ORATORY CONTEST

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 243, 11 July 1938, Page 13

ORATORY CONTEST

Chinese Student Wins Plunket Medal

KEEN COMPETITION

A Chinese student, Mr. W. Wah, won the Victoria College Debating Society’s thirty-second annual Plunket Medal oratory contest for a prepared speech, held at the Town Hall concert chamber, Wellington, on Saturday night. Mr. Wah spoke with quiet sincerity of the tragic life of Wiremu Tamabana, Maori kingmaker. The contest was keen, and of high standard. Mr. R. W. Edgley was placed second, Mr. A. R. Perry third, of the eight speakers. The young orators appeared in the dignified apparel of academic gowns over evening clothes. The judges were Dr. W. B, Sutch, Mr. C. A. L. Treadwell, and Mr. F. Martin Renner. There was a large audience of students and the general public. The chairman, Mr. J. B. Aimers, said that much criticism had been levelled at the contest, but it had done a great deal to encourage public speaking nt the university. It was one of the few occasion’s when the university could entertain the people of Wellington, and show them something of its activities. The Victoria College Debating Society had been having a period of keen activity, its debates drawing a regular attendance of over 100 students. The Competitors Speak.

The first speaker was Mr. R. L. Meek, on the subject of Beethoven. Speaking with somewhat elocutionary enunciation, he drew a series of emotional word-pictures of the composer’s greatness, his rise from obscure and inauspicious origins, the tragedy of his deafness, and his death, as a lonely old man, on a night of storm. The actual events of Beethoven’s life, lie said, were relevant only insofar as they moulded his greatness, his music, and his indomitable creative power. Mr. C. A. Myers gave an academic and dispassionate lecture on Garibaldi’s liberation of Italy, spoken with a somewhat monotonous intonation. After tracing Garibaldi’s career briefly, he made a strong point by contrasting the freedom Garibaldi won for Italy with her present dictatorial regime. “In 1922, not for the first time in her history, barbarians marched on Rome,” he said. “To Mussolini liberty was a dead thing, to Garibaldi a thing for which death itself was not too high a price.” „ Miss M. Shortall, on Kemal Pasha, was entertaining, and the only speaker who introduced a certain amount of humour. “All the men I really admire have been dead a very long time,” she began. She gave a cursory sketch of Kemal's career, and the changes he had brought to Turkey, but drew no conclusion other than that . “a new thing had come out of Asia.’ Her speech was disjointed, she hesitated at times, and lost the thread of her discourse, having to refer to her notes. . Mr. R. W. Edgley described a series of incidents imDisraoli’s life. He spoke fluently and unaffectedly. He described the small but brilliant company Who attended Disraeli’s quiet country funeral: and then proceeded to show how fitting it was'that Such an august assemblage should follow the statesmans cortege to the grave. He told of the fiasco of Disraeli’s maiden speech—and b.v contrast the Berlin conference, When he mastered even the great Bismarck and brought back “peace witn honour” to the old Queen whose personal friendship he enjoyed. “How fortunate it was for. Disraeli that England was governed by a Queen and not by a King,” he commented.

A Propaganda Address.

Mr. D. Freeman's subject was. John Cornford, an English poet slain in the Spanish war, but he dismissed him briefly. He delivered an impassioned propagandist harangue on the woes of contemporary Spain. His speech was by far the most outstanding of the evening, but did not cover the subject, and was marred toward the end by histrionic repetitions of the . phrase “People in Spain are dying in their hundreds—and we can stand by with calculated unconcern.” Mr. A. R. Perry gave a very adequate and interesting account of the work of General Chang Hsueh-liang, the “Young Marshall” of China. He told of his early failure, his conquest of the drug habit", his perception of the value of the lied Army and its military tactics in combating Japanese aggression, his kidnapping of Generalissimo Chiang

Kai-shek, and his success in uniting the Chinese armies behind Chiang Kaishek, after he had persuaded the generalissimo of the need for doing so. Mr. Perry’s speech was excellent, but his delivery colourless. Mr. A. L._ McCulloch outlined the extraordinary career of Rajah Brooke of Sarawak, with emphasis on his achievement, entirely without Government backing, of a high ideal of bring-

ing peace and prosperity to the unhappy semi-savage peoples of Sarwak. The speaker, however, was overvehement and his speech clipped, robbing his theme of much of its effect. The Winning Speech. Mr. Wah spoke last. With earnest and lively delivery, he described the conditions of the early Maoris, their neglect by the pakcha, and the percep-

tion by Taniabana that there was to be only one law given by the white man, and that for himself. He described Tamahana’s ideals, and the unfortunate circumstances that led him to set up the standard of the Maori King. He outlined the tragedy of Tamahana’s apparent failure and the disappointment of the last years of his life, in a land torn by racial conflict; but pointed out that Tamahana’s work had lived after him; he had not lived In vain, for much that he envisaged had now been fulfilled. Mr. Wah gave an impression of greater experience of public speaking than most of his competitors. Mr. Martin Renner, who presented the medal, said that the judges had very little difficulty iu making their decision. The thing they had to judge was the sincerity and naturalness with which the speaker dealt with his subject, and how far he managed to convey’ that sincerity to his hearers. Affectation and exaggeration, of which there was little, detracted from this result. One or two speakers, however, lost track of their theme, and had to hunt among their notes. “It is essential that anything you have to say should be an extempore outpouring of your own opinions,” he said, ‘‘and you mustn’t do it for propaganda,- either.”