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The Plunket Medal

Before embarking on a description of the famous event, let us discuss a small point that seems to have arisen of late years, a point which seems to us (we may be wrong) of considerable importance. The point is: Who should be the competitors for the Plunket Medal? Of the rules which presumably govern the contest( as they are printed under that heading in a prominent place in the Debating Society's syllabus), the first says: "The competition shall be restricted to those members who are eligible for the Union Prize." Members, we take it, of the Society. Rule 1 of those governing the Union Prize says: "The competition shall be restricted to those members of the Society who are matriculated "students," etc. And Rule 7 says, inter alia, "Provided that each competitor must speak in at least two-thirds of the debates," etc. Now, putting aside the slight ambiguity as to whether a student is eligible for the Union Prize before, or not until he or she has spoken in a complete tally of two-thirds of the debates (there may be no ambiguity at all to a correctly-trained legal mind, but then that is not ours), it is manifest that, strictly speaking, or even speaking quite loosely, only members of the Debating Society are eligible for the Plunket Medal contest. This year and last year, at least, this rule was not in the least adhered to. We doubt the wisdom of this latitude. The contest, it seems to us, stands too much in danger of the Stanley Warwick-Culford Bell taint. We are not getting even set speeches, but merely charming little recitations with the appropriate left-hand-right-hand-both-hands together set of gestures. It reminds us of the pretty action songs we used to sing in childish days at Sunday School anniversaries.

"You in your small corner, and I—in—mine!"

as the familiar refrain went. Very nice, very nice; but having got past that stage of infant tutelage, let us have something a bit different. However, we are getting beyond the point, which is: Shall the rule continue to be violated, with the apparent full connivance of the Society's Committee (one assumes they know their own rules), or shall it be abrogated entirely, to put. things on a proper basis; or shall it in the future be enforced? We recommend the matter to the Society's next Annual General Meeting. It may be unworthy of all this fuss, but then the world is so full of all manner of troublesome contradictions that it would be a blessing to get rid of even one anomaly.

There is another possibility—that all these competitors have belonged to the Society, but have never put in an appearance at its meetings. The inference is, that they have joined expressly for the purpose of winning the Plunket Medal; which position seems to us morally indefensible. The place of such competitors, we deferentially suggest, is in the thick of the Competitions with Mr. Barton Ginger and Mr. Vryn Evans.

We arrive at our objective. The Eighteenth Annual Plunket Medal Contest was held in the Town Hall Concert Chamber on Saturday, 13th September, 1924, at 8 p.m. Mr. H. G. Miller, M.A., graced the chair. The honourable, learned and pious judges were the Rev. Dr. Gibb, D.D., W. H. Gould, Esq., M.A., and G. W. von Zedlitz, Esq., M.A. (Oxon). Facing this battery of honour, learn page 8 ing, piety, and justice, and a large and amiable audience, eight competitors ascended the stage, orated with solemnity and passion for the space of twelve minutes (approx.), and descended again to criticise their rivals. We will now proceed (at last) to the discussion of these stalwarts, mentioning by the way the chairman's quietly chaste introductory remarks.

Mr. F. McParland we had not had the pleasure of hearing before. He took as his subject Joan of Arc, and gave a rather strained and over-earnest account of the poor girl. Mr. McParland had not the commanding voice of some other competitors, and he used it with rather an absurd variety of gesture and tone. His enunciation was good, his pronunciation altogether too correct. His gestures were continuous, unnatural, and only infrequently apposite. Mr. McParland is, we hazard a guess, a product of the elocutionary studio. We implore him to forget it. Being young, he may yet save his immortal soul. At least his matter was mainly about his subject, which can hardly be said for the other competitor who spoke on Joan.

Mr. S. E. Baume followed, and in contrast with Mr. McParland, seemed to be stricken with paralysis. He described Nikolai Lenine, or anyhow he gave one interpretation of his character in an excellent voice, which he endeavoured to use emotionally or an excellent voice, which he endeavoured to use emotionally on studiously matter-of-fact material. The result was somewhat anomalous. Last year Mr. Baume tore the passions to tatters; this year he eschewed them almost too completely. However, he has a better command of his voice, and with his natural endowments stands a good chance for the medal some time in the future. In comparison with some of his recent debating speeches, he seemed on this occasion rather disappointing.

