VETERAN LOOKS BACK

Waikato Independent, Volume XXXIV, Issue 3109, 27 January 1934, Page 7

VETERAN LOOKS BACK

FORTY-ONE YEARS AGO. MR. HUGHES’ FIRST SPEECH. [BLUE RIBBON AND A GUINEA. Forty-one years ago a man of 28, iknown, addressed an audience in >'i e Sydney Town Hall on “Myself,” nd contemporary reports said the audience roared with laughter. The occasion was the first eisteddfod held in Sydney. The speaker, says the Sydney Morning Herald, was William Hughes, and he was a competitor in the contest for the best impromptu speech, which he won. The other day, the Right Honourable William Morris Hughes, P.C., K.C., M.P., Grand Offieier de la Legion d’Honneur, Order of the Grand Cross, Belgium; D.C.L., Oxford; LL.D., Cardiff, Birmingham, Edinburgh and Glasgow; and F.Z.S.,former Prime Minister of Australia, recalled how he felt on that occasion—the first time he had faced an audience larger than a debating club. “I remember it well,” Mr Hughes said. “I don’t know what induced me to enter, but I did. I had had a little practice before this with the School of Arts debating class, but that was about all. „ “ The competitors were assembled, ’awaiting their turn, in the space be-

neath the platform. I was among them. One by one they came down the steps, each with a look of frozen horror in his pallid face. Then my turn came. I was handed a hat, from which I had to pick a slip of paper, on which was written the subject of the speech. This I had to open in front of the adjudicator, and read alound. The subject I drew was ‘Myself.’ “I have seen one bull fight,” continued Mr Hughes. “The bull comes out of a dark doorway, runs into the arena, looks upon a vast sea of faces, and in a panic turns and tries to escape through the door whence he came. That is how I felt when I faced an audience of two thousand people for the first time. I wanted to escape, but I could not. “Well, I had to talk about myself. Now, you can’t talk about nothing—” “If it had been to-day, you’d have no lack of material,” the interviewer suggested. “Ah!” replied Mr Hughes. “Ah! but in those days I was full of the modesty of youth. I had done nothing. And I had never thought of politics. I began by saying that if I had been asked to speak about the woman next door, I should have had no lack of material, because all the neighbours had said so much about the woman next door. They laughed at that, and the rest was easy. I had to speak for five minutes, and did it comfortably. Like an athlete, all I had to do was to run between the ropes and finish between the flags. I soon felt I could go on for an hour. “What did I say to them? Lord knows. But they enjoyed it. “And before I knew what had happened, the adjudicator, Russell Jones, had placed a blue ribbon over my shoulders and handed me a guinea. It was worth the guinea.” “What would you have said if you’d had to speak on the same subject to-day?” Mr Hughes was asked. “Ah!” the ex-Prime Minister replied again. “Ah—! Many things have happened since then that I could have told them. And the modesty of youth has departed. Perhaps by the concatenation of fatuous circumstances, that contest gave me the confidence that led me to politics. Cer-. tainly, it raised my prestige among my compeers. Three years later I was in the State Parliament. And curiously enough, for seven years in the State House, and for 16 years in electorate that contained within its border the Town Hall where I made

my first speech to a large audience.” “But,” persisted the interviewer, “just what would you say if you were speaking to-day on yourself?” “Ah!” said Mr. Hughes, as he stepped into his car and took the wheel. “Ah—!”