A SPECTATOR 'S NOTEBOOK I T is sometimes wise and sometimes
unwise to reprint the speeches of public men. They date inevitably, for they are and must be directed to the problems of the moment. The greater the orator, moreover, the more likely is the written version to fall short of the spoken word. That, no doubt, works inversely. The publication (this Viieek) of a collection of speeches by Mr. Attlee* is bound to challenge comparison with similar collections by Mr. Churchill. But the disadvantage is not what it may seem. Mr. Churchill loses by transfer to print ; his successor may well gain by it. Indeed, the first of the addresses now reprinted—Mr. Attlee's first election broadcast in June, 1945—was, as originally delivered, incontestably superior to the Churchillian blast to which it formed an answer. The Prime Minister is not, and is hardly likely to become, one of the great orators of his generation, but he rarely makes a speech, political or otherwise, that does not contain sound sense. Those who read him will Think at leas. as well of him as those who hear him.
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