All prefects had the power to whip their fellow students. I wonder if Malcolm still believes senior students should have the authority to command fellow students to drop their trousers and take a beating with a cane?
Not that he was averse to people dropping their daks. I do recall one evening well into his mature years while visiting the United States our former Prime Minister inadvertently dropped and lost his own trousers and copped a caning from the international media. I wager that hurt more than those blows of 1947 even without leaving quite as many visible weals as he left on my brother’s rear.