LEADER OF THE UNIONISTS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LII, Issue 322, 23 February 1910, Page 3

LEADER OF THE UNIONISTS

THE REAL MR. BALFOUR. AS HE APPEARS TO A COLONIAL. When one hears Mr. Balfour Speak he realises at once the difference between English and colonial oratory—the one cold, measured, and finished, the other swift, headlong, and syntactically more or less irresponsible (writes the London correspondent of the New Zealand Herald).

Mr. Balfour is not an orator. Yet his speeches' are orations. That is to saj', he has not the power of enthusing and firing his audience as Lord Rosebery has, and as some colonial statesmen have in even greater measure. Some say he is not Celtic enough. He is too academical and classical. Yet in these' very qualities he represents par excellence the finest and the best of the British oratpr. He speaks with more' than ordinary fluency, but not rapidly. He is not in the slightest degree emotional. Most of his utterances give the impression of a calculated and careful Ministerial statement, to every phrase and sentence of which he is imparting a studied meaning. That is why Mr. Balfour's speeches are more inspiring in print than as delivered. Nobody could ever accuse the Leader of the Opposition of being a "gallery man." Possibly at the present moment he would be a more effective leader if he had more of the qualities' of the platform orator to sway his audiences. But every word he says hag the ring of sin"ity. In their speech the two leaders, Mi. "Mfour and Mr. Asquith, exhibit many points of similarity. There is just the difference, if one may remark it, that distinguishes the cultured High Churchman from the cultured Low' Churchman, or the thoughtful middleaged gentleman from the thoughtful elderly gentleman. Yet Mr. Balfour isthe older of the two. The first time I heard Mr. Balfour speak he was completely at home. It was a meeting of city men at the Guildhall, subject, "The Navy." Under such conditions he was at his best. There was no heckling or interruption. It was simply a straightforward speech of a high •class to a sympathetic and select audience. And 11 was greatly .struck by the contrast between his speech, dignified, quiet, and sincere, and those of one or two of the later crop of poiiri- 1 cians who spoke afterwards. They were as different as chalk and cheese. Mr. Balfour on the floor of the House, s'o to speak; the others, by comparlwin, were at the hustings, speaking from a caravan.

I New Zealanders will get the best idea I of Mr. Balfour —the pose, the figure, and to some extent the manner—from their recollections of our last popular Governor, Lord Ranfurly. The resemblance m speech, too, is something more "than imaginary, but I am afraid we cannot divine anything from the fact that they were both students of Trinity College, Cambridge. As a politician Mr. Balfour belongs to the best type of Conservative and that explains better than anything else that slow conversion which placed hiftV for a time almost hors de coTiibat in the leadership of a party with a reformed policy. His conversion to tariff reform was gradual, but none will believe it was anything but honest. To-' day he stands on the platform as a sincere advocate of a fiscal change, too sincere to 'go to extremes, or to subscribe to promises of the' fulfilment of which he is not sure.

I have said the Leader of the Oppo-' sition is unemotional. And it is so. Yet he has his rare outbursts. The most remarkable for the present campaign was in his duel with the Lord Advocate of Scotland. On that occasion Mr. Balfour was undoubtedly laboring under a sense of deep indignation. The passage was a hot one, even bitter, and there was nothing to choose between the fier- recriminations of the' two Scots. Tlvy both had the gloves oif, and they <-:tid things in a glow of savagery whic'i is seldom surpassed fof intensity in political controversy at the other side of the world.