EMPIRE UNIVERSITIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26958, 18 December 1948, Page 8

EMPIRE UNIVERSITIES

CONGRESS IN BRITAIN OTAGO REPRESENTATIVE RETURNS Daily Times Special Service AUCKLAND, Dec. 17. One of the representatives of the University of Otago at the Congress of Universities of the British Commonwealth at Oxford, Dr R. J. T. Bell, returned by the Ceramic from the United Kingdom to-day. He retired from the chair of mathematics at Otago last February. University classes in Britain were often overcrowded and generally heavy demands were being made on staffs, Dr Bell said. Professor A. C. .Aitv-pn. nrofessor of mathematics at Edinburgh, and a former member of the stan at Otago, had an honours class of 40 students and an intermediate honours class of 120. Dr Bell found that similar conditions existed at Glasgow University. Over 60 New Zealand graduates were invited by Dr Bell’s daughter and son-in-law, Mr and Mrs W. N. Searle, to a function at their home. Mr Searle, who is a prominent London gynaecologist, arranged the function so that the visitors could meet Dr Bell and Dr R. Jack, who was formerly professor of physics at Otago. The graduates, who were from all parts of New Zealand, were mainly prominent members of the medical profession. Dr Bell added that a similar fathering might be arranged in Lonon annually after the Oxford conference.

Dr Bell visited Cambridge, where he was the guest of a former Otago

University student, Dr H. M. Taylor, who is now treasurer of Cambridge University. Discussing the effects of the food shortage in Britain, Dr Bell said there was a great demand for fish. Some deckhands on trawlers were making £IOOO a year and more, and the masters three and four times that amount. Householders with large gardens were breeding rabbits for food. One professional man sold his surplus young stock to his friends ready for cooking at 8s 6d a pair and received an extra 2s for the skin. Wages were good and in the working-class districts Dr Bell saw fresh salmon freely bought at 6s 8d a lb. Cakes were beginning to appear in the shops for the first time since the war, but were generally reserved for registered customers.