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.