Lino Spiteri's Please, Let Us Not Be Silly (November 9) was very insightful. One cannot but agree with all points Mr Spiteri raises, save one: "Had a warning been published on the front page of the paper saying that it contained adult material, as the university authorities are suggesting, that would have been a blatant advertisement to encourage reading of the short story."

Mr Spiteri's reasoning seems to run thus: Warning potential readers about the contents of a publication amounts to encouragement to read same. To my mind, this is not the case.

Let us consider some analogies. Are warnings on jerry cans containing inflammable liquids invitations to start a fire?

Are warnings that high-tension cables could be fatal meant to persuade passers-by to try it out?

Are warnings printed on cigarette packets alerting smokers to their habit's dangers intended to advertise smoking?

Are film ratings (U, PG, AA, AO, etc.) designed to promote movie-going? In all these cases, the warnings are meant to inform potential users about possible consequences and thus to help them make informed decisions.

It would thus seem that a warning on the front page of the student paper would not have encouraged reading by those who want to read, but would have prevented reading by those who do not want to read. Some people do not want to be exposed to language which might be deemed obscene, and they are entitled to be thus protected. That protection is implied in the right of others to freedom of expression.

So it would seem that the university authorities are right on this. Where these authorities are absolutely wrong - and Lino Spiteri absolutely right - is in their high-handed attitude toward the young editor of the paper.

It seems reasonable to assume that the young man did not omit the warning out of malice but out of inexperience. One would have expected the university authorities to educate the young man by asking him to explain the background, drawing his attention to his mistake and giving him the opportunity to remedy. Reporting him to the police smacks of callousness, if not even worse.

I stand to be corrected, but there seems to have been no report about the university authorities affording the editor the possibility to defend himself. We do not seem to know whether they proceeded to call the police without hearing what the student had to say. Recently, the courts annulled a decision by the selfsame authorities who accused a student of plagiarism without giving her the opportunity to defend herself. This attitude imparts the wrong values to the student body, the future leaders of this country. This is disquieting.