A Great Orator.

Horowhenua Chronicle, 16 May 1910, Page 4

A Great Orator.

LORiD ROSEBERY ON THE HOUSE OF LORDS.

The London correspondent of tho "Sydney Morning Herald" writes as follows of Lud Rosebery's great speech in the House of Lords on March 14th—If in poinlt of practical outcome Lord Rosebery's speech is likely to have little more than acadmeie interest, as an example of oratory it was a line achievement. Lord Rosebery, us England's master orator, is fortunalte not only in being able to choose the occasions for his full-dress displays, but also in the assurance that 'they will have duly effectivo surroundings. Thus on .Monday the floor of the llouso of -.ords was crowded; the galleries were thronged. A brilliant audience had assembled once more for the sole reason of hearing Lord Rosebery make a brilliant speech. No one better than ho himself knew what was expected of him, and, as usual, • ho met everyone's anticipation. It was undoubtedly a great oratorical effort, not, like speeches often so described, frothily rhetorical without solid basis of thought, but shrewdly argued, and as full of ideas as of eloquence. Tt is a question though whether tho constant acclamation of him as a great speaker is not having an effect upon Lord Rosebery's stlye. He has at command every grace of tho orator. He uses a beautiful voice with the most perfectly finished elocutionary art. It rings through the Chamber in impassioned tones, or, for effect of quiet impressiveness, it dies away in a long diminuendo until it is the faintest whisper. "BURNING ANGER." lie luis tho gift, too, of inspiring •a feeling of solemnity by means of a seer-like, rapt expression of face, and he can impose the belief upon yon, as few men can, that the 'burning anger sometimes in his words is being intensely felt. He is very polished and very witty, and his gestures are those of a fine actor. Much of it all, of course, is sheer art, and every wonderful art. And tho artistry of it is sometimes too apparent, and there is occasional suspicion of an exaggeration of these ormunenits of oratory, which exaggeration, in truth must be exceedingly difficult of avoidance by a. speaker of whom so much is always expected. All this pieturesqueness was ill evidence on Monday night and added to the polish of style which never fail him, it made a great effect. His attack upon tho Government's veto proposals was a masterpiece of assumed scorn. Passage upon passage he built up a sorry picture of a House of Lords shorn of all its powers, and with withering sarcasm described how at some .subsequent undefined date is was proposed to establish in its place a precarious, muzzled, impotent phantom of a second Chamber." In impassioned tones he, asked "What self-respecting person would sit in such a House who could sit in the vestry of a country parish; of whom would tin's House of puppets and cripples he composed?" Always skilful in illustration. Lord Rosebery had no difficulty in conjuring up various amusing pictures of the proposed Upper House of the Government. S T o>v, it was a Chamber "annulled, shattered, bled to death" and set np again in Iflie way of Aunt Sally ; now it was a. painted chamber peopled with frescoes, or with ' a uroiip of WAXEN FIGURES from .Mine. Tussaud's dressed in t!:e roles which Peers are pjpuhirly supposed to wear; that would form a very suitable chamber for tho advancement of his Majesty's Government's enterprises." Wi'th many shrewd thrusts he argued that "the voice of the people, of which they were reminded almost ad nauseam," required very careful location. Ho appealed to the hitory of England and of Franco to show the revolutions are not as a rule, carried out by the voice of the epople, but by small minorities — drew a sombre sketch of the stato of mind of the over-sea Dominion at finding the Imperial Upper House demolished while they themselvs had had Senates carefully apportioned them—argued with great brilliancy tho senates of America and France — and after stating his own proposals and briefly supoprting them, ended with a magnificent peroration, urging the Lords to action. Not the least effective portion of that fine passage eloquently pictured the beginnings of the French Revolution of 1789. Tho melancholy cadence of the warning voice fell across a hushed House with tho words: "My Lords, tho words 'too late!' are written across the history of every national catastrophe."