THROUGH THE FUNNEL.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 257, 30 October 1928, Page 9

THROUGH THE FUNNEL.

POLITICS VIA MICROPHONE. AMONG GREY STREET CROWS. SODA WATER WITHOUT THE SPARKLE. "Did you see him wave his hat to me? That's him; the best man ever we had," called out a flushed gentleman who tapped vigorously on the glass of the motor car in which the Prime Minister drove up to the side door of the Town Hall last night. The gentleman's pal did not seem to care much whether his interlocutor had got a wave or not. The window tapper was evidently a trench friend of the Premier. "Hallo Gordon!" called out a voice that evidently belonged to yet another friend who had seen Flanders. "What about a pint?" ventured still another voice, and the hoary jest raised the usual laugh.

"Not a cheer," remarked one of the bystanders as the stalwart figure of the Premier passed through the narrow lane of spectators (mostly ladies who had evidently expected to see Mrs. Coates), and vanished into the Town Hall. It certainly was a rather tame entry when one remembers the boisterous arrivals of Mr. Seddon, and some of his successors, at the self-same door. One would have thought the prevailing tension in the political atmosphere would have been felt a little last night, but there was hardly a sign of it.

Soon after half-past seven, the time announced for the opening of the doors of the hall, a sign was displayed, "House Full." Non-Reformers in the crowd— and they seemed most of them to belong to that side of politics—laughed, as much as to say they knew how the hall had reached that plethoric state so rapidly.

"Let's go round to Grey Street," said someone, and the crowd streamed round the corner.

Probably a thousand people gathered round the four loud-speaker trumpets sticking out of the windows. The organ struck up a march tune, and the muffled applause, cheers and hoorays told that the principal man of the evening was walking up to his seat on the platform. A burst of "boohs" issued from the trumpet.

"Hallo?" said someone, "there is some opposition in spite of the tickets," and the crowd laughed, for it dearly loves a rowdy meeting. - It does not seem to care so much for politics pure and simple, but thoroughly enjoys itself when there is plenty of cross-talk between audience and speaker.

Then the Premier's voice went on to compliment Auckland. There was no audience in the Dominion he would rather address than an Auckland audience. "Softsoap," said a voice on the outskirts, but it was only half-hearted. Even sarcastic crowds rather like being flattered.

After Mr. Coates had finished with the local colour —hands off Mount Albert, a marine park for the people at Motuih.', and the hurrying on of the Morningside railway duplication—he got down to the more serious part of the business and told what Reform had done and what it intended to do.

His voice came through the funnel, loud and clear, but the numerous interjections were no clearer than the "murmurs of villagers off stage" of the play at the theatre. As a completely satisfactory entertainment for the extramural audience at these political gatherings the broadcasters should arrange to have an extra microphone or two stationed in those parts of the hall where the enemy was most vocal.

Some of the crowd tried a few interjections on its own account, but it is poor fun talking to an inaminate funnel, and after a while the invisible speaker was listened to in comparative silence. Occasionally some particularly well directed interjection inside the hall evidently hit the microphonic bull's eye, such, for instance, as the "If you're there" when Mr. Coates was talking about what it was intended to do next session, but most of the time the interruptions sounded rather like "Mwhauff-whauif!" and even an unfriendly crowd cannot translate that sort of thing into a laugh.

One was forced to the conclusion that wonderful as the marvels of science may be, listening to a political meeting through this funnel was rather like drinking soda water that has gone flat.