Miss A. B. Craig spoke on the Grand Old Man. We had a lot of epigrams to spread over Win, Ewart ourselves, but we have not the book at hand (those interested please see Guedalla's latest), so we must content ourselves with Miss Craig. Her speech smelt of the lamp. It was very carefully put together, with an excellent choice of words in the funeral-oration style, but it was not convincing. The old man might have been the greatest moral and political genius of his age, but he had his faults, and some of them were a trifle boring. Miss Craig presented an immaculate impossibility. She was at times inaudible, and her very gentle, if careful, delivery failed to hold her audience.

Mr. J. W. G. Davidson then rose to give Mr. Ramsay Mae-Donald his due, which he did in an excellent speech, quite the best of his Plunket Medal efforts. He skated over the thin ice of propaganda with an adeptness not always characteristic of his earnest soul, and brought his hero safe and sound, with all due honour and glory, to the shore of the New Idealism. His speech was well-balanced, and he has apparently got away from that distressing monotony of delivery which has been his handicap in the past. There were faults of quite meaningless repetition, and the only gesture which Mr. Davidson apparently possesses is ugly. His voice, too, is not greatly endowed. However . . . And was he altogether accurate when he described the boy hopelessly tramping the cruel streets of London looking for work? Surely MacDonald's childhood was well past when he arrived in London.

Mr. Rollings spoke on Louis Pasteur, an original choice, from page 9 which we hoped much. Mr. Rollings, however, having for some reason to traverse the whole course of history before arriving at his hero, got his speech somewhat out of proportion. It may have been, too, because of the inherent disabilities of such a subject; but as an oration, the speech failed to carry weight. With pruning, it would have made a good lecture. Mr. Rollings' fluency led him into some rather infelicitous phrases, e.g., that which carved Pasteur's name on those countless operating-tables. In the mechanics of delivery Mr. Rollings was good.

We were next faced by the aggressive personality of Mr. R. F. Fortune. Mr. Fortune was down to speak on Joan of Arc, who however occupied a quite inconspicuous place in his frenzied polemic against some vague entity known as the Holy Office. He ripped out his curses in a glorious whirl of enthusiasm which reminded us of the tramper hurtling through the Catchpoll bush in a whole-souled if hopeless attempt to catch the 5 o'clock boat from Rona Bay. He inclined at times to become rather a blur. However, there is excitement in such a race, and Mr. Fortune's speech was nothing if not exciting. We thought he was going to finish up well, but he couldn't resist a final terrific blow at the foundations of the Faith. We dare say if Mr. Fortune can learn to manage his voice better he will be a good speaker some day. He has what may variously be interpreted as immense courage or a stupendous lack of tact; but his chief characteristic is an almost entire lack of sense of proportion.

Mr. J. T. V. Steele is another man with a grievance. He used the life of the Prophet Elijah as the text for a sermon against the use of force. His material was not very well put together, though, as he remarked, there was not a great deal of material to use. And Mr. Steele suffered from a staccato, disconnected, somewhat savage utterance, which may lend effectiveness to some of his well-known fighting speeches, but was out of place here. We shuddered at mispronunciations like "vilent" and "attichood." Nevertheless a little ancient history was refreshing, and we thank Mr. Steele for getting out of the rut.

Mr. A. E. Hurley was the last speaker, and gave us the second oration on Gladstone. Mr. Hurley was good; he has an excellent voice and gets it across; he never leaves you in any doubt of what he is saying. But there was no modulation to it; the level surface flowed on with out a change until nearly the end, where an effective peroration made a welcome change. On the whole, Mr. Hurley's matter was not thrilling; it is not very helpful to be told that Mr. Gladstone "on one occasion delivered a very illuminating address to some students at Oxford." But there is promise in this speaker.

The judges retired, and the Chairman bent over the edge of the stage and had a mysterious conversation with a man in the front row. There were a certain number of vocal gems from the gentlemen in the back left-hand corner. We occupied the time in picking the winner. Then the judges came back, and Dr. Gibb in very Gibbian style awarded first place to Mr. Davidson (loud and long-continued applause). The next best were Messrs. Baume, Hurley, and Rollings, without putting them in any distinct order. The Doctor made the usual criticisms of the speeches; the National Anthem was rendered in a rather high key, but with impeccable loyalty; and we departed supperwards.