The W.E.A.

"Salient" is an organ of student opinion. Does this necessarily preclude a knowledge of facts in its editorials? In the issue of April l4th the editorial, after sweeping through educational history in ten lines, says:

"So with the W.E.A.—a workers' educational scheme, but how many workers attend the lectures? Take any census and you will find that 75 per cent of the attendances are by bourgeois intellectuals."

Your readers may be interested in the statistics for Wellington for 1940 and 1941, the most recent available. These are published in the annual report, which is available to anyone. These are enrolments:

According to your editorial writer all except the first category are "bourgeois intellectuals."

The report for 1940 shows 30 affiliations to the Wellington District Council, each of which has a representative on the Council, and through this voting power the dominant voice in governing the W.E.A. locally. Of these affiliations 27 are trade unions, 2 are employees' associations and the other is the V.U.C. students' association. "The bourgeois W.E.A." exists only in "Salient's" editorial; in fact, it functions through and for working people, most of whom have been inside a University College only to attend W.E.A. classes there.