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dress in reply to the Speech from the Throne, drawn up by their Conservative predecessors, only adding to it the amendment expressing regret that there was no promise in the Speech of legislation to enable agricultural laborers to obtain allotments and small holdings. At that time the Address was a veritable echo of the Speech itself. The Sovereign was thanked, separately and specifically, for every expression of promise, hope or regret contained in the Speech from the Throne. One passage from the Address, which, in view of the introduction of the Home Rule Bill by Gladstone a few months later, is one of the curiosities of constitutional history, was as follows:

We humbly thank Your Majesty for informing us that Your Majesty has seen with deep sorrow the renewal, since Your Majesty last addressed us, of the attempt to excite the people of Ireland to hostility against the Legislative Union between that country and Great Britain; that Your Majesty is resolutely opposed to any disturbance of that fundamental law; and that in resisting it Your Majesty is convinced that Your Majesty will be heartily supported by Your Parliament and Your People.

Nevertheless, the Home Rule Bill was brought in by the Prime Minister in June. It was rejected by a majority of thirty.

King Edward VII. opened his first Parliament on February 14, 1901, the Unionists being in office and Lord Salisbury Prime Minister.

I address you for the first time [said the King in the Speech from the Throne] at a moment of National sorrow, when the whole country is mourning the irreparable loss which we have so recently sustained, and which has fallen with peculiar severity upon myself. My beloved Mother, during her long and glorious reign, has set an ex

ample before the world of what a monarch should be. It is my earnest desire to walk in her footsteps.

What is "The Address" to which the House of Commons gives its entire attention for the first week or a fortnight of a new Session? It is the form in which Parliament has for centuries expressed its dutiful and loyal respects to the Sovereign for the Speech from the Throne. It supports the constitutional fiction that the King's Speech is the Speech of the King; and affords both Lords and Commons the means of conveying to his Majesty their thanks ΟΙ dissatisfaction in regard either to the things it promises to do or the expectations it fails to satisfy.

On the day appointed for the opening of Parliament, at two o'clock, the Speech from the Throne is read as we know by the King to Peers and Commons in the House of Lords. The scramble of the Commons to the Upper Chamber to hear the Speech, which for years was an unseemly incident of the opening of Parliament, came to an end in 1902. So great was the crush on one of the early occasions when Queen Victoria opened Parliament that Joseph Hume, as he bitterly complained in the House of Commons, neither saw her Majesty nor heard her voice, although he was within touch of the Speaker. "I was crushed into a corner," he said. "my head being knocked against a post, and I might have been much injured if a stout Member had not come to my assistance." Dickens, who was present at the ceremony a few years later, said that the Speaker answered the summons of Black Rod like a schoolmaster with a mob of unmannerly boys at his heels. "He is propelled." the novelist wrote. "to the Bar of the House with the frantic fear of being knocked down and trampled upon by the rush of M. P.s." Since 1902, by an arrangement between the two Houses, the Stran

gers' Gallery of the House of Lords, previously occupied by peeresses, is set apart for the accommodation of Members of the House of Commons, and access to it is permitted before the King appears in the Chamber and despatches Black Rod to command the attendance of the Commons at the Bar. The ceremony of reading the Speech from the Throne is always brief. On its conclusion both Houses immediately suspend their sittings.

Then at four o'clock the Lords and the Commons again reassemble. The Speech is read in both Houses-in the Lords by the Lord Chancellor, in the Commons by the Speaker. But before this is done it is the practice of each House to carry the first reading of a Bill, a practice enjoined by Standing Orders in the Lords, and in the Com

mons

observed pursuant to ancient custom. The incident escapes the attention of most Lords and Commons, so quietly and quickly does it happen, and probably its significance is lost to some of those who may chance to notice it. Yet it is of high constitutional import, its simple and brief character notwithstanding. In the Lords, the Leader of the House moves the first reading of the "Select Vestries Bill"; in the Commons, the Bill introduced by the Leader of the House is "For the more effectual Preventing of Clandestine Outlawries." The Speaker in the one House, and the Lord Chancellor in the other, at once puts the question that the Bill be read the first time, and declares it carried. It seems a matter of form simply, but it is meant to assert the right of Parliament to act without reference to any outside authority. to debate matters other than "the causes of summons" set forth in the Speech from the Throne. Neither of these Bills-having thus fulfilled a high constitutional function is ever heard of again during the Session. The "Outlawries

Bill," which does service in the House of Commons, has been preserved in the drawers of the Table since the opening of the present Chamber in 1852. For one moment, at the opening of each Session, it is produced by the Clerk, and is seen no more for another twelve months.

