Reason and Persuasion
HE BBC World Affairs talk this ‘" week-end by Harold NicoJson, and our own news commentary Lookout, by Professor W. T. G. Airey, offered quite a contrast in styles. Naturally, Harold Nicolson put up the better show; in voice, presentation and radio style he
was markedly superior. Both took as their starting-points isolated items from the week’s news, but, whereas Airey stuck rather laboriously to the Japanese situation and allowed himself only occasional asides, Nicolson had soon abandoned his Franco-Polish squabble and was off and away on an account of the history and value of diplomacy which took us back to the Stone Age. It was certainly exhilarating and most persuasive./ "You all know," he exclaimed, "you all know the truth of this," and heads before a hundred radios nodded in unison. The voice was so deep-toned and assured, the argument so rational |
and convincing, telling us too just the story we all want to believe in. Yet, wrongheadedly, I find sticking deeper in my memory the colourless, rather worried tones of Professor Aifey, warning us that the Japanese are past masters at the art of playing off one power against the other and’ that, with America in search
of a possible ally in the Pacific, Japan again finds herself in a strong bargaining position. Japan is peculiarly our problem, I suppose; and for that subject the local commentator finds a readier ear than his more accomplished colleague overseas.
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New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 548, 23 December 1949, Page 11
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241Reason and Persuasion New Zealand Listener, Volume 22, Issue 548, 23 December 1949, Page 11
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