BRITISH ORATORS.

Manawatu Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 1195, 13 January 1914, Page 4

BRITISH ORATORS.

LORD CURZON'S CRITICISM. In delivering the Rede lecture at Cambridge, Lord Curzon reviewed British orators. The pith or bis comments is thus summarised by the Daily Mail: “ Mr Asquith : Copious vocabulary, effortless command of the right word, remarkable lucidity, and a resonant voice. An overpowering effedt of parliamentary and forensic strength. “Mr Winston Churchill; At times practised the literary style with great ability. A ‘ double style ’on the plalform, the exigencies of modern democracy requiring from its favourites at one time the utterance of the stateman, at another the ‘ palter ’ of the musichall artist. Mr Lloyd George: Reserved the masterpiece of his peculiar style lor Lirnehous, Newcastle, and Swindon. “Mr John Redmond: Speech consistently verging upon eloquence and sometimes with genuine emotion. “Mr Timothy Healey; Unsurpassed gift of corrosive humour. “Mr Balfour; Never consciously cultivated a single rhetorical art and could only by mistake have strayed into a peroration. “Mr Bonar Law : Would never have been chosen to succeed Mr Balfour but for his powers of speech. Fearless courage and an uncommon faculty for going straight to the heart ot things. “Mr Chamberlain : Unsurpassed in his mastery of cleaness, conciseness, humour, invective, ridicule and cogent and reulless reasoning. His ‘strokes went straight to the mark.’ “Lord Rosebery : ‘ Whatever subject he touches is raised at once out of the commonplace.’ “The late Duke of Devonshire : Deficient in the aits of oratory and indifferent to applause. “Mr Gladstone : Master of every art of eloquence and rhetoric. “Disraeli: Master oi picturesque and incisive phraseology. “Parnell : Not eloquent, much less au orator. Hissed cut sentences of scorn, giving au impression of almost demoniac self control. “Lord Randolph Churchill : Tomahawk always in hand ; grossest errors of taste in some speeches and neatly all marked by burlesque exaggeration. “John Bright; Carefully prepared the choicest sentences unique command of simile, apposite stories, and ready wit. “Sir William Harcourt : Not naturally eloquent. Proficient in satire, rc.dlery, and scorn not always b refined. “Lord Salisbury ; Wholly wanting in the attributes of the orator; yet fascinating, and, in his later days, most impressive.