PARLIAMENT DOWN THE AGES

Greymouth Evening Star, 12 November 1932, Page 8

PARLIAMENT DOWN THE AGES

PRIME MINISTER’S BROADCAST.

LONDON, September 27.

“I want to increase the prestige of Parliament,” declared the Prime Minister last night in a National broadcast.

“That is in itself,” he went on, “a thing to be cared for at a time when Parliaments are being broken in other countries, and when, between the wind of the demagogue and the vanity of the dictator, it is being questioned in our own.”

Mr MacDonald was discussing an interim report which is published today of a committee that has been acquiring information for more than three years past (under the chairmanship of Col. Josiah Wedgwood, M.P.) on the personnel and politics of members of the House of Commons between the years l 1264 and 1832.

Mr MacDonald said that the report enabled them to see the House at Westminster as an organic and un-, broken whole throughout all the centuries. And what a pageant it would be when all the volumes were completed! It would be found that every family of note which dug its roots into British soil and flourished found a place in our Parliamentary records. There v(ere 200 Parliament's to which the Commons were summoned before the death of Elizabeth and 55 down to 1832, each with anything from 264 to 658 members, and the committee emphasised the need for the identification of each member — where he came from, what he was, and what he did. There would be over thirty thousand biographies to write, and the sources of search were mostly in manuscript. Some of these stories would read as romances.

Among the interesting facts that had come to light through the committee’s researches Mr MacDonald mentioned' that The murderers of the Princes in the Tower sat beside the designer of Henry Vll.’s chapel. The first English surgeon, John Somerseth, found his place. The pirate, Bob Wennington, sat for Dartmouth, the Cecils for Stamford, and both Cromwells, Thomas

and Oliver, spoke from the benches,. The pious bookseller who founded Guy’s Hospital was a Whig member. Ev;ery WentWjorth, Wingfield, Harcourt, Hampden, Talbot, and Trevelyan had his borough or county seat, and When the Scots came in, Campbell, Hamilton, and Stewart fought it out on the floor of the House. THE FIRST BY-ELECTION. Questions to be elucidated by this work were the following: — When was the first by-election called for? When did Mr Speaker for the first time issue his warrant to the Clerk of the Crown to make out a new writ? When first did the King’s Ministers think it desirable to be elected to the Lower House, and why? When were outsiders first elected? What was the significance in Parliamentary representation of the borough of Ludlow’s charter of incorporation in 1462, by which it gained the right to send a non-resi-dent to represent it in Parliament? Why did people desire or otherwise to be elected? Why did they desire to be represented? Further they proposed to investigate such subjects as the invasion of the House of Commons by lawyers, by adventurers, by social interest after social interest, the payment of salaries to members, and many other matters.

Mr MacDonald’s plea for financial help in the compilation of the record was due to the fact that no provision has been made to meet the cost of preparing the record by the Exchequer.

The Committee, in its report, states that the cost of preparation will be about £30,000, and the work could be done within five to ten years. It suggests that, in the absence of any grant from the Exchequer, an authoritative appeal, backed by the Government, would ensure a successful response. The estimate of £30,000 does not include the cost of publication, which, it is felt, would be borne by a pubiishing house.