The New Zealand Times. SATURDAY", AUGUST 5, 1911. POLITICAL ORATORY

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 7871, 5 August 1911, Page 4

The New Zealand Times. SATURDAY", AUGUST 5, 1911. POLITICAL ORATORY

There are cynical people who declare that in the Parliaments of to-day speeches never influence votes. Tho assertion is probably much too sweeping, but it cannot bo denied that within the last couple of decades there has been a distinct change in tho quality of Parliamentary speaking. It is not only of colonial Legislatures that- this change has to be chronicled. Tho same thing may bo said of the British and American Parliaments. It has been contended that the last of the great British political orators was Gladstone. Since tho passing of tho “Grand Old Man,” adroitness in debate has taken tho place of that combined strength and dignity which characterised the set speeches of such men as Peel, and Bright and Gladstone. Mr Chamberlain perhaps more than any other Parliamentarian of the Victorian epoch, did more to lessen tho power of the old class of political oratory. Mr Chamberlain was no orator, but as a debater, keen, clear and incisive, he had, when at his best, .but few equals and probably no superior. Times change, and with them tho methods of Parliamentary warfare, and to-day the party whip can often bring to bear, in quiet colloquy with a member, an influence superior to the most flowery and brilliant periods of a statesman. That the hustle and bustle of modem Parliamentary life have contributed in no small degree to diminish the effect on a Legislative Assembly of a sot speech of the old Gladstonian type, may be unavoidable, but it is impossible not to regret tho almost total extinction of an oratorical eloquence, now replaced by smart and effective debating power. Mr Herbert Paul, one of the ablest of tho younger men in the English Liberal party, who in his own speeches affords an excellent example of modern debating capacity, has found time, we notice, amidst the political Sturm and Drang of the last few months, to compile and edit a selection of Famous Speeches, noteworthy examples of political oratory. Scanning the speeches Mr Paul has selected, a student of latter-day politics cannot fail to bo struck by the fact that the great orators of the past ■ —Chatham, Burke, Fox, Gratton, Peel, Cobden, Bright, Disraoli and Gladstone —spoke with even,as much regard for the effect their speeches might create in the country as in the Legislative halls at Westminster. Tho review in “The Times” of Mr Paul’s excellent work affords most interesting reading, and should tempt many of those who peruse it to seek the full text of the speeches quoted from and others w)iioh for various reasons, have not been included.

Mr Paul gives a high, place amongst the Victorian orators to Peel, hut Peel was not always ready with, retort. When Cobdea delivered what was known as his “Dairy Farming Speech,” in 1845, the effect was to completely disconcert Peel. It was of this speech that Mr (now Lord) Morley records that “The Prime Minister (Peel) had folio ifed every sentence with earnest attention; his face grew more and more solemn as the argument proceeded. At length ho crumpled up the notes ho had been taking, and was heard by an onlooker who was close by, -to say to Mr Sidney Herbert, sitting next to him on the bench. ‘You must answer this, for I cannot.’ ” According to Mr Paul, Peel was never perhaps so eloquent as Chatham and Burke and Canning were eloquent. But he was what Disraeli—no mean judge of oratory—called him, “not altogether as a compliment” Mr Paul says—“ The greatest member of’ Parliament that ever lived.” The closing sentences of Peel’s speech on the resignation of Ministers in 1846, a speech which contained a generous tribute to the genius of Cobden, is selected by “The Times” as being specially worthy of preservation : It may be that I shall leave a name sometimes remembered with expressions of goodwill in the abode of those whose lot it is to labour and to earn them daily bread by the sweat of their brow, when they shall recruit their exhausted strength with abundant and untaxed food, the sweeter because it is no longer leavened by a sense of injustice. Most of Gladstone’s splendid oratorical efforts require a special knowledge of the political situation of the time they were delivered in order to fully appreciate their dignified eloquence. Accord-

mg to Mr Paul, Gladstone’s greatest argumentative speech was made on a singularly dry subject—the taxation of charities, in 1863. But Gladstone could at times fau'ly blaze with passion, even in the House, although, as a rule, his most fiery philippics were reserved for the public platform, and we are somewhat surprised that Mr Paul has omitted any mention of the crushing reply he made to his great rival on the subject of the Bulgarian atrocities. But of all the great Victorian masters of political oratory Bright was probably the greatest. Not even Gladstone himself could sway a huge audience with enthusiasm or indignation as could Bright. At his best he was even greater on the platform than in the House of Commons, but the historic halls of Westminster never re-echoed a more superb flight of oratory than the speech in which occur the following sentences: The angel of death has been abroad throughout the land; you may almost hear the boating of his wings. There is no one, as when tho first-born was slain of old, to sprinkle with blood the lintel and the two side-posts of our doors that he may spare and pass on; he takes his victims from the castle of tho noble, the mansion of the wealthy, and the cottage of tho poor and tho lowly, and it is on behalf of these classes that I make my solemn appeal. As “The Times” remarks, this was “ possibly tho noblest figure of speech that ever enthralled , the House of Commons within tho memory of living men.” A second extract from Bright, and one which well displays his gifts of prophetic vision, is taken from one of tho speeches delivered by him at the Birmingham Town Hall during the American Civil War, when, after declaring his disbelief that tho party of disruption would succeed, tho great orator thrilled his audience with the following eloquent prediction: I have another and a far brighter vision before my gaze. It may ,bo but a vision, but I will cherish it. I see one vast confederation stretching from the frozen North in unbroken lino to the glowing South, and from tho wild billows of the Atlantic westward to the calmer waters of the Pacific main—and I see one people, and one language, and ono law, and one faith, and, over all that wide continent, the home of freedom, and a refuge for tho oppressed of every home and of every clime. There was always a suspicion—at least always amongst his opponents—that below the at times brilliant eloquence of Disraeli there lay a vein of insincerity. But as a master of piercing satire and scathing sarcasm this great Conservative statesman had few superiors, and although he may sometimes have overloaded his oratory with metaphor, he could, when necessity called for it, display an exceeding adroitness in debate, picking out weak spots in an opponent’s armour with almost uncanny ingenuity. Disraeli, too, had a gift of humour which nature had denied to Gladstone, and he often amused ■the House and got the Assembly into good temper when his rival would have wearied it by an excess of earnestness. Times have changed, we have said, and to-day tho giants of debate, the masters of oratory—of the Victorian type—are few and far between. The day is one for plain, effective argument and courageous action rather than for long set speeches, however brilliantly eloquent may he the speakers. But it is good sometimes to peep into the past and take part, even though it be in imagination, in historic political combats. This Mr Paul’s work, which cannot be too warmly praised, enables us to do with ease and pleasure. !