WOMEN SMOKERS.

Waikato Times, Volume 118, Issue 19637, 25 July 1935, Page 6

WOMEN SMOKERS.

THE UNIVERSITY BAN. MR DE LA MARE’S VIEWS. Questioned by a Waikato Times representative concerning the ban on smoking at the Auckland University College, Mr F. A. de la Mare, who Is one of the representatives of the graduates’ constituency on the New Zealand University Senate, said:— “ I do not know the reasons upon which Hie Professorial Board at Auckland founded their decision. 1 imagine a prohibition is not general and applies only io certain rooms. The position may be analogous to that of "smoking” and "non-smoking” carriages on Hie railways. If the women who smoke want to use “non-smok-ers” I have as little sympathy with them as I have upon- the railways—where they can be, and often are very objectionable. “ Although I personally ■ dislike smoking amongst normal women, I think it would be stretching University discipline to breaking poinl to make anything in the nature of a general prohibition of the kind and tills leads mo to the conclusion that the prohibition in question is not so wide as the reports suggest," continued Mr de la Mare. “ There comes a stage at which men and women must be given responsibility for their own actions and that stage naturally corresponds with life at the University. Whether the opportunities afforded by a university are used or misused must, within limits, be left to the individual. Drunkenness 1 would place outside the limit.

" With one argument adopted by some of the women I entirely disagree. It. is stated and, in fact, women often assume, that the position in regard lo men and women is identical. This may be true so far as university discipline is concerned, but it is, I think, not I rue as regards smoking in general. The general problem of smoking is one of individual and racial health. The effect of smoking upon I hose whose special duty it becomes to bear and rear children differentiates- the problem as between men and women even if ii could be shown that the physical and psychological offeels of the narcotic arc the same in Ihe case of both, a proposition. as ll seems to me. eonlradicled by the fact,*.”