In reply to Grant M's question in Salient: Why get rid of the National Military Service Act? Firstly, as far as the administration of the Act goes, not everybody whose head holds more than half a thought' knows that he can get out of military training by registering as a C.O. It is all right for students where conscientous objection is well-known, but the person who lives in the country-town only sees the poster "When you turn 19 it is illegal not to register for military training." However, as far as OHMS is concerned, improving the administration of the Act so people know of their rights is only a side-issue.

When you look at the N.N.S. Act you realise what a 'fascist' bit of legislation it is. The potential is there, depending upon the whims of the government at the time, to turn our system into a military police state. For instance under sections 50 and 51 of the Act, the police have the powers amounting to a 19 year old 'pass law'. Or under section 53 of the Act, where employers are not allowed to employ persons who have failed to register and so on.

In Australia it is easier to become a conscientious objector now that Australia is no longer sending conscripts to Vietnam. At the present time in Australia, there are thousands of draft resisters so the equivalent Australian Act has become unenforceable (Note the recent event at Sydney University) [Which event? Ed.]

Which comes to the point: Why let young men of N.Z. be 'forced' to go into the Army to be brainwashed and trained for foreign Wars? For no reason what [unclear: so-ever] OHMS is not proposing to have the NMS Act abolished at the expense of a few martyrs. I admit that where people out of their own conscience refuse to comply with the Act there is a possibility of becoming a martyr. But the more people who take this stand the less likely this will happen, because the Act will become unenforceable like the Australian situation. The Government does not want a confrontation, especially in election year. In fact the Labour Department is doing its best to avoid it. (Dave Kent who walked out of the C.O. committee hearing after reading his submission was exempted from service by an irrelevant 1968 Amendment). Sure as Grant M. says there are a lot of fucked laws, but why wait until it is too late to get rid of an obnoxious piece of legislation? It is up to us to get rid of the NMS Act now so its potential cannot be used when the situation arises.

Ken Howell.

Capotes anglaises

The suggestion to write letters of protest to Monsieur Pompidou which has been circulated lately in university circles is so naive that only a short-sighted bookworm could entertain any hope of making an impact on the French Government.

Students should show more imagination and more insight. We should also give a more energetic and sincere example of involvement in this issue which is a confrontation between an arrogant Government and peoples living in the South Pacific.

There is a much more efficient means of bringing to the notice of the French Government the fact that we strongly disapprove of and oppose the explosion of nuclear devices in the Pacific. Our High School, University and Adult Education students should stop now, in this second term, attending all French lectures, classes and club meetings. The French Government could not ignore a protest which threatens the cultivation of French language and culture abroad. After all, French culture is the spearhead of French economic penetration. It is another more subtle and more persistent form of colonisation which we endure because of vested interests and pay for.

Moreover we should not stop at this. We should, as taxpayers, ask our Government their reason for continuing to finance the teaching of French language and literature in our educational system. Is French really needed by us in this age? Is it so important in the Pacific, where the French presence is limited to a few, tiny colonial territories?

Can we afford to spend $2.5 million per year to teach French in our secondary schools and universities, instead of devoting this sum to other more vital subjects such as the sciences and medicine?

If someone asserts that our economy needs trade with France, it is true to say that France needs our wool and primary products even more than we need her cosmetics, cars and culture.

Miso Gallo

Irish Papers

I wish to congratulate Peter Franks for his article, "Irish Muck Raked" in Salient, 27 April.

It was to be expected that our local press would endorse the findings of Lord Widgerys tribunal. Yet evidence was conflicting and it was by no means clear as to who fired the first shot on Bloody Sunday, 30 January.

Until the publication of the "Pentagon Papers", our press generally favoured American policy regarding Vietnam. Since then, our press has been not so sure. It seems that we shall need an Irish "Pentagon Papers" before our press is convinced that official hand-outs are insufficient as a source of news.

Judith Bird.

Armchair Revolutionaries

Students were sucked horribly by those fuck-witted P.B.E.C. demonstrators. They claim that they were protesting the sellout of New Zealand, when it was biblically obvious that they were selling out the students for their own image-conscious crusade.

Alec Shaw knew damn well that it was a non-issue. Wednesday's Forum proved that! The PBEC guy told his boys off, and Cullen told his boys off.... What more was there to tell? Thousands of aimless, gutless pricks turned up on Wednesday to hear the these weak-principled buffoons banter definitions of violence and deliberate on the evils of tripping old men up. These thousands of students need a figurehead so badly it's painful!

The issue was minute, practically non-existent. Alec Shaw wants to lay assault charges? Well... if, at the first glimmer of real conflict our figureheads have to cry mamma to the bureaucracy they so vehemently decry, how the fuck will they get on in a real revolution, when there are actual, tangible issues and principles at stake?

Those French cunts are going to blow holes in our ocean; but you don't do a fuckin' thing about it! The Rugby Union gains support from the people, because the people think you're impotent and you are.

Nixon flexes his atomic muscles and you're worried about Peter Cullen calling the Police? The black-hating ambassadors of fascism are arriving soon and you're upset because you got a nasty write-up in the Dominion.

Do something important.... blow up the French Embassy! Do something for Jesus ....burn Mr Philip. Do anything, but don't waste valuable time on Alec Shaw's campaign to become an undergraduate Brian Edwards.

Steve Lahood.

I must confess to being relatively uninformed on the art of revolution so, should any of the following comments prove to be inaccurate I would welcome correction from any of our well-informed resident revolutionaries — be they of the crypto, quasi, or real variety.

One of the major dictums of revolution would appear to be "do not isolate yourself from your base" i.e. workers, proletariat, peasants. This would seemingly account for the success of Ben-Bella and the F.L.N. in Algeria, Mao in China, Castro in Cuba and so on. It would also account for the Middle East and the imminent failure of the I.R.A. in Ireland.

As a student that has to work for a living (i.e. worker) to support a family and who comes into continual contact with other members of the working public my observations compel me to conclude, using the above mentioned dictum as a criterion, that the New Zealand Revolution has failed — and miserably.

Instead of our revolutionaries (crypto, quasi and real) devoting their surplus energy to masochistic beer-hall putsches a la PBEC and as the task of dialogue with the workers is apparently too arduous may I recommend a less demanding alternative: read Kafka's letters to Max Brod. Somewhere will be found the following pearl of wisdom: "The revolution evaporates and leaves the slime of another bureaucracy".

David Los.