19 MARCH 1948, Page 5

The decision of Convocation at Oxford to rescind a decision

already taken to send an address of congratulation to the Charles IV University at Prague on its 600th anniversary will, I imagine, be universally approved. The Southampton University College, which was to have sent one of its professors to attend the ceremony, has similarly cancelled its plans, which as its Principal, Sir Robert Wood, observed, could no longer be carried out, since the Rector and seventeen professors at Prague had been removed from their offices. Condonation of so brutal a violation of academic freedom would be intolerable—as every British university is likely to decide. * *