HOW THE KING GETS PARLIAMENT NEWS

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXIX, Issue 12071, 15 September 1902, Page 6

HOW THE KING GETS PARLIAMENT NEWS

«_ • SURVIVAL OF OLD CUSTOM. At eleven o'clock on night when the Housfl cf Commons is silting Mr. Balfour, if ho be not already in the chamber, saunters in, takes a quarto sheet of notepaper with the I official crest of the House from the table, and a blotting-pad, seats himself on the Treasury bench, produces from his waistcoat pocket a fountain- attached to his gold tandem watch chain, and devotes the hour or bo that remains before the adjournment of the House to the writing of a letter. Though few are aware of it this letter is an account of the night's proceedings in the House, which the leader of the House sends to the King. It. will be asked win - should the leader of the House of Commons write for the King a nightly report of the doings of the House'.' Is it not, in view of the reports published in the morning newspapers, a sheer work of supererogation'' The King, no doubt, i reads the Times. In that journal His Ma- j jesty often rinds as many as ten or twelve j columns tilled with the proceedings of the j House of Commons the niglit. before. Surely j such a report ought to satisfy even the most ; voracious appetite for intelligence of the sayings and doings of the representative ; chamber. In truth, the writing of that I nightly report by the leader of the House ,' for the Sovereign is one of many illust.ra- I tions of the tenacity with which Parliament I clings to forms and ceremonies which have ; come down from the far oil past, no matter I how remote they may have been made from I the realities of the present day by the revo- j lutions accomplished by time. I DUE TO OEOEGE 111. We have to go back to the earh years of i the reign of George 111. for the origin of the sending of this nightly report of the { proceedings of the Housv. of Commons to the j Sovereign. At that time it was useless to i go to the newspapers for information about I Parliament. An editor ran the risk of twiner j heavily lined or imprisoned if he attempted to give the people through his columns the j slightest information: as to what their reprei sentatives were doing or saying in the ; House of Commons. At the smuc time, al- ; though according to the theory of the con- ; stitution the Sovereign presides over the de- ! liberations of Parliament, the actual prei seuce of the Sovereign in the House of | Lords, save on ceremonial occasions, such { a- the opening of the session, or in the ! House of Commons at any time, would be ! regarded as unconstitutional. Qu<jp2ii Viei toria, for instance, was never in the House j I of Commoni during the whole course of her j j long reign of sixty-three years. ■ But l George 111. determined that-he should ] | be kept informed in some fashion of the I proceedings of the House of Commons. He I therefore commanded Lord North, the Prime ! Minister of the time and the leader of the i House of Commons, to send him a report I nightly, and North, being a subservient ! courtier, complied, despite the regulation | which Parliament enacted years before, in | the times of the Stuart kings, that in order i to guard against the arbitrary interference I of the Crown in its proceedings the Sovei reign should neither hear its debates nor : give credit to reports of them. Since that I time the custom has been continued. REPORTS ROUND IN" VOLUMES. In the library at Buckingham Palace are all the reports, hound in volumes, which Queen Victoria received from the leaders of the House of Commons during her reign. The writers of these reports were great Parliamentarians and statesmen—Lord John Russell, Sir Robert Peel, Lord Palmerston, Disraeli, Sir Stafford Northcote, Gladstone, Lord Randolph Churchill, W. H. Smith, Sir William Harcourt, ana A. J. Balfourand they contain, no doubt, graphic descriptions of many memorable scenes in the house from the pens' of the leading actors in those scenes. In 1879 the sending of these reports to the Sovereign was brought under the notice of the. House by Mr. Leonard Courtney, who contended that, being a violation of the old law of Parliament, they were unconstitutional. But Mr. Gladstone, who was then, leader of the Opposition, ridiculed the con- I tension. He truly said that the, House might | >' fairly object to the details of its proceedings j 1 being conveyed to the Sovereign at a period '• when the people were debarred from receiv- < ing any information about the doings of Par- i liament, but it was nonsensical and ridicu- 1 ious to say it was an offence to communicate | « the proceedings of the House to the Sove- j ' reign at a time when they were published broadcast by every newspaper in the king- ' dom. ' Mr. Gladstone used to write his reports on the Treasury Bench toward the close of the sitting. He would provide himself with a : quarto sheet, of notepaper and blotting-pad, seise the nearest quill pen to hand on the '. table, and, writing on his knee, dash off the report, with characteristic eagerness and celerity. Scratch, scratch, scratch! went i his pen unceasingly—unless interrupted to i receive a. report from his chief whip or to exchange a few words with a colleague in ] the Ministryuntil the four sides of the sheet of notepaper were covered. Mr. Balfour exercised mere deliberation in the discharge of his duty as the King's Parliamentary reporter. Beginning in the usual form, "Mr. Balfour presents his humble duty to His Majesty, and begs to inform His Majesty that at the sitting of the House ' of Commons to-day.*' his gold fountain pen 1 travels slowly and daintily across the page, pausing at the end of each sentence, when '. the passage is carefully read, the i's dotted ! ' and the t's crossed. j ' On the rising of the House the report is despatched by special messenger to Buck- j , ingliam Palace or Windsor or Sandringhara j | or wherever the. Court /nay be at the time. ! , The King therefore receives it with the j morning papers.'and so His Majesty has the unique privilege of having a special Parlia- ( mentary sketch written solely for his own . perusal by the practised pen of the leader j of the House of Commons. f