The Debating Society's double attraction on Friday night was not as successful as it might have been. In the first place, the debate lacked the interest which the subject has aroused on other occasions and, according to the judge, speeches showed a lack of preparation and the arguments were not up to University standard. Secondly, two of the entrants for the Bledisloe Medal preliminaries had to withdraw through illness. Misses Forde and Souter and Kingi Tahiwi, however, all reached high flights of oratory, and we can expect much from our lady representatives' efforts in Dunedin.

Following the debate, an elimination contest was held to select two speakers to represent Vicotoria at the Bledisloe Medal Contest in Dunedin. It was unfortunate that two of the entrants were precluded from speaking owing to sudden illness, and the task devolving upon the judges, Messrs. C. H. Weston, K. C., and J. Kane, was therefore merely to decide who, of Mr. K. Tahiwi and Misses C. S. Forde and D. Souter, was not to go. The speakers had drawn for order of speaking.

To Rauparaha.

Mr. Tahiwi was the first to face the judges. He began quietly, telling in clear, slow and mellow phrases of the rise of the young Te Rauparaha, of the trust that he inspired in his people, and of how they followed this man whom they had placed on a tribal pedestal, and into whose hands they had delivered their destiny, on the long and hazardous pilgrimage from Kawhia to Kapiti. Mr. Tahiwi lost much of his effectiveness in his lack of knowledge of his subject, the constant reference to his notes becoming monotonous; but in his peroration he rose to great heights, and as the final words rang clear through the hall, "Quit ye like men; be strong!" we saw the old Maori warrior standing there before our eyes, vivid and picturesque.

Te Kooti Again.

Miss Souter was the next speaker, repeating her Plunket Medal oration of a few weeks before, on Te Kooti. She began much too fast, but she had the advantage over her predecessor of really making her hero live. Hers was as simple narrative of a romantic and turbulent life, and she seemed at times not to be holding her audience; but the description of "the early morning scene, tense with emotion," was well done. There was not nearly enough expression put into her work. She spoke too fast throughout, and yet one felt that genuine oratory was round the corner. For instance, her peroration always seemed to be coming but never quite arrived. No doubt with another week's preparation she will coax in into view. If she speaks slowly and gives attention to effect, she will do very well [unclear: m i upedin].

Our First Prime Minister.

Miss C. S. Forde was the last of the trio, and she gripped her audience from the first word. Her composition was poetic and imaginative in construction, tending perhaps in places a little to over-statement; but the figure of John Edward Fitzgerald, that first New Zealand Prime Minister, with "a song upon his lips to encourage and inspire and a lantern in his hand to light the way," stood forth clearly before her hearers. We seem to have heard the phrase "pregnant with celestial fire" before. Can it be three years ago now? Keenly sympathetic was her treatment of her hero's last years, till "God's finger touched him and he slept," and moving was the apostrophe to the dead which provided her with a fine conclusion.

The judges then put their heads together, and Mr. Tahiwi was the unlucky one.