claim by ancient custom the privilege by the Lord Chancellor in the Queen's of seating themselves on the Treasury Bench on the day of election of Speaker. Two of them were seated there on this occasion-Mr. Crawford and Alderman Lawrence. Mr. Göschen had ceased to be member by acceptance of office, and Baron Rothschild was absent from illness. It used to be the custom for the four members for the City to appear on this day in scarlet robes of Aldermen ; and this custom probably continued till the Reform Act. Mr. Rutt, the editor of Burton's "Diary," mentions it as in existence in 1828.1 Deviating from custom, and yet not straying far from the subject, Mr. Bright introduced before the Speaker's election a suggestion which, sooner or later, will probably be acted upon, that members should be permitted, if they choose, to attend the Speaker's dinners and levees in plain clothes. It was a nervous shyness, and not affectation or presumption,-qualities entirely foreign to his nature-which prevented Mr. Cobden, to the day of his death, from putting on a court-dress to pay his respects to the Queen or to the Speaker. No strict etiquette of dress stood in the way of audience for him from the French Emperor. Whatever may be said for retaining full dress in the palace of the Sovereign, the Speaker for the members of the House of Commons is but primus inter pares. When the members go in a body to present an address to the Queen, they have the right to go in plain clothes; why should they not be permitted so to present themselves before the Speaker? THE QUEEN'S SPEECH AND THE ADDRESS. For five days after the re-election of Mr. Denison as Speaker, there was nothing but swearing-in of members, till, on the 6th of February, came the Queen's Speech, read on this occasion 1 "Diary of Cromwellian Parliaments," vol. iii. p. 4. On the election of Speaker at the meeting of Richard Cromwell's Parliament, January, 1659, the diarist notes," Mr. Speaker being thus placed, four Aldermen of the city of London came together into the House in scarlet gowns and took their places." At presence. On the previous evening four great political banquets had been given, according to custom: by Lord Rusself and Mr. Gladstone, the leaders for the Government, and by Lord Derby and Mr. Disraeli, the leaders of the Opposition, in the two Houses. At the dinners given by the leaders for the Government the guests appear in full dress; but in the cold shade of Opposition plain clothes are the custom. all the four banquets the Queen's Speech, to be delivered on the following day, is read to the assembled guests; for it is an established courtesy of political warfare for the Government to communicate the Speech on the previous evening to the leaders of the Opposition. The movers and seconders of the Address to be proposed in the two Houses the next day, in answer to the Queen's Speech, are among the guests of the Government banquets; and next day these movers and seconders appear in the two Houses in full dress to perform the parts assigned to them, risoned. they alone so capa To The selection of the mover and seconder of the Address in either House rests with the Government leader, and is always a little affair of state-craft. Generally peers of promise or importance who have nearly succeeded to their titles, and hopeful new members of the House of Commons, are selected. undertake the task of moving or seconding the Address is understood to indicate decided approval of the Government. In the House of Lords, the mover is always of higher rank than the seconder; in the House of Commons the mover is generally a county member, and the seconder a borough representative. Thus, on this occasion, the mover in the House of Lords was the Marquis of Normanby, who, on succeeding to his title, proclaims his continued adherence to the political party which his highly-favoured father had latterly abandoned; and the seconder was the Earl of Morley, a young nobleman fresh from college, and entering public life under circumstances of much hope and promise. In the Commons, the mover of the Address was Lord Frederick Cavendish, member for the North-West Riding of Yorkshire, and one of four sons of the Duke of.Devonshire, who all represent counties in this Parliament; and the seconder was Mr. Graham, the new member for the city of Glasgow, returned at the head of the poll. Ireland had been attended to in Mr. Gladstone's selection of the proposer of the Speaker, and the seconder had come from Chester near the confines of Wales; and the mover and seconder of the Address have represented England and Scotland. Though it is usual to select new or young members to move and second the Addresses, there have been, under particular circumstances, deviations from the