Oxford Debaters Beat Harvard's Duo; Sun Still Shines on Empire

Two adroit debaters from Oxford last night demonstrated that the British Empire, no matter what its material decline, still breeds accomplished dialecticians, as it swept over a Harvard team and showed that "That the sun has not set on the British Commonwealth."

The Britishers, William Rees-Mogg and Richard Taverne, won a unanimous decision from Steven R. Petschek '53 and Jay R. Nussbaum '52, before a crowd of 300 in Paine Music Hall. The judges were L. C. S. Barber, British Consul in Boston, Wilbur K. Jordan, president of Radcliffe and professor of History, and Erwin D. Canham, editor of the Christian Science Monitor.

Taverne and Rees-Mogg danced gay conversational circles around their game opponents, pausing occasionally from banter to make a shrewd point.

The debate, whenever the jokes were not flying, centered on the issue of whether the Commonwealth was still a living force in the world today. The Harvard debaters claimed that it was a "vestige" of its former self (Petschek) held together by "bayonets" (Nussbaum). The Oxford duo defended the Commonwealth as flexible, and a deep-rooted voluntary association.