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Plunket Medal Contest.

By the time the Plunket Medal Contest has reached its majority (which will be in 1927) the Debating Society will have begun to realise its mistakes of the recent past. A curious in-consistency of policy is already beginning to bear fruit. The strenuous efforts to popularise the debates have been accompanied by measures which have succeeded in depopularising the Oratorical Contest. If we are correct in our inferences from the attendance at the nineteenth contest, the Society takes only a limited interest in the affair, the public less, the student body less still, and the College staff none at all. In former years an eager public packed the hall; belated students blocked the door-way and stood on tables to catch a glimpse, however meagre, of the contestants; the rowdy pack inside kept the air alive with clever banter that never degenerated into interruption of speeches; the Glee Club did its bit; and the Faculty beautified the platform in company with the Vice-Regal Party. It was a community as well as a College affair then; now—it is what it was on Saturday, the 19th day of September, 1925. Making full allowance for the frigid weather, we attribute the decline to two things the loss of Vice-Regal patronage and the imposition of a charge for admission. In cutting out the Governor-General the Society cut out a big public attraction; then it cut off the public with a shilling.

Nor is the spoliation limited to those things. The rules of the Contest still prescribe twelve-minute discourses "on some man or woman of note in history." The die-hard section of the public that braves the silver bullet in the hope of securing a better acquaintance with such personages find themselves fobbed off with others who have (as yet) got no nearer to history than the newspapers. Men of note (or of notoriety, according to taste), yes; but History takes a long time in making its judgments. Its wide curves swing clear of many a fellow reckoned big in his own day. The Debating Society appears to be too deeply occupied with current politics to notice this; it cannot lift its eyes off the newspapers. All of the speeches did not merit this criticism, however. One actually swung to the other extreme and gave us too much history.

We must carp even at the Chairman (Mr. G. O. Cooper). We do not mind his apologising for the recitative character of the speeches. Somebody is always apologising for something at V.U.C.; the whole 'Varsity system is at present the subject of apology. But we could scarcely believe our ears when Mr. Cooper departed from the time-honoured custom of Plunket Medal Chairmen by omitting to disclose what G.G.G. calls the "dark secret" of the institution of the contest. Shall we never again listen to the dear old opening, "When Lord Plunket was Governor of New Zealand. . ."? Or must we wait until the first Plunket babies arrive at the College and one of them takes the Chair of the Debating Society? Mr. Cooper's bonny aspect might easily have led some to believe that that time had come. To our own distorted imagination his irreproachable shirt-front suggested an adornment peculiar to early infancy.

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A further grievance before we commence upon the "glorified recitations." We missed the set of steps up which contestants formerly climbed to the stage in full view of the audience. What an unceremonious thing it is to pop through gloomy looking hangings and then emerge from the wings like mere elocutionists instead of honourable victims of a Victorian holiday. The victims lose a thrill and the spectators an impressive back view of assorted 'Varsity vesture. Give us back the old stateliness!

Mr. R. F. Fortune entered first and brought Huite-Rangiora on to the deck with him. Mr. Fortune spoke in sepulchral tones. His voice rumbled like the depths of Davy Jones's locker. He was more hesitant than usual. He held himself stiffly except once when he made a gesture as if about to hurl a spear, and was almost furtive in his peeps at the notes held down by his side. His manner was that of a professor. So was his material. It proved to be a history of Maori navigation stretching back to somewhere about 400 B.C. Our impression is one of old Maori navigators sailing about everywhere from India to Antarctica with a restlessness that made European navigators appear mere ferry-boaters. One way and another, Mr. Fortune managed to touch upon them all, with the exceptions, of course, of Noah and Jonah. There was some expectancy when he brought in the gods and spoke of the religion of the Maori in tones of suppressed excitement. A casual reference to Mahomet, Joan of Arc, and one or two others was his sole venture into parallels, however, and he neatly rounded off the subject with "we know that his religion was not true, but we know also that it made him the greatest navigator the world has known." Mr. Fortune's speech was one of big vision and interesting detail, but lacked the divine fire; and his peroration was abrupt.

Mr. W. P. Rollings marched across the back of the stage in a determined manner and, making a wide sweep, brought up at the Chairman's left front. Then he took a header into his subject with an account, in the historical present, of contrasted Episodes to the career of David Lloyd George. He mentioned the little Welsh village "quite frequently and devoted long spaces to lavish imagery. His points were packed in generous quantities of oratorical straw. A determination to attain his full quota of words led him into a delivery which, although it occasionally halted, was generally a shade too rapid. He modulated his tones at decent intervals, with a faint suggestion of artificiality; in the earlier portion of his speech he rose to a true oratorical pitch at the beginning of a quotation, but finished at lamely Mr. Rolling chiefly erred it seemed to us. In an effort to import thrills into a subject which was by no means thrilling politics must be given a vivid human colouring to move an. audience. When Mr. Rollings reached the incident of the Budget he let in his clutch with a jerk and took on a note of excited alarm, "And when the storm bursrt," his matter hardly appeared emotional whole, It lacked climax, It lacked ring. The peroration was splendid, but detached; therein Mr. Rollings showed what he could do and what he should do. In the matter of gesture, he should use his head and his hands more.

