate's ban. It first passed a vote of no-con-fidence in the senate in its administration of the student body's affairs, and also resolved that no alcohol should be carried on the floats in the procession and that the students should assist the censors in every way possible to eliminate anything undesirable from the- procession. The senate, called together for a special meeting, quickly decided to give its tacit permission. It decided to leave the entire organisation of the students' festival week in the hands of the Students' Representative Council, "to give the council an opportunity to show that it can properly and efficiently control all the student activities of festival week," thus impliedly revoking its refusal to grant permission for the procession to pass through the city. The students' reply To this conciliatory gesture, voiced through their president (Mr Kevin Ellis), was: "All possible steps will be taken to ensure that the procession will

be not only properly conducted and dis-1 played, but will be of such quality as to appeal to the public and reflect credit . on the university." i The procession will be held next Wed- | nesday, and during it women under-.! graduates, will collect from the spectators for the King George Memorial Fund, to which the whole proceeds of the day will be given. It is anticipated that between 60 and 70 lorries with tableaux will take part in the procession. The procession will offer a comic commentary on events of the day. A specially impressive swordfish is being built to illustrate Mr Zane Grey's fishing exploits. It will be towed behind a lorry. "More Suggestions for the! Olympic Team " may display some un- I prepossessing athletes, with caricatures ! of a politician or two. On other lorries the working of Royal Commissions is to be explained. Engineering students are busy on a replica of the " Rocket." which would make George Stephenson wonder where he ever saw it. "Archdale Fieldhill's Defence Scheme" includes specimens of " Scottish Boozileers" (a delicate allusion to the Scottish regiment) and a skit on the conscription of women for warlike purposes. Historical research is represented by a study of " Senatorial Highlights in the 'oo's " —said to include two champagne bottles and a lobster decorating the lamps. Some of the floats will soberly represent the work of the various faculties.