Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Spike or Victoria University College Review 1933

Commerce Society

Commerce Society

This is the second year of the Commerce Society's existence, and it is proving quite a healthy infant. The Society's activities during the year have been mainly along two directions: (a) arranging lectures on subjects of interest to Commerce Students, and (b | pressing the question of reinstating Accountancy lectures at Victoria University College.

The Society was impelled to the latter activity because of the handicap which Commerce Students at Victoria have suffered for the last decade. For so long our Alma Mater has ignored the claims of students wishing to enlarge their small knowledge of the Accountancy Group of B.Com., and this, despite the fact that her very doors face upon the industrial and commercial centre of New Zealand.

The teaching profession and the tanks of the scientists and the lawyers have been filled by University trained men, but the cry of commerce and industry for trained leaders has been as from a voice in the wilderness. For school teachers—a veritable morass of available tuition; for scientists—laboratories crammed with a plethora of a century's scientific discoveries; for social workers—a bewildering curriculum; for lawyers—set courses filled to overflowing with curious and tradition-bound subjects and half subjects artistically named and disseminated; for commerce students—half a degree course and the remainder gathered from what sources were available outside the halls of learning.

Now, at long last, the old order changeth. Victoria, in her wisdom, hath seen fit to include tuition in the Accountancy Group for B.Com. and henceforth her Commerce Graduates need no longer suffer the ignominy of a University Degree, more than half of which was not taken at a University College.

It behoves every Commerce Student to make full use of these newly granted facilities by availing himself of the advantages offered, and by encouraging others to do so whenever possible.

As for the other activity of the Society—that of arranging lectures—it has been the policy of the Society to obtain lecturers specially qualified to speak on matters of current interest. The success of this policy is indicated by the large amount of attention the Press has given to the pronouncements made by the speakers.

Thus, Dr. R. M. Campbell, Mr. Coatea' Private Secretary, newly returned from Ottawa, delivered himself of "Ottawa and what came after," a very useful contribution on planned production of raw materials and foodstuffs, with, of course, a special piece about butter.

Mr. Graham, the emissary of the Wellington Douglas Credit Association, came to explain the machinery by which the supporters of Social Credit would hope to set the world to rights. Before this lecture we condemned the system only on prejudice and hearsay.

Mr. H. B. Smith, of the Transport Department, delivered an excellent address on "Transport Problems," and dealt with the economic causes and effects of regulation in the field of transport.

A further address is projected. Professor A. H. Tocker will inform us whether the London Economic Conference was a failure and why. The date of the address is uncertain, and depends on the date of his return to New Zealand.