THE RELEASE OF STUDENTS SIR, —The penultimate note by "Janus" in
your issue of November 23rd calls attention to a subject which seems—from a personal experience— to merit further ventilation. The Government statement of July 28th, 1945, referred to the virtual closure, for some years, of courses for Arts students, and said that the Special Release Scheme was planned to enable selected students who fulfilled three defined conditions, to rejoin their Universities in October, 1945
A relative, who amply fulfilled the three conditions and was " selected " (in the terms of the statement) by his University, Oxford, has been serving for the past three years in India. After waiting, perhaps too patiently, until October for his "offer of release" to reach him, he made enquiries at his unit with the astonishing result that nothing whatever was known of the Special Scheme. This apparent block in the channel of communica- tion, together with the trivial figure for all Universities of 970 quoted by " Janus " (I am aware that one Oxford College alone submitted too names) and the coincidence in date of the Government announcement with the General Election, inevitably arose speculation as to whether the present Government is evincing the same enthusiasm for the scheme as their predecessors by whcm, no doubt, it was evolved.
Your correspondents, Messrs. French, Mitchell and Boulton (Novem- ber 16th) assumed that 3,000 releases actually took place in October and re.narked that it "had little material effect upon the situation." Accepting their assessment, a reduction of the effect by two-thirds is likely to discourage both them and " P.L.H. (R.A.F.)" (issue of Novem- ber 23rd). It may be hoped that their somewhat touching faith in a "clear statement of Government policy" will not turn to cynicism.—
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