DESMOND ALBROVV

WELL BOWLED, NORMAN
A SERIES of misfortunes prevented me from attending the Oxford Union debate on the Catholic Church (full report on page one), but I watched the whole thing on television. Like an innings by Bradman it went on far too long for my personal comfort and some of the undergraduate speeches from the floor were as bad as in my day. thought, however, 'that the President, Robert Jackson, handled the debate supremely Norman St. John-Stevas struck exactly the right note and his polished performance contrasted grotesquely with the pugnacious puerilities of Ian Paisley and his other satrap in a Roman collar. It was a good idea from a publicity point of view to have Ian Paisley speaking for the motion, but it meant the outcome of the debate was never really in doubt.
The Union does not take kindly to bigotry and to have Mr. Paisley supporting the motion that "the Roman Catholic Church has no place in the Twentieth Century" was as absurd as having Sir Oswald Mosley speaking for the proposition that "the Liberal Party is the enemy of Democracy."
When next the Oxford Union debates a religious issue it would be as well to see that the guest speakers are roughly of the same intellectual standard and share the common view that controversy can be exhilarating and pointed without being offensive. Even in the twentieth century there is still a place for believing that manners maketh man.