UNRULY STUDENTS

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXIII, Issue 19842, 17 May 1927, Page 7

UNRULY STUDENTS

ROTTEN TOMATOES THROWN Echo of Inter-College Debate at Auckland BOARD DISAPPROVES NO CEREMONY THIS YEAR. [Per Press Association.] AUCKLAND, May 16.Owing to disturbances at the interCollege debate in the Town Hall Concert Chamber at Easter, it has been decided that there shall be no university graduation ceremony in Auckland this year.

The conduct of some of the students at the debate was such that the chairman, Mr E. H. Northcrofi, stopped the proceedings until all the students in the audience had left the hall. Some rotten tomatoes were thrown at three judges, and two live hens were released on the stage. The professorial board recommended that the Students’ Association be called on to furnish by the end of the first term, the names of any Auckland students implicated in disturbances, that in the event of this information not being forthcoming, no graduation ceremony be held this year, that the tournament committee be requested to address to the chairman and judges of the debate a formal written apology, and that the board approach other colleges with a view to the abolition of the debate as a public funci ion at tournaments. The professorial board also reported that since passing the resolution, it had received a reply to the effect that the executive of the Students Association was unable to identify the men responsible for the disturbance, that an approved apology had been sent by the students to the chairman of the debate and the judges, and that the tournament committee had decided that in future, the debate be held in camera.

The Hon. George Fowlds, president of the college, said that the behaviour on this occasion was such „hat the board must give some mark of its disapproval. Matters could not be satisfactory unless those responsible were identified. The recommendations were adopted.