ORDER OF PRECEDENCE

New Zealand Times, Volume LXXVII, Issue 5474, 31 December 1904, Page 13

ORDER OF PRECEDENCE

An article in “Chambers's Journal" for September on 'Who Goes First," shows that the order of precedence is based, to a large extent, on ancient usage, and takes little notice of constitutional changes which have risen in the last 300 years. The members of the Royal Family, down to the nephews of the reigning sovereign, hold the first six places, after! them, the Archbishop of Canterbury has the highest precedence. He is immediately followed by the lord High Chancellor of Great Britain (eighth) and the Archbishop of York (ninth). The Prime Minister, to whom these dignitaries owe their positions, has no place whatever on the scale, nor has the First Lord of the idmirality. the President of the Board of Trade, the President of the Local Government Board, the Postmaster-General, the Under-Secretaries of State, the members of the House of Commons, the viceroy of India, or the Governor-General of Canada. When James I. ascended the English throne in 1603, the only foreign possession hold by England was Newfoundland, and that only in name, India and Canada were not won until the middle of the eighteenth century, when the foundation of the empire on a solid basis was really laid. The Speaker of the House of Commons ranks next to a baron—that is, he is thirtieth on tho soalo; fch© Secretaries of State, who originally owed their appointmeats directly to the Crown, come thirtysixth. There waa no need for a president of the Board of Trade in the reign of Henry VIII., still less for a PostmasterGeneral. In those days the real executive power resided in the Privy Council; hence the high positions on the scale of the Lord President of the Privy Council (eleventh) and of the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal (twelfth). The Lord High Chancellor owes his exalted position on the scale not to his being head of the judicature, but to the fact that in the sixteenth century he represented in his person the joint offices of Justiciar and Chancellor of the Middle Ages—that is, he was Prime Minister de facto The Lord High Treasurer was then'also a great officer; hence his coming tenth. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, who is now directly responsible for the handling of the national purso, comes as low down as forty second on the scale. , , The Lord High Constable of England (fourteenth), the Earl Marshall (fifteenth). and the Lord High Admiral (sixteenth) were also great officials xu Tudor times; while the commander-in-chief, field-marshals, and admirals of the fleet of our day have no places on such a scale. As a matter of fact, a standing army was not constitutionally established until the reign of William 111. and Mary.