date

1818 Nov. 7 Parl. Reform Bill
1818 Nov. 7

Parl. Reform Bill

Reasons

§.11 Vacancies supplied

4

Question 5. Why exclude Members from the capacity of exercising this function?

Answer

1. {Because} By the all-pervading supposition The whole time and labour of each Member is in constant demand partly for the public business partly for the particular business which may incidentally and at any time be furnished for the district for which he serves. If to the application of this rule the case of the Speaker is regarded as a necessary exception, it is by usage alone that the idea of the necessity has been produced, and the usage goes not beyond the case of the principal.

2. If a Member were capable of being appointed, this or that particular interest not conformable to the general interest might incidentally be served by the appointment. Suppose for example a Member unwilling to take the part which he is expected to take either in relation to the general or in relation to the local business: if he can agree with the Speaker, he obtains of the Speaker to appoint him Vice-Speaker for the time.

In the practice of filling the Chair by a person not entitled to a vote there is nothing that has not its precedent in Parliament. In the House of Lords where the Keeper of the Seals has not been a Peer, instead of Lord Chancellor he has been stiled Lord Keeper, and in this case though he has not a vote, he has not the less operated in the character of Speaker of the House.

Even in the House of Commons At the meeting of Parliament, antecedently and preparatorily to the choice of a Speaker, the chair is taken by the Chief Clerk.
Similar Items
  • Title: [1818 Nov 7. Parl Reform Bill]
    Description: 1818 Nov 7.

    Parl Reform Bill

    Reasons

    §.11 Vacancies supplied

    5

    Question | | Why provide that if there be neither Speaker nor Vice Speaker, the Chair shall be taken by the Chief Clerk?

    Answer

    1. To make the more sure of preventing interruption. It may happen that by the Speaker no such appointment as that in question has been made. In that case, if the sickness or other impediment be to a certain degree sudden no appointment can have been made.

    Question | | Why not provide that without appointment of any other person the Chief Clerk shall take the Chair of course

    Answer

    1. What is certain is that in this way the chair would in the incidental case in question be filled by an individual of whose competence /aptitude/, so far at any rate as depends upon experience there would be more ample and obvious security than could be visible any where else. But

    2. Unless his office be a sinecure, this Chief Clerk he has his business for which there is a constant demand, and in respect of which it can not be such, that, at the time in question it could well be spared.

    2. The function of Speaker being a sort of Magisterial[?] function, and that of Clerk a Ministerial one, the established association might have the effect of preventing the Clerk from receiving in full that attention which the business allocated[?] to the situation require should be paid to the picture[?] of him as he fills it, and which according is paid to the individual by whom the official title is possessed.
  • Title: [1818 May 20 + § 4 Parl Reform Bill]
    Description: 1818 May 20 + § 4

    Parl Reform Bill

    {Text}? Reasons Not

    Election Offices

    1

    Why Keeper to appoint. Speaker to govern and remove.

    ☞ Note that the Postmaster General receives as well as transmitts Letters

    Question – Why thus propose to establish a new National Election Office?

    (a) There exists not at present attached to the House of Commons any such Office as the Election Office /any Office thus denominated /bearing that name//. The Office bearer by whom /under whose law[?]/ the Writs in which House of Commons Elections originate are issued out {and received back}, is styled Messenger of the Great Seal, and as such is appointed by the Lord Chancellor, on whom in quality of Keeper of that mysterious instrument depends on all occasions the use made of it What is evident is – that now that the meeting of the Parliament once at the least in every year is secured by established relations more surely operative /efficient/ than any laws can be, the House of Commons is the only proper site for an office with this duty belonging to it. In the days when that business was committed to the charge /lodged in the hands/ of the Keeper of the King’s Great Seal, what was practically /sufficiently/ certain /notable/ was that there would always be a Keeper of the Great Seal, what was never certain was – that there would be any other Parliament: so long as the King was not a spendthrift, he /but/ could prevail upon himself to content himself with his vast estate, consisting of /covering/ little less than the whole landed property of the kingdom, no: whenever he was a spendthrift, yes. But till the Revolution, except when he was a rapacious Miser, the King was /Monarch was almost/ always a spendthrift: and in this quality alone the continuance of Parliament has had its cause.
  • Title: [[129b-492] 15 April 1817 Plan]
    Description: [129b-492]

    15 April 1817

    Plan Cat

    Note (a)?

    Introd

    §. Attendance

    3

    The leaders – does it happen to them to have an interest – a special /an incidental/ interest in delay? When an event of the sort in question /let it/ takes place, here is a reason: a reason for delay in a state of things in which perhaps neither reason nor so much as a tolerably plausible pretence could have been given. Now[?] they have /for them[?] should have/ the usage of the House and that usage inviolable. On the other hand /But/ suppose that when an incident /a misfortune/ of the kind in question happens /takes place/, promptitude not delay is the object of their wishes. The power is in their hands – sooner than fail, no dust[?] no fictions to which they would not have recourse. At the opening of a Parliament Before a Speaker has been chosen for the purpose of meeting to make a House for choosing and a Clerk of the House officiating in the Speakers place. In the case here supposed this Clerk, who before the official[?] experience of the Speaker has commenced, must be singularly incapable if he did not make a better /fitter/ Speaker than the Speaker himself, this Clerk – or rather than fail, the picture of the Speaker or a picture of the Clerk would be set up for the purpose.