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Insight

Mr. Holyoake has been trying hard recently to maintain one of his pet myths.

Although it is generally accepted General Maxwell Taylor came out here to ask for more troops, Mr. Holyoake still talks in terms of a request from the Saigon Government.

Either the Prime Minister is extremely misinformed about just who is running the war or wishes to shield our "Welfare State Weaklings" from the ghastly truth.

Not a very convincing performance though when even the New Zealand press has discovered some of the facts.

* * *

Foreign affairs reminds one of that revealing speech made by the Honourable D. Thomson just recently.

The Minister of Defence said in the past New Zealand has been a "puppet of Britain."

Claiming he did not mean this in a derogatory sense, he said we were now becoming independent in our foreign policy.

Seems one can only admit to have been a puppet after one has cut the strings, so to speak.

It just wouldn't do to say we were a puppet of the United States at the moment, would it?

Perhaps it is our fools paradise, or as one Labour parliamentarian put it recently—"a paradise run by fools." —which permits the notion we have an independent foreign policy to cheerfully pass by.

* * *

This Year is the first since 1964 the VUW National Club has not had a delegate at the National Party's annual Dominion Conference.

Club President David Williams was selected earlier this year but decided a couple of weeks or so before the event he was too busy to attend.

No, he didn't see if he could be replaced by another member. He rang the Divisional office of the National Party and just told them he could no longer attend and left it up to them to find a replacement.

Come, on David, is this really Edmund Burkes theory of conservatism in action?

* * *

My word, the Labour Party is marching solidly forward. Every opportunity to make a gain they seize and make the most of it.

Just look at their skill in petting the best people into Parliament.

They recently had an oppor-tunity to replace a Maori member who died.

What did they do—select a good solid waterside worker.

* * *

Some people really do need, convincing.

Apparently certain members of the University Council and the administration are not frightfully concerned about the idea of a bookshop on campus.

They think students really don't mind the usual annual shambles.

What do these people want— a demonstration every day or perhaps a sit-in in the Administration building?

—Cynic