A COLONIAL ORATOR.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12000, 24 June 1902, Page 4

A COLONIAL ORATOR.

The Federal Premier has given to the people at Home one of those polished and well-weighed speeches which were so necessary to remind them that culture is not altogether wanting at the antipodes. We think that few will have read his utterances at the South African Association's dinner without feeling that our neighbours have every right to be proud of the eloquence and the tact of their spokesman. New Zealanders have no particular reason to applaud Mr. Barton, who taxes out our oysters and prefers not to buy our oats. But we can recollect the great influence which he exerted throughout Australia when the cause of Federation, hung in the balance and when his unanswerable arguments and unexpected energy turned the scale. He promises now to rival the " silver-tongued" Premier of the Canadian Dominion as the recognised colonial orator and unfortunately threatens to cast our own representative into the shade. To embrace Boer and Briton in one panegyric, to question the suspension of the Cape Constitution before the advocates of suspension, to belittle a " distinct agreement" while enhaloing the Empire, to win applause for "White Australia" from representative South Africans, is no mean feat in oratory when it is done in terms which give no offence to any but win the approval of all and with incisive arguments which his strongest opponent would recognise as honourable and declare to be worthy of weight. We considered that Mr. Barton might well have taken a lesson from Mr. Seddon in the matter of the contingents but we have to confess that Mr. Se'ddon might well learn from Mr. Barton how to say that which is in him without giving needless offence.