I spoke last week of the General Election, more particularly with regard to its influence on the speakers who take part in it. A treatise on this aspect of the matter has yet to be written. One of the main points to be determined will be the amount of influence exercised by the speech, not on its hearers, but on the speaker himself.
Nothing is more remarkable than the rapidity and definiteness with which a speaker's opinions crystallise during the course of a speech. Let us assume, for example, that a Radical candidate has been approached on the subject of an Eight Hours Bill, and, in order to gain time, has promised to deal with it in his next speech, at the same time giving an assurance of general sympathy. Probably he has not thought much about the question before. In the evening he will speak upon it; and suddenly, to his own intense surprise, he will find himself declaring that all legislation will be vain, all social effort fruitless, until the load of toil that presses on the mass of his fellow-countrymen is lightened, and a universal Eight Hours Bill is carried through both Houses.
Or again, a Conservative is confronted with the question of old-age pensions. Precisely the same process takes place, and under the necessity of convincing himself, while endeavouring to convince and to please his audience, he will vow never to cease his efforts in support of Mr. Chamberlain until a general system of State pensions for the aged is established throughout the United Kingdom.
Sir William cultivates the "Celtic Fringe."
So it is with votes of thanks and laudatory speeches of all kinds. If you have to move a vote of thanks to A., a politician whom you do not specially admire, the odds are about ten to one that you will describe him as a great statesman, a profound thinker, an eloquent orator, and the man of the future. All this may be due to your having embarked on a rhetorical period which required more words than you had prepared yourself to supply; and in the agitation of filling up the gap, and rounding off the period, you say what you had not the remotest intention of saying when you got on to your legs. Hence come in after years parallel columns, and aggravating charges of inconsistency.