TITLE OF PRIME MINISTER.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19965, 6 December 1926, Page 7

TITLE OF PRIME MINISTER.

UNKNOWN IN ENGLISH LAW. A recent trial 'at Old Bailey in - London of a person ’charged with “casting a certain destructive substance at the Prime Minister and other persons with intent to do grievous bodily harm,” has caused an inquiry in British law circles as to the legal authority for the designation “Prime Minister.” . The question was raised by Justice Rowlatt, presiding at the trial, when he asked, ‘Ts the Prime Minister a designation known to the law?” The justice wanted to know if the indictment against the prisoner, one Hugh Daly, sufficiently described the person as- the subject of attempted assault. The prosecuting attorney then assured the court that “Prime v Minister” was a sufficient designation, and that it_jyas not necessary to . mention a specific . rson. An inquiry into the subject has disclosed that Mr Gladstone, writing in 1878, eaid that nothing ■ could be more curiously illustrative of the political genius of the people than the position of the Prime Minister. Departmentally, he is no more tnan the first named of five persons, by whom jointly the powers of the Lord Treasurership are exercised; he is not their master, or, otherwise than by mere priority, their head, and he has no special function or prerogative under the formal constitution ot the office. He has no official rank except that of Privy Councillor. Eight members ’ of the Cabinet, including five secretaries of i State and several other members of the I Government, take official precedence of I him. His rights and duties as head of the Administration are nowhere recorded. The term “Prime Minister” is first found in the writings of Swift, who used the term I in his preface to the “History of the Last ! Four Years of Queen Anne,” with a rej cognition of its novelty—“those who are I now called Prime Ministers.’ Walpole was most unwilling to bo called " Prime - *Minister, but in 1741 a number of peers drew up a protest aganst Walpole’s Government on the ground that “a sole or even a first Minister is an officer unknown to the lav.' of Great Britain.”