PRECEDENCE AND THE PREMIER.

Mataura Ensign, Issue 1599, 3 February 1906, Page 1

PRECEDENCE AND THE PREMIER.

With characteristic promptitude (writes Mr I-ucy) the King took instant advantage of the ap| trance on the scene of u new Firm Lord of the Treasury to remove an anomaly that lion lid to inconvenient, occasionally grotesque, Mtuations. Hitherto the ( * lr *t Minister of the Oown hai had no place in the auguKt, nicely-ordered table of precedence, in some' |»oople's eyes second only in importance to the tablets of the law Moses brought down from the mountain. I remember dining with Mr Gladstone when he livod in St. Jamil' square, observing u curious scene at the door. On Iwinj; the tabic he walkid away still chatting to a junior member of hi* Ministry, whose father, a great law lord, he had himself rained to the peerage. Airivod at the doorway, the young peer stood aside to let the veteran statesman lead the way. Mr Gladstone, with a wave of hi* hand insisted on hi« guest going first. He wus a baron of Kngland, and the host was a commoner. Trulv, he wan a Secretary of State, and, had he also " H ' n »' bwonial rank, fae might, iny,vl' must, have taken preoedenoe. As it was, the blushing baron led the way. It was odd to see a stateaman who had the Church um 'l broken the (wiwer of the eult of landlords thus humbly observant of what Burns scornfully calls "the guinea stamp." The tendency, doubtless born with Conservative blood, was ineradicable, finding its extreme m his personal relations with Queen Victoria. In Morley's life there is published u letter from Mr Gladstone, then Prime Minister, almost abjectly explaining to her Majesty the circumstances beyond faia control by which, out on a holiday cruise, he had landed on u foreign shore without first era vine permission from his Sovereign, l'he Kinir had made smooth the pathway of the Premier entering or leaving a room by decreeing that of all men in Kmjiire not being King, Prince of Wales, younger son, trrandson, uncle, and nephew, the Premier shall, with one exception, take precedence. The exception is significant, pir Henry Campbell-Bannerman may, if opportunity presents itself, and with the concurrence of the Sovereign, create un Archbishop of York. But if the (wo meet ut dinner the Archbishop nuist take the hostess in and lead the way out when the meal is concluded. That certainly seems putting the Church ahead of the State.