The House of Commons is thronged with Members. Probably all of them crowded at the heels of the Speaker on his way to the House of Lords two hours earlier to hear "the King's Speech" delivered by the King. Yet the Speaker is bound to assume that no one went to "the other place" but himself. So he gravely anounces that "this House has been to the House of Peers to hear the gracious Speech from the Throne"; and having, as he says, "for greater accuracy" procured a copy of that Speech, he proceeds to read it with solemn emphasis and slowly to the House.

Each

It is one of the polite usages of Parliament that the Leaders of the Opposition in both Houses should receive an early copy of the Speech, so that they may have the opportunity of considering it before the time comes for criticising it in the Legislature. of them also reads it to his principal colleagues at the dinner at which it is customary for him to entertain them on the eve of the Session. For many years in the reign of Queen Victoria a forecast of the Speech appeared in the newspapers. The journalists pretended to be prophetically inspired, for though they were told by authority the contents of the Speech, it was well understood that they were to pretend there had been no direct divulging of its secrets to them. But King Edward VII. put an end to that long-established journalistic custom. His Majesty naturally insisted that the King's Speech should be regarded as private and confidential until it was read by the King from the Throne.

But immediately that it is read to both Houses, it is widely circulated through the Press, so that it appears in every evening paper in London and the provinces, and is thus despoiled of all its novelty long before the Lords and Commons. reassembling at four o'clock, hear it again, for the second time, in their respective Chambers.

But

Macaulay states in his History that the first speech of James II. to Parliament in 1685-notable for its extraordinary admonition to the Commons, that if they wished to meet frequently they must treat him generously in the matter of supplies-was greeted with loud cheers by the Tory Members assembled at the Bar of the House of Lords. "Such acclamations were then unusual," says the historian. "It has now been during many years the grave and decorous usage of Parliaments to hear in respectful silence all expressions, acceptable or unacceptable, which are uttered from the Throne." For two centuries and a quarter the reading of the King's Speech to the House of Commons had invariably been unbroken by any demonstration of approval or of disapprobation. at the opening of the last Session of the Balfour Parliament, in February 1905, there was a breach of the traditional decorum, which, as a departure in Parliamentary manners, is significant enough to be placed on record. The promise in the Speech of economy. "so far as the circumstances of the case admitted," was received with derisive laughter on the Opposition benches, while the mention of the "prospect" of a promised Redistribution Bill, by which Ireland was to lose twenty-two seats. provoked loud and angry cries of defiance from the Irish Members. The reading of the Speech from the Throne by the Speaker at the opening of the Liberal Parliament in 1906 was in like manner greeted with Ministerial cries of approbation.

In each House a motion for an Address to the King for his "most gracious Speech" is then submitted on behalf of the Government. The proposer and seconder of the Address in each House are in uniform or full dress, the only occasion, be it noted, when a lord or commoner is permitted to appear in Parliament otherwise than in civilian clothes. The uniforms of the Militia or Yeomanry are much affected, and, failing the commission to wear them, Court costume or levée dress is the rule. Another order. which prohibits members of either House from "carrying a lethal weapon," is also suspended for the occasion in favor of the sword of the soldier or courtier. There is, however, one instance of the Address having been seconded by a Member who wore no costume of ceremony, that of Mr. Charles Fenwick, the labor representative, who at the opening of the first Session of the Liberal Parliament of 1893-95 discharged that function in his ordinary everyday clothes.

In March 1894, the same Liberal Administration being in office-save that Lord Rosebery had succeeded Gladstone as Premier-an amendment to the Address moved by Mr. Labouchere, Member for Northampton, hostile to the House of Lords, was carried against the Government by the narrow majority of two, or by 147 votes to 145. It declared "that the power now enjoyed by persons not elected to Parliament by the possessors of the Parliamentary franchise to prevent Bills being submitted to your Majesty for your Royal approval shall cease." and expressed the hope that "if it be necessary your Majesty will, with and by the advice of your responsible Ministers. use the powers vested in your Majesty to secure the passing of this much-needed reform." The method suggested by Mr. Labouchere was the creation of 500 Peers who

would be willing to carry through the House of Lords a Bill for the abolition of that Chamber and themselves.

constitutional

Sir William Harcourt, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons, declined to treat the reverse as a vote of censure, or to add the amendment to the Address. "The Address in answer to the Speech from the Throne," said he, "is a proceeding for which her Majesty's Government make themselves responsible --responsible as the representative of the majority in the House of Commons from whom that Address proceeds. I think that is a clear principle which nobody will be disposed to dispute. The Government could not present to the Sovereign in a formal manner a document of which they are not prepared to accept the entire and immediate, responsibility." He concluded by inviting the House to negative the amended Address, and to adopt a new Address, simply assuring her Majesty "that the measures recommended to our consideration shall receive our most careful attention." This motion was seconded by Mr. John Morley.

