Your Salient reporters went to the Concert Chamber of the Wellington Town Hall on the evening of February 16 to hear Professor H. Winston Rhodes, Associate Professor of English at Canterbury College, speak on his recent trip to Europe, especially his weeks in the Soviet Union. Mr. James Bertram, Lecturer in English at V.U.C., was in the chair, and the meeting, (sponsored jointly by the Peace Council, the Society for Closer Relations with the U.S.S.R., the Women's Union, the Progressive Youth League and the Student Labour Federation), was a crowded one.

Professor Rhodes is a man who makes an immediate impression. He is quietly-spoken and unaffected, and speaks with conviction.

"Pace! Pace! Peace! It was chalked everywhere on the walls in the cities and villages of Italy. It is peace that the people of Europe feel need of most." It was because of this urgent need that Professor Rhodes wanted to let people know what he had seen in the country which had been dubbed our potential enemy.

Prof. Rhodes was on leave in 1950, studying the relationship between writers and society in different European countries. When he wished to enter the U.S.S.R., he found that the iron curtain had two sides. The British Government refused to allow anyone more than £50 for continental travel. Accordingly the Professor and his wife obtained an invitation from the Soviet Society for Cultural Relations with Foreign Countries, then applied for a visa. The non-co-operation of the British military authorities led the couple to make a shot at crossing the Czech frontier without a military permit—and they crossed without any questions asked.