Student stirs
Sir:. Six months ago you published a letter of mine in which I said that because student par- ticipation seemed to have worked in Southamp-. ton I would advocate it as a general principle, conducive to peace in the universities.
Since then there has been a considerable change of atmosphere in the students' union here. It is not that students have any grievance against the university authorities, or indeed take any action against them—with the excep- tion of a very small sit-In in support of LSE. It is internal union behaviour which has taken leave of its senses. Union' meetings-have-been called so frequently and last so long—often into the early hours of the morning—that it is no longer possible to mobilise the mass of moderate students. To them a degree and a social life are understandably more. important than acting as a permanent watch on the antics of the left. The result is that only the extreme students who are seriously interested in politics Mend the meetings, and most unrepresenta- tive decision., are taken. We have sent no less than five donations of L'20.t9 various strike and revolutionary funds (I am at pres-trit. trying to discover if this is a misuse of union fees paid by local authorities) with probably three more about to be ratified. Internal discipline has broken down, and disciplinary committee has not been called since Christmas. The culmina- tion of all this was the live University Forum broadcast by BBC ry on 6 May, when a totally unrepresentative audience—despite a promise '0 the atic=was allowed to hurl obscenities at Lord Beeching for over an hour. Perhaps we are just catching up with the rest or the country, but it is an unfortunate fact that a small militant minoritir has been able to control the .political life of the union and do incalculable harm to the reputation of students as a body, as well as presenting welcome ammunition to the growing body of `student- bashers' in the country.
For these and other reasons too numerous to list I have come to the unwelcome conclusion that students are not mature enough to take complete control of their own affairs and take part in those of the university. Any political party which was willing to offer some kind of guarantee of minimum democratic rights, or students charter, would reap enormous rewards from the new young voters. Until then the. obvious.solution is a return to some kind of supervision of student affairs by the university authorities, but the danger is. of course, that it is too late, and such a step would be impossibly provocative. However this may be, this lesser known facet of student extremism, which I know is by no means unique to this university, must be brought into the open, and remedies must be considered.
Sam Wiggs The Students' Union, Southampton University
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