NEW FORCE

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 114, 6 January 1932, Page 2

NEW FORCE

RADIO IN ELECTION SETS NEW STANDARD IN ELECTIQNEERING METH.ODS. . NO ARTS OF THE ORATOR. "Thete were many remarkable features in the election which is now .over, apart from the c'onfusion of issues and of parties. The m'ost remarkable, I think, was the change it indicated in the mechanism of elections. It was a pretty general experience that publie meetings figured much less prominently than usual in the strug- , gle," writes Mr. A. G. Gardiner, in the "Star" (London). "It was not merely that they were fewer in number. That was noto- | riously the case," Mr. Gardiner goes ! on to say, "and may be explained m ' some measure by the circumstances ! of the election and the bewildering i cross-currents that afflicted the party ; machines. ' •

"But more significant than the infrequency of the meetings, especially the country constituencies, was the small attention that the platform attracted in the campaign and the striking decline in the personal intercourse between the candidates and the electorate. In many constituencies canvassing was hardly attempted, and I remember no occasion when there was such marked. economy in the distribution of election literature. Chief Instrument. "Those features, no doubt, are partly explainable by the vast increase in the electorates, which makes personal contact with the voter difficult, if not impossible. But they are mainly due to another fact. Broadcasting has, in this election, established itself as the chief instrument of electoral controversy — more powerful than the platform or the Press, more penetrating than the canvasser, more personal than the direct contact of candidate and voter. "If meetings have been fewer and less important, it is because they have largely lost their function. The voter no longer needs to- leave his fireside and go out into the night to have his share in the great controversy. "He can have h'is evening meal in peace, whet his appeitte" for the fray I with a little preparatory music from | the B.B.C. orchestra, and then, with j his feet on the fender, and with his j pipe in his mouth, and surrounded I by the family circle, he can have the argument presented to him in his own : sitting-room, not by the stumbling I oratory of the local candidate, interrupted by the irrelevance and disor- ■ der of a public meeting, but by the 1 Hectors and Achilles" of the fight, , speaking to him quietly and personi ally, without interruption and without I the mob emotion of a crowd to disI tract the mind and cloud the issue.

I Momentous Change. 1 "This is a momentous change. It ! is a change which has come to stay and which must increasingly influence the temper of controversy. I think it will influence it for the better. It is an appeal to the individual reason rather than to the crowd emotion. It substitutes argument for rhetoric, and authoritative statement for the irresuonsible assertion of the platform. ' "The Honourqble Mr. Slumkey or Mr. Pott may commit himself to any nonsense on the platform of the vil- • lage schoolroom at Walloper Well with perfeet security. He will not be reported and is in no danger of contradiction. Tf you are making a statement in print,' said a famous mob orator to a young candidate for Parliament when they were leaving a meetmg together. 'you must be careful of your facts; biit on the platform, my boy, you must let the millions fly.' That represents much of the political controversy of the . uast.

"But if Mr. MacDonald or Mr. Baldwin or Mr. Henderson eommits himself tO a declaration on the wireless there is no escape from it. It is not merely that he has a responsibility ; which. the local candidate has not; it is that he is heard by millions of the instructed as well as the uninstructed, not in the heated atmosphere of a meeting but in the cool and judicial atmosphere of the parlour. "In coming thus into direct relation i with the individual voter, the political lcader not only subordinates the candidate, but incurs a new and heavy responsibility. He may quite conceivably turn the scales of an election for or against a given issue by a good speech or a bad. I do not think it can be doubted that the course of the recent election has been more influenced by the broadcast addresses than by any othe'r fact. This means that henceforth the politieian who wishes to influence elections must study a technique of oratory entirely different from that of the past. Great Leveller. "The wireless is great leveller. It knows no distinction of persons, and is the most ruthless enemy of the spell-binder. It strips him of all the stock-in-trade of his craft — the mob emotion of a great meeting, the sense of the hero advancing into the arena, the arts of gesture, the gifts of personal appearance and dramatic bearing, the clapping, and the singing, the feeling of battle. He is a voice

— nothing but a voice. "A lonely voice without fanfarronades to announce it or impress you with its importance and celebrity. If you like it you listen; if you don't like it you flick a gadget and reduce it to silence. It does not address your emotions. It addresses your mind. If it fails to do that its failure is absolute. Rhetoric and declamation are equally fatal. They fall still-born from the impersonal mouth of the loud speaker. Sincerity Alone. "All the affectations and insincerities of matter and manner. the portentous drop of the voice, tne dramatic pause, the thrilling query, the awesome whisper — all drop stone dead before that little party in the parlour. Nothing 'gets across' except the qualities of clear statement and plain, unadorned sincerity of utterance. Humour must be sparingly used, and, even so; must be of the true vintage. Mere anecodotage is a bore and facetiousness an offence. "The merest shade of condescension is aggravated and vulgarity is thrice vulgar. During the past election we have had an extraordinary experience of what constitutes effective and ineffective speech on ihe wireless. I shall not say who in my judgment

passed the ordeal bes.t, though I am quite clear on that point. But it was the man who was at once most direct, unaffected, and obviously- sincere. It is no bad omen for politics that the chief instrument of political controversy in the future has so acute an ear for the truth or falsity of those who employ it."