THE WEEK.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume IX, Issue 116, 16 May 1874, Page 2

THE WEEK.

Among tbe luxuries of the season : may be included the opportunity of enjoying a pleasant evening in the Provincial Hall. Those who are compelled to be in attendance night after night do not perhaps experience any great delight in listening to the speeches, indeed I have heard some speak of them as a weurinees to the flesh, but to others who can drop in and walk out when tbey please, a Ices profitable occasional hour might be spent than that which is devoted to taking in the words cf wisdom that drop Irom the lips of our legislators. It . sometimes, perhaps, happens that someone gets up to speak when he has nothing to say, and at others that the speaker repeats himself so often, with but a trifling change in tbe words he uses, that ten minutes flow of words may be condensed into half a dozen lines of print with advantage to the orator and satisfaction to the reader, but this, I suppose, is a ' thing that may be looked for in all legislative assemblies, Some people like to see themselves in print, others dearly love to hear their own voices. Re was a shrewd fellow who built the Provincial Hail, for it is so contrived tbat a great deal of what is said cannot be heard, and if we may take it for granted that what is lost to the ear is only that which is superfluous in the speech, the idea would not perhaps be a very far fetched one that tbe architect had at one time been a newspaper reporter accustomed to condensing the utterances of public men. Mine has been tbe privilege of being an attendant at the sittings of the Council for some years past, and occasionally I have criticised and expressed dissatisfaction with the manner in which some of the debates were conducted, so that whon approbation may be substituted for fault finding it would not be fair to withhold it, the more so that in awarding it I am not merely giving expression to my own opinions but to those of many others. The absence of anything approaching to personal invective or ill temper has been so marked as to attract general attention, and although it is quite possible that more brilliant speeches and more convincing arguments may be heard in other legislative assemblies, I very much doubt whether decency and order and general good humor are so much regarded in tbem as in our Council. The debate of Tuesday evening, although necessarily involving the discussion of subjects that were to some degree of a personal nature, was preeminently creditable to the speakers, and must have been satisfactory to tbe public whether as hearers or readers of the speeches. One tbing puzzles me. Why is it thata statement of the financial condition of tbe province, involving as it does only the expend ture of a paltry £60,000 or so, should occupy the space of two hours and more. I may be wrong, but I imagine tbat the annual budget speech of the British Chancellor of the Exchequer embraces fur more important questions and larger interests tban those touched upon in the statement of the Treasurer of a province containing some five and twenty thousand souls, and yet tbe former is usually got . -through in from three to four hours. Why then should ours take two? I like going to church and I have to be .present at the debates in the Provincial Council, and although I never occupied a pulpit, and cannot boast of ever having represented a constituency in any legislative body, I have not failed to observe the effect produced by the innumerable sermons nnd speeches to which I have listened in my time, and I have come to the conclusion that to be effective you must be brief. A quarter of an hour's pithy sermon is listened to with interest and the members of the congregation carry away with them some recollection of what they have heard, and probably meditate upon it when they get home, but, as a rule, they think that the whole of the pith ought to be, and is, disposed of in fifteen minutes and that which follows is only wood and bark, so they then begin to get restless, and if the right leg has been resting od tbe left, a reversal of the position is considered necessary j between the twentieth and twenty-fifth minutes they pull out their watches as though it were a matter of life and death to ascertain the hour of the day and an angry click is heard as the time piece goes back to the pocket, and after that period their minds are principally devoted to forgeting what they had listened to with pleasure during the first portion of the sermon; And so it is with speeches. Audible yawns and visible stretches betoken inattention and weariness, and these may be heard and seen when an ordinary oration, or speech, or statement, call it what you will, is extended to an unnecessary length. When you are dealing with millions, some latitude, or perhaps I should call it lougitude, is allowable but when you have only to speak of a few thousands, for heaven's sake cut it short, that is if you wish to make an impression or to carry conviction. I am not writing from a political but from a politic point of view— -and I recognise a considerable difference between tbe two — therefore I say, and I have had some experience in the matter, that if the/Provincial Treasurer the Other night had set himself a rule of three sum something in this wise: — If a certain impression is to be made by a two hours speech how much can I make in ■~^M- ' ' ■'

half an bour, be vrould bave decided if he wished to produce the greater result, to make the latter the second term in the proposition. Vide rules of Common Proportion, you will then ascertain my meaning. Would our representatives take it in good part if I were to suggest that a little more attention to tbe wording of the notices of motion would be productive of greater euphony, and probably would have the effect of causing greater success to attend ihair efforts to benefit their respective districts? If I were a rrember, and a brother representative were to ask me to assert tbat " the addition of a constable is desirable in order to preserve tbe preservation of order," I should straightway vote with the Noes, whereas if he had put the matter before me in a different form be might possibly have secured my support. F.