The English debating team which will meet the University speakers in Symphony Hall Saturday night is unique in that it is the first team to tour the United States as the representative of a union of students, rather than as the team of a single university. The National Union of Students, which the speakers will represent, is composed of undergraduates from all English universities, and is mainly interested in the promotion of international friendship and understanding.

The Union has been organized six years, and was founded by ex-service men following the war in order that England and Wales might be represented in the newly formed International Confederation of Students. To further the interchange of ideas, the union has sent debating teams to the Dominions and has promoted the trips of English teams to America during the last few years. No other organization has the right to send out a team chosen from the English universities.

The Union is the mouthpiece of student opinion in England, and considers problems relating to university life at annual congresses to which 500 representatives are sent from almost every university in the British Isles. Similar unions have been formed in the Dominions, notably Canada, Australia, and New Zealand, patterned upon and promoted by, the English Union.