LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
Letters from Porcus-Piscis Orie- lensis, Gerald McDonald, Dr Rhodes Boyson, Alan Alexander, Rosemary Collins, Peter Redd- away, L. E. Weidberg, Philip Norman and others.
Anti-Mercurius
Sir: I am second to none in my admiration of the brittle brilliance of Mercurius Oxoniensis's wit and style, and gladly acknowledge that his contributions to your columns, especially that to your last number (13 February), are ideal intellectual fodder for the port-imbibers of Oxford guest nights in candle-lit Senior Common Rooms. But as he has now named me person- ally, I feel I am entitled to put him right on a few points. The worm turns at last. Like many of , my Oxford friends and col- leagues, I have long had reserva- tions about Mercurius's 'Oxford Letters', and while we laughed and even admired, we also felt a sense of humiliation at the image of Ox- ford which Mercurius was project- ing. I do not know, Sir, if you are aware of the effect of Mercurius's effusions. At a debate in Congrega- tion recently it was stated that the number of applications for admis- sion to Oxford to read for certain arts courses was falling. If that is true, I would surmise that Mercu- rius's image of Oxford as an ante- diluvian institution living in privi- leged isolation, contemptuous of the world around it, and soaked in self-indulgent complacency and introversion, has contributed to that fall.
I shall no doubt be criticised for reacting poinpously to a work of artistry. But I see no reason to apologise for trying in this letter to turn a frivolity into a serious dis- cussion on a serious problem. I do not wish your readers to be influ- enced in their assessment of the present post-Dutschke political sit- uation in Oxford (if, as I would think unlikely, any have the faint- est interest in such a subject) solely by Mercurius's perverted interpre- tation, apparently inspired by his contempt for 'the Faithful'. Who these Faithful were, I have no idea, for the seventeenth century is not my period; but I assume that Mercurius in this latest letter is us- ing the term to describe the liberal elements of the University.
As for his comments on me per- sonally, I think they are quite per- ceptive. If he would reveal his iden- tity to me, I might -eves tell him that I enjoyed his criticism and
hoped that it might lead to our meeting, and to talking over his and my very opposed political views. In his account of the recent meet- ing at the Oxford Union, he writes 'Behold! there heaves up from the floor of the house, like a porpoise from the deep, another of the Wykehamicall brethren, one Mastet Seton-Watson'. (Query to Mercu- rius: do porpoises ever inhabit the deep? Surely they have to breathe our same air?) I must admit that I have never thought of myself as resembling a porpoise, but I find it a charming compliment. Por- poises are good-natured and high- ly intelligent animals—I have seen many in the course of my life, and have come to be very fond of them. And then he calls me 'the great patron of liberty in Oriel ooll'. I take it that he is referring to the undoubted fact that over the last year or so I have been arguing within our Governing Body and its committees for a liberal, rather than a reactionary, college policy regarding our communications with our junior members—and not, I am glad to say, without some suc- cess. And if this merits in Mercu- rius's eyes the title of 'Great Patron of Liberty' (it sounds terribly Stal- inist), then I am grateful to him for his nice thought, and shall in future be very proud of the title. I note in passing that in some of his previ- ous Oxford letters, Mercurius has shown that he commands the ser- vices of some very wekl-placed sources of information as to what goes on within Oriel.
Now let me turn to serious mat- ters. There are several inaccuracies in Mercurius's report that need cor- rection. The Dutschke affair, as Mercurius himself admits, in his devious and inimitable style, has left an atmosphere of anxiety and- concern among many senior mem- bers and many of the most respon- sible and thoughtful junior mem- bers. The Executive Committee of the Student Representative Coun- cil acted with just that responsibi- lity and thoughtfulness when it -announced the open meeting at the Union on the evening of Monday 18 January last, and stated that senior members would be welcome. The Student Representative Council is not, to re-quote Mercurius's quo- tation, 'the only true voice of the University', and I do not believe for one 'moment that 'Master Hart' ever said so; but it is a responsible body, which will shortly receive practical recognition by the Uni- versity, in addition to its present paper recognition, probably next October. And now a second trivial inaccuracy : it is not true that I 'hurried back [to Oxford! for the occasion'; I was in Oxford that day for quite a different purpose.
The meeting is described in Mer- curius's letter. It is a clever account and only in very small details in- accurate. But it totally omits what were for me the most important features of the meeting—its anxi- ousness, its attentiveness and its orderliness. The Union Hall was crammed, with people standing in the galleries; I am told that the total attending was about 700. The 'loyal' informers surprisingly left out two incidents from their intel- ligence report to Mercurius, which I believe to be significant. One re- volutionary student , spoke, most eloquently, telling us that we were wasting our time over an insignifi- cant individual case and that direct or extra-legal action to destroy 'the system' was the only policy that merited adoption; and at the very end of the meeting a young gentle- man, as eloquent as he was hand- some, who I am told represented the National Front, made a speech of a content and style which to others besides myself, who studied at Oxford under the shadovi of European fascism, must have brought back grim memories. These two, and a few other extremist speeches from both sides, were lis- tened to, but the audience quickly made it clear, by sporadic boos and ironic cheers, that these were not the speeches that they had come to hear. They had come to hear the facts of the Dutschke affair, and to make up their minds according to those facts. It was a responsible meeting, organised by responsible persons. I hope more senior mem- bers will attend such meetings in the future.
At the moment attempts are be- ing made in Oxford to formulate as precisely as possible our present anxieties about particular aspects of the Dutschke affair (e.g. the pos- sibility of foreign students being deterred in future from. coming to study in this country; doubts about the role of the security services in relation to foreign students; and the implications of the extension of the definition of the term 'political activities' to cover political discus- sion, which was propounded by the Immigrants Appeal Tribunal and accepted by the Home Secretary). The hope of many of us is that a way may be found to convey these anxieties to the Home Secretary, to, ask him to clarify what seem to us ambiguities, and to give us such assurances as he can regarding his future intentions, so that we may be relieved of our uncertainty.
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