It must help a competitor to know that his subject (so long page 30 as it is not Napoleon Bonaparte) is a proven prize-winner. Mr. S. E. Baume's easy entrance suggested something like this. And there are two sure means of putting salt on the tail of an audience : oceans of blarney and tears in the voice. Mr. Baume is an artist in the use of both. On this occasion he adopted the poignant course and in a quiet voice, which nevertheless suggested immense reserve power, delivered a heartful apology for Florence Nightingale. Commencing with a rather flat reference to his predecessor's speech, he worked his emotional controls to produce in turn grim challenge, indignant disgust, beautiful scorn, gentle remonstrance, wheedling appeal, broken-hearted anguish, and the aforesaid tears in the voice. He made us feel we had done something wrong. Mr. Baume's sentences were short ones with tails like kites, and he gestured with his eyebrows alone. His award was due to his complete control of his method and the contact which he established with his audience. He was the only competitor who bowed to the Chair when leaving the platform.

Mr. A. E. Hurley did not walk round the stage, but took his place at the table. In Dr. Livingstone he also had a subject that had previously won the Medal. He made an opening with a fine roll of words, used to good effect. We noticed curious errors of pronunciation, however; some of his words were slurred; others, as in "a slave-arriden people," were rolled too much. His sentences, too, would roll strongly, then suddenly relax; he would frequently stop in the middle of a sentence, apparently to cudgel his memory. We did not like his oratorical smile, or his sudden appalling acceleration of emotion, or the sharp gesture of the head which seemed to say "D'ye get that now?" or "Put that in your pipe and smoke it." Mr. Hurley's manner was very like that of a missionary, even parsonical at times, especially When he came forward suddenly and held out his hands appealingly. We noticed in his case also the absence of the climax. Every few sentences had a minor climax, but there was no grand one, such as on a former occasion was made of the meeting with Stanley. The peroration was forced in emotion. Mr. Hurley's faults are due to a concentration on the objective rather than the subjective side of his oration. We shall hear of him again.

That able speaker, Mr. R. M. Campbell, we almost expected to win. Why, we do not know, for his speech on E. D. Morel was a debater's elaborately argued vindication of another debater, and never once showed signs of becoming an oration. Mr. Camp-bell delivers jolt after jolt into the solar plexus of our intellects, out lie does not reach us anywhere near the place where the pie goes home. His was a calculated, meaty speech; he hacked his way through his subject with mordant efliciencv, but only once snowed traces of inward fire. He came very near to emotion, characteristically enough, when he recounted Morel's candidature against Winston Churchill. Mr. Campbell's sentences were long, but well sustained, and were beaded with blistering epithets. His gestures were as methodical as his manner, but much milder. Ha had only two. One was a prim little hack at his notes with the edge of his left hand, which then mechanically returned to the small of his back. The other was a primmer little hack with his right. They could be timed, as also could the precision with which he turned sharply to the table to lay down each slip of page 31 his notes as he finished with it. Apart from the usual plethora of quotations, Mr. Campbell's speech must have been largely extempore—a point to his credit. We wish, however, he had not quoted the lines "Stone walls do not a prison make, nor iron bars a cage," with such dreadful triumph. They missed.

Mr. C. G. R. James completed the display by assassinating Abraham Lincoln. Every few years we listen to a variation of the words "Suddenly a figure leaped, etc., etc." There is some-thing about Lincoln that appears to fascinate contestants; per-haps it is the joy of his destruction. We look forward to the day when somebody will take a character from the South—Lee, "of the stainless sword," for preference. Mr. James made a fine speech, but it was marred by difficulties of voice. Much of it was inaudible. An occasional phrase which emerged appealed to the crowd's sense of incongruity. The "new suit of clothes, no garment of which had been worn before," did so particularly; it made the Chairman temporarily cease to look like Hilaire Belloc and take on the expression of an officer at a banquet. Never the less, Mr. James's speech was a well-written one and he had the spirit, if not the voice. His one gesture looked like the beginning of a right hand upper cut. He frequently used it to beat time with.

The judges (the Hon. Sir Maui Pomare, M.P., the Hon. Mr. Justice Ostler, and the Right Reverend Dr. Sprott, Bishop of Wellington) then retired for the usual quarrel, and a horrible silence ensued. Some timid people in the students' corner essayed to sing a few spirituels, but immediately became ashamed of themselves. The Chairman engaged in mysterious confabulation with the front seats, and finally induced Mr. Fortune to take a message to Garcia, or somebody. Mr. Campbell displayed his plumage and recovered his notes from the Chair. The Chairman, not to be beaten, called upon Mr. Mackenzie to play on the grand piano. Mr. Mackenzie, with assistance, pushed the piano all over the platform, then, without assistance, pushed the keys down in a variety of ways and with excellent effect. He highbrowed the piano twice before the judges returned.

His Honour Mr. Justice Ostler announced the decision: Baume 1, Rollings 2, Hurley 3. He said that Mr. Baume was a finished speaker, that the speeches generally suffered from stiffness and absence of gesture, and that, with the exception of a certain section of the audience, nobody had indulged in humour. Mr. D. S. Smith, a former winner, moved a vote of thanks. Whereupon the audience departed, making the usual comments on the result.

We see no reason to dissent from the award. As with other contests, other judges might have decided differently; there would still have been criticism. Oratory is neither elocution nor debate; in elocution and debate the art is the thing, in oratory the effect. Debaters are accustomed to judge speeches by their appeal to the head; they must apply a different standard to this contest, for oratory is primarily an appeal to the heart.

Mr. Baume is to be congratulated upon his success.