ORATORS

Otago Witness, Issue 3782, 7 September 1926, Page 80

ORATORS

By

Colonel Arthur Lynch.

(Fob thi Witness.) XXXII. Of the many hundreds of speeches which it has fallen to my lot to hear few have left any permanent impression of their value. A great number of them have been completely adequate to their work at the time, but when the question is asked: Would you preserve that speech as an oratorical gem?—that is another pair of sleeves. Our very familiarity with oratory rather makes us lose sight of all the factors that enter into a great speech. First of all the occasion should be great, and then the conception of the speaker and his style and manner should all be adequate to that occasion. The voice should be good, the use of the voice perfect, the gestures? appropriate; but even all these constitute but a part of something difficult to define and yet very important—personality. There should he a certain felicity with correctness of expression, a grace as well as a mastery of language, the succession of the ideas presented should . tend either to build up strong argument or to present a discourse of fibre and substance. A great oration is also marked by energy and fire, by an appeal to the intellect and the emotions, and it should not fail in any degree in the effect desired, yet the speech should stand the test of being read. Judged by these standards, and allowing a thousand for full marks, I cannot say that I have yet known the orator who has scored above 000. In the House of Commons I have heard a great number of noted speeches, but if I dare to utter an enormity it is this: that the conditions, the traditions, the forms, and manners of the House make it as difficult to produce a great oration there as it would be to witch the world with a poem written as a leading article. Perhaps in that placing I would give the palm to Mr Lloyd George, mainly on this account: that lie carried the House to some extent by his oratory. With him oratory is the great weapon in his arsenal, whereas in others, even in Gladstone, it lias been an adjunct. The Earl of Oxford, when Mr Asquith, delivered many speeches specially impressive on account of the circumstances of the moment, speeches correct in their academic form, but neither in substance, nor delivery, nor voice, nor magnetism great speeches. The best speech, or part of a speech, I can remember was a closing effort of Mr Masterman on the Insurance Bill. The passage had been prepared; it smelt a little of the lamp; but as he delivered it lie seemed carried away by the inspiration of the words, and that was already great. Mr Churchill is primarily not an orator, though his speeches often read better than those of the orators by temperament. He prepares his speeches, lie commits them to paper; he takes them very seriously, even to the elaborated lighter touches; he reproduces at times something of Gibbon, something even of Machiavelli and of Junius; but the voice is not good, the manner and command are deficient; there is no inspiring flame of a great and generous soul. The Irish orators were for the most part too rhetorical; they have nearly all, and this dates from Burke, taken Cicero instead of Demosthenes for their model, though here I would except Tim Healy. His speeches had light and shade, sparkle of writ, mordant sarcasm, but the voice, though good, was not great, and the speeches were keenly critical rather than such as sweep the audience along in sympathy with the speaker. The best platform speaker I have heard is, all things weighed, Mr Ramsay MacDonald, The voice then was very fine; the presence, the sense of personality adequate, the fire and the magnetism not wanting; but the light and shade, the sense of artistry, the intellectual quality, the conception of what should enter into a speech, left to desire. The best orator’s voice I ever heard was Spurgeon’s, but the matter was not good; next to him Lord Rosebery, but there the histrionic ability was too much in evidence.

Looking round the whole world— Jauris, like a rolling river of somewhat turbid water; W. F. Bryan, magnificent in gesture, wonderful in voice, poor in intellectual power; Trotsky, very remarkable in style and force. And now finally, perhaps a surprise. The speech that pleased me most was that of a French savant, M. Beclere, who spoke —on cancer! Yes, but the intellect was great, the ideas luminous, following each other in finely consecutive order, the style chaste but adequate, and the wording charming in the unforced perfection of style.