From “Q.C.G.”, May 1907

 

Debating Society.

 

While the Faculties of Arts, Medicine, Engineering and Law, have throughout the Session been busily distributing the specialised information which it is their function to impart to us of Q.C.G. who resort to them for the same, an educating agency perhaps more important than any of them has been working—as quietly as possible—amongst us giving that knowledge, of the inter-play of opinions and of the orderly and judicious handling of institutions without which no education can be said to be liberal or complete. The agency to which I refer is the Students’ Literary and Debating Society whose lately terminated Session was not the least eventful or successful in its long and distinguished career.

 

A little world in itself, it was to many of us an instructive model of the greater world beyond the walls of Q.C.G., teaching— at times perhaps rudely but always well—the most important of all lessons—that there are other opinions, interests and points of view as well as one’s own and that it is the resultant of all, rather than the distinctive peculiarities of any, that makes this old world hum and go.

 

Looking back on the Session the outstanding event is of course the Inter-Collegiate Debate in Dudley week—Dudley week that cast a roseate bloom over all Galway life as well as over Q.C.G. was kinder to none than to our Society. The University Debate was a much better debate than the people who will settle the question were ever guilty of. Donovan made a brave show and his junior, who is also his, senior, did his best. Cork was brilliantly witty; Belfast persuasively argumentative; Dublin terribly in earnest. James welcomed the visitors in the phrases of a Court, The President summed up with the tact of a Prime Minister. But who can describe the diplomatic neatness of the magnetic Mac William who spoke in well-turned phrases the thanks of his heart

—and the suavity with which Professor McE. rang down the curtain? It was all great; we were all great, and if we did not settle the question of Ireland’s Universities—well, neither did Bryce—and we settled him anyhow.

 

Probably few sessions have been so big with events as that just over. Fierce debates, resignations, elections, courses of all kinds (and an abnormal list of subscribers) marked our progress. There are hardly a half dozen members who have not qualified

for office on the “three-times” rule, and one “occasional’ chairman proved a distinct success.

 

After such an experience James should be able to drive a four in-hand team of railway engines—and yet he did not always seem satisfied with the value he was getting for his shilling, but there is no satisfying some people.

 

The Flutists “thoughts suggested by Bowen on Astronomy” was a charming contribution in the lighter vein and the same performer’s delicate figure-skating on very thin ice (suggested by an imaginary encounter between Venus and the Discobulus in the Examination Hall) was beyond all praise.

 

Now that rules are on the tapis it seems opportune to point out that rule 13 limits us quite too much. Since all legislation is run on party lines and no great public change can he brought about without legislation almost every question of public interest may be guillotined by the aid of this rule. This is bad for us, and maybe, it is bad for the country too.

 

It has often seemed to me that removed from the actual necessities and limitations of party politics our Society should afford an excellent opportunity for dispassionate examination of problems affecting the welfare of Ireland. Our deliberations are marked by the ‘cold curiosity’ of scientific investigation—following truth wherever it leads. There is with us no necessity to strive that pre-conceived opinions may be bolstered up, or party shibboleths maintained, and if we were allowed in this spirit to approach such questions as Home Rule, Industrial Revival, the checking of Emigration, etc., I for one should not be surprised if good work for Ireland should result from our pleasant Saturday re-unions, nor should it surprise me either to find that the necessity of giving your own party a “leg up” and the other fellow’s party a knock down has in the great world outside been for years injuring our land by preventing simple enough solutions of the problems which perplex it from coming to the front.

 

I look on the benefits conferred by our Society as very great and I would not have foregone the pleasure I derived from it for a good deal. Having entered Q.C.G. at an age when most men have done with Colleges the result for me has been a store of happy memories which will last a lifetime.

 

May the star of our Debating Society never wane or its shadow grow less.

 

“Lex.”