THE PLACE OF NOISES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14931, 2 March 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE PLACE OF NOISES.

BY FRANK MORTON.

From the aesthetic standpoint, if one may still refer to that, in New Zealand and be considered respectable, this Parliament is not an improvement on its predecessor. It lias not advanced in oratory, and it has no dignity at all. It started work in a bad temper, and it is still muttering objurgations. lam not referring to- the Legislative Council, where all tilings are as all things were, and the dust of apathy settles on the sleep of ages; but to the House of llepresentatives, .where the people's chosen arc, and the democracy is more or

less justified of its mistakes and wild alarms. The House sits scowling, and snaps at every touch of an elbow. It re-

minds mo of a picture I once had in an old edition of " The Pilgrim's Progress," a picture presenting the.Pope in allegory, a dour old ogre sitting at a cave-mouth, hungrily awaiting his chance to devour another batch of human souls. There ho

sat, biting his nails, glaring savagely liko an over-grown hum in cat. The House is oddly like that just now. Mr. Massoy's famous geniality has completely vanished, Mr. Fisher's ingenious smilo is all acid, Sir Joseph has developed a savage snarl, Mr. Herdman's frown is scored deep, Sir James Carroll's imperturbability has frozen, even the amiable Mr. Sidey seems to sneer. 'The House, in short, is in a very bad tei per, and it is likely to be worse before it is better. Only that is not what I set out to say. I was saying that there is no improvement on last year. This House is very wearisome ; all noise and no spirit. The new members are, for the most part, rather tedious persons ; but that, of course, may bo due in some degree to the nervousness of the novice first adventuring in theso sacred places. Auckland has sent us a very loud man in Mr. Payne, who has won to speedy notoriety as a bone of contention, and is plainly very proud of it. He is roundly accused of \arious things, including a breach of his pledge to his constituents. But ho is still very proud. That is the sort of man he is. These amazingly-determined democrats rather tend to terrify me. Things being so, nobody is quite at his best this session, and the exceedingly nice and remarkable young genflemen in the press gallery aro yawning visibly in face of the probability that we have not got through yet. It was to be so brief a session, and here it is such an unconscionable time a-dying. I have remarked times out of number we have all remarked it—that we have no orator in New Zealand politics. Sir James Carroll was not without promise at one time, but" he long ago settled into a lethargy of self-confidence, and it is no longer possible for him to grasp the skirts of chance. He rather irritates one these days, because his insouciance has become so wooden that it has settled into a pose. Always a good fellow personally, he commences now to make speeches in the course of conversation, and this is the unpardonable sin. Of other aspirants for the orator's crown, few are worthy of consideration. Mr. Fisher is glib, but flatulent. Mr. Herdman is forcible, but harsh. Mr. Millar rings. a monotonous ding-dong. Mr: iAllen

is effective, • but too low" in tone. Sir! Joseph Ward is keen, but he must for ever j boggle his parentheses. Mr. Massey's honest hammer and tongs are devoid of j music. Honestly, the one speech this ses- J sion that has ha"d any flavour of oratorical grace and magnetism in it was the speech j of Mr. Isitt. I do not like his opinions a j bit. I can see easily through some of ; his threabare rhetorical shifts and tricks. j But yet there is something in his swing and. fervour that appeals to one as in- j teresting; he is not merely cheap and j banal. It is very strange, somehow, that our , popular House of Legislature is a place j given over absolutely to the hurling back j and forth of dry facts and contentions cold j and stark. It would be interesting to dis- j cover, if by any means one could, why the j present generation of New Zealand has produced no orators. All over tho world there are not many now, but there is no lack of colourable imitations. Even in Australia, the picturesque and extraordinary Mr. King O'Malley has the trick of it. He can almost draw tears from an alderman by reading ''a butcher's price list. When he talks of the hardships children suffer in factories the hardened average electors howl and weep. Very cheap, if if you will, but very effective for platform purposes, and always very amusing. Sir George Reid is almost an orator when he is at his fighting best. A jovial orator, perkily rotund, of course;" but still one of the diminishing company of those who can compel men by the arts of speech. Mr. Holman, of New South Wales, would be an orator if ho could overcome his selfconsciousness. At it is, we have no speaker in New Zealand comparable to him merely as a speaker. Wo have none comparable to Mr. Deakin, or even to that shrewd old dog Surendranath Banerji, of Calcutta, as he was when I first heard him nearly 20 years ago. I suppose it's the climate, cr maybe the water. If it could be proved so, it- might be founddesirable to prohibit water. A contingency _ otherwise unthinkable. I sometimes think that oratory is being slowly killed by elocution. I am of the small number of surviving Ishmaelites. I would no more consent to take lessons in elocution that I would to bind myself apprentice to a thug. Elocution is the worst and most useless of all the misjudged mechanical processes. It makes me positively ill whenever I think of it. There is at least one passage of Mr. Bernard Shaw's criticisms with which I entirely agree. This one: — . " Powerful among the enemies of Shakespero are the commentator and the elocutionist . . ''. the elocutionist because he is a born fool, in which capacity, observing with pain that poets have a weakness for imparting to their dramatic dialogue, a quality which he describes and deplores as ' sing-song,' he devotes his life to the art of breaking up verso in such a way as to make it sound like insanely pompous prose. The effect of this on Shakespere's earlier verse, which is full of the naive delight of pure oscillation, to be enjoyed as an Italian enjoys a barcarolle, or a child a swing, or a baby a rocking cradle, is destructively stupid. . To oar young.people studying for the' stage, I say, with all solemnity, learn how to pronounce the English alphabet clearlv and beautifully from some person who is at once an artist and phonetic expert. And then leave blank verse patiently alone, until you have experienced emotion deep enough to crave for poetic expression, at which point verse will seem an absolutely natural and real form of speech to you. Meanwhile, if any pedant, with an uncultivated heart and theoretic ear, proposes to teaoh you to recite, send instantly for the police."