CHAPTER XXXV

MAY

IT is probable that when, next year, the King opens Parliament in person, the scene will be moved to Westminster Hall.

Members of the The King and

House of Commons Parliament. who took part in the football scrimmage on Valentine's Day this year are not likely to invite further experience of the same kind. When the proposal of Westminster Hall as an alternative stage for the ceremony was suggested, Mr. Balfour, the charges of the war pressing hard upon him, demurred on the ground of cost. Gentlemen of the House of Commons who vote public money will not grudge anything reasonable if it deliver them from the mingled indignity and damage attendant upon their share in the pageant of the new King opening his first Parliament in an infant century.

His Majesty, who, like his Imperial nephew, has a keen

eye for scenic effect, instantly approved the suggestion about Westminster Hall. It is certainly worth a modest expenditure to secure such effect as is here possible. Our forefathers, to the remotest verge of recorded history, used the stately building as the scene of historic gatherings. It is true they largely took the form of trials, ending in sentence of death. But that was part of the manners of the day. The Hall seems as if it had been specially built with a view to such a ceremony as the opening of Parliament. At the far end the floor is raised by several steps, forming a unique stage on which the King and Queen, being seated, command full view of the multitude in the body of the Hall, themselves conveniently seen from every corner of its vast area. The stage will be approached by the broad corridor and stairway leading from the Royal robing-rooms in the House of Lords.1

The Mace.

This is

In some of the pictures published in the illustrated papers descriptive of the scene in the House of Lords when the King opened Parliament in person, the Serjeant-at-Arms is shown standing at the Bar near the Speaker with the Mace on his shoulder. an error, which recalls an ancient and interesting piece of etiquette. The Mace was not on view in the House of Lords on 14th February, for the sufficient reason that it was not carried within the portals. It is true the Deputy Serjeant-at-Arms escorting the Speaker (Mr. Erskine, in another honorary capacity, was in personal attendance on the King) bore it on his shoulder in advance of the surging mass of Commoners struggling to obey the command of the King to hear the Royal Speech read. Arrived at the door of the House of Lords the Mace was there deposited, and there remained till the returning procession re-formed.

This procedure is in accordance with the regulation that the Mace is never carried into the presence of the Sovereign. At the Diamond Jubilee, when the Speaker and the House

1 The project after consideration by a joint Committee was abandoned on the score of expense,

of Commons proceeded to Buckingham Palace to offer their congratulations to Her Majesty the late Queen, the Mace accompanied the Speaker in his carriage. But it was left

there when the right hon. gentleman entered the Palace to make obeisance to Her Majesty.

The Letter to

Talking about the letter to the late Queen nightly written from the House of Commons by the Leader, I quoted its formula of address as follows: Mr. Balfour the Queen. presents his humble duty to the Queen and informs Her Majesty A correspondent writes from Sussex: "In reading the lives of Prime Ministers I have often been struck with the singular departure from customary forms shown in the Ministers writing in the third person and putting the Sovereign in the second. For instance, Lord Palmerston, 11th June 1859: 'Viscount Palmerston presents his humble duty to your Majesty and has the honour of assuring your Majesty,' etc. Again, Lord Russell, 9th June 1866: 'Lord Russell presents his humble duty to your Majesty. He is,' etc. To take an earlier date, Earl Grey, 8th February 1831: Earl Grey with his humble duty to your Majesty has in the first place again to entreat your Majesty,' etc. I have taken these instances quite at random from the first books I have put my hands on, but there are scores of others down to the end of Lord Russell's correspondence. It would be interesting to know if this rather odd formula had at last been altered."

The formula I cited as pertaining to Mr. Arthur Balfour's letter to the Queen was communicated to me as having been the usage of Mr. Gladstone, and I assumed it was common to all such letter-writers. It will be noted in the interesting compilation of my correspondent that the quaint phrase, "presents his humble duty," is used with whatever variety of the personal pronoun.

The opening of the first Session of the premier Parliament of a new century was fraught with much mental tribulation to Mr. Caldwell. To begin with, there Under which was the title of the King. Edward VII. he King? called himself, amid the acclaim of the people who had feared the apparition

of Albert I. But Scotland, to-day an integral part of Great Britain,

knew no preceding KING EDWARD VII

King Edward, much less six. Whatever His Majesty might be south of the Tweed, he was Edward I. in Scotland. Mr. Caldwell

had compunctions about taking the Oath of Allegiance. He yielded with mental reservation he is prepared to set forth in detail at any time the House of Commons may have a couple of hours to spare.

ед

Another scarcely less serious difficulty almost simultaneously presented itself. Were Scotch and Irish members secure in their seats in the Parliament elected last October; or must they, within the limit of six months, again go to

their constituents?

On this point the law seemed lament-
The Reform Act which Dizzy

A nice Point ably clear. of Law. carried through the House of Commons in 1867 provided that thereafter the dissolution of Parliament should not be made peremptory by the demise of the Crown. In the days of the Stuarts the death of the King (unless his head were cut off, when it did not matter) automatically dissolved Parliament. The inconvenience of this doublydisturbing event being recognised, an Act was passed in the reign of William III. declaring that an interval of six months should follow between the death of the Sovereign and the dissolution of Parliament. A clause of the Act specifically enjoined that it should not extend to Scotland or Ireland.

Mr. Caldwell, concentrating his powerful mind on the Act of 1867, was driven to the conclusion that the Act of William III. remains operative in cases of Scotland and Ireland, and that before July next Scotch and Irish members must seek re-election.

The ingenuity of the Law Officers of the Crown, one himself a Scotch member, avoided catastrophe. Concurrently with the Reform Act of 1867 separate Bills were passed regulating the Scotch and Irish Franchise. The draughtsman of the main measure, having this exclusively in mind, added the clause limiting the Reform Act to England and Wales. The combined wisdom of the two Houses of Parliament-Mr. Caldwell had not at the time a seat in the House of Commons-overlooking this blunder, it was embodied in a Statute. The Law Officers ruled it was no bar to the existence of the full House elected in October 1900. But Mr. Caldwell is not wholly content.

What might have

Parliament had escape from another dilemma more real and less widely observed. Whilst the law controlling the existence of Parliament sitting at the time of the demise of the Crown is more or less clearly dealt with by Statute, no provision is made to meet the quite possible case of the Sovereign dying during the process of a General Election. It is no secret that the state of the Queen's health in the autumn of last year gave

happened.