The fact that neither of the Ministers wore Court dress or uniform provoked a characteristic joke on the part of Colonel Saunderson, Member for North Armagh. Rising to a point of order, he asked the Speaker whether it was not contrary to the immemorial practice of the House for the mover of the Address to appear without the uniform befitting his rank? If, he continued, the Speaker should answer that question in the affirmative, he would move the adjournment of the House for twenty minutes, so as to give the Chancellor of the Exchequer an opportunity of arraying himself in garments suitable to the occasion. The Speaker took no notice of the question, for, of course. it was not seriously intended. What Colonel Saunderson wanted

was a

laugh, and that he got in the fullest measure. The incident, unprecedented in Parliamentary history, ended with the unanimous adoption of the new Address.

It is a compliment to be invited to move or second the motion for the Address. Young Ministerialists of promise are generally selected for the distinction. As a rule, one represents an urban and the other a rural constituency; one is associated with agriculture, and the other with trade. The occasion, however, affords little scope for fine oratorical efforts, independence of thought, or originality of expression. The speeches are usually echoes of the document which the Lord Chancellor or the Speaker has just read, consisting of commendations of its pacific references to foreign affairs and its promises of needful demestic legislation. But the debate which follows is always of serious import, and is usually a good test of the debating quality of the House of Com

mons.

The Opposition give battle to the Ministerialists. The wrangle of party controversy at once begins. The policy of the Government is attacked along the whole line in a series of amendments to the Address.

The Address, as we have seen, used to be an elaborate document. It took up the Speech, paragraph by paragraph, expressing approval of its every declaration, and thanking the Sovereign in each instance for the great and wisdom of his condescension words. But in recent years it has assumed a more simple and rational form. From the Commons it is as follows:

That an humble Address be presented to His Majesty, as followeth:

Most Gracious Sovereign: We, Your Majesty's most dutiful and loyal subjects, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in Parliament assembled, beg leave to

thank Your Majesty for the most gracious speech which Your Majesty has addressed to both Houses of Parliament.

The Addresses from the Lords and Commons, in reply to the Speech, were at one time presented to the Sovereign at Buckingham Palace, nominally by "the whole House" in each case, but really by the Lord Chancellor for the Lords and by the Speaker for the Commons, each being attended by the proposer and seconder and a few of the Ministers in either House. All the members of each House, however, were supposed to have the privilege of "free access" to the Throne on these occasions; and, moreover, they might, if they so pleased, enter the presence of the Sovereign in ordinary attire, instead of in the regulation gold-braided coat and knee-breeches. The ceremony of presenting the Address by the whole House is now obsolete. The course which has been followed in recent years is that the Addresses are presented by two Ministers who are members of the Royal Household. These Ministers also bring back to both Houses the King's acknowledgment of the Addresses.

A message from the Crown, or, as it is styled officially, "a message under the Royal sign-manual," is presented to both Houses with some ceremony. In the Lords, the Lord Steward of the Household, wearing his official uniform, holding a white wand in one hand and a roll of parchment in the other, rises in his place at an opportune moment and announces that he has a message from the King. He then hands his roll of parchment to the The Monthly Review.

Lord Chancellor, who reads it to the House. In the Commons the incident is perhaps a little more picturesque. It comes off in the usually idle quarter of an hour that intervenes between prayers and the asking of questions at the opening of each sitting. The Comptroller of the Household appears at the Bar unannounced. Unlike the incursions of "Black Rod," from the House of Lords, who is always heralded by the loud cry of the doorkeeper, and enters the Chamber amid wild alarms, the Royal Messenger who brings the King's acknowledgment of the Address has free entry to the House. He comes in without fuss or noise, and his duty discharged, is allowed to depart silently and in peace. Standing, at the Bar, in his dark uniform relieved by a liberal display of gold braid and gilt buttons, and carrying his long white wand, he announces to the House-the Speaker standing and the Members uncovering while the Message from the King is being delivered that he brings his Majesty's most grateful thanks for the Address from his faithful Commons. Then advancing to the Table, he hands the document to the Clerk and it is passed on to the Speaker, by whom it is read to the House. The Comptroller of the Royal Household retires stepping backwards, bowing to the Chair, until the Bar is reached, when, turning round. he disappears through the swing-doors. But this happens a week or more after the Address has been adopted and the work of Parliament has begun in real earnest.

Michael MacDonagh,

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