custom. When Sir Robert Peel met Parliament in 1846, having determined to repeal the Corn Laws, and expecting the anger of a large portion of his party, he selected two old and experienced, as well as most influential, members, Lord Francis Egerton (afterwards Earl of Ellesmere), and Mr. Edmund Beckett Denison. For the House of Lords the Duke of Wellington had, on that occasion, very great difficulty in finding a seconder; and only two days before the meeting of Parliament he wrote to Sir Robert Peel a characteristic letter, declaring his determination, if at the last moment he had no one, to second the motion himself, and state the reason.1 NEW WRITS-CABINET AND MINISTERIAL CHANGES. Fourteen days after the 6th of February arrived a critical day in the House of Commons. The House allows four 1 "Sir R. Peel's Memoirs," vol. ii. p. 268:"LONDON, January 20, 1846. "MY DEAR PEEL,-I enclose a letter received from Lord since my return to London this morning. I will endeavour to find a noble lord who will second the motion for the Address to the Queen, which will be difficult at this last moment. However, if I should not succeed, I will second the motion of Lord Home myself, and state the reason. "Ever yours, most sincerely, teen days from the first day of business for the presentation of election-petitions. No writ can be issued for a new election for a vacancy caused, since the general election, by death or acceptance of office or elevation to the peerage, until the time for presenting election-petitions has passed. On the 21st many members' minds had been made easy, and a batch of new writs issued: among them one for filling the vacant place of Lord Palmerston, and one for Leominster occasioned by the double return for that borough and for Oxford University of Mr. Gathorne Hardy, the only member who, at the late general election, was returned by two constituencies. A petition presented in one of the last days against the return of Mr. Chichester Fortescue for the county of Louth, and claiming his seat for another candi date, prevented the issue of a new writ for the vacancy caused by his appointment to be Secretary for Ireland. Many circumstances excited the suspicion that this petition was meant to cause embarrassment to the Government by keeping Mr. Chichester Fortescue out of the House; and this was confirmed by its subsequent withdrawal and Mr. Fortescue's easy re-election. A new writ was moved for North Lancashire in the room of Lord Hartington, who had been appointed Secretary of State for War, on the transfer of Earl De Grey to the India Office as successor to Sir Charles Wood. The Duke of Argyle had been long regarded as Sir Charles Wood's probable successor as Secretary of State for India, but it was important not to diminish the number of heads of great departments in the House of Commons. Lord Hartington, a member of the Lower House, could not have succeeded to the Duke of Argyle's office of Lord Privy Seal, which must be held by a peer; nor would such an arrangement, which might have been made possible by making a peer of Lord Hartington, have answered the purpose of preserving the existing proportion of Secretaries of State in the House of Commons. Earl De Grey, who is not yet forty and has and Lord Hartington, the heir of the Duke of Devonshire, who has now become a Cabinet Minister and Secretary of State at an age little above thirty, are examples of the rapid political advancement which high rank procures for abilities not more than respectable. The Duke of Argyle, one of the most favourable specimens possible of aristocracy, became at once, without any official apprenticeship, a Cabinet Minister at thirty, when Lord Aberdeen formed the coalition administration of 1853. It has latterly been given to a young City merchant to emerge in like manner at once a complete Cabinet Minister, like Minerva full-grown from the head of Jupiter; but accident, and perhaps some caprice, have procured for Mr. Göschen's merits the sudden recognition which ducal ability would obtain without occasioning surprise, while the Forsters and Stansfelds are required to serve an apprenticeship out of the Cabinet. It is, however, matter of much congratulation that Mr. Stansfeld has been selected to be Under-Secretary for India; as the suspicion of the cause of the delay in restoring him to office was growing into a national reproach. As the law at present stands, four out of the five Secretaries of State, and four out of five Under-Secretaries, may sit at the same time in the House of Commons. The present distribution between the two Houses consists in three Secretaries of State (Home, Colonies, and War) in the Commons, and two (Foreign Affairs and India) in the Lords, and four UnderSecretaries in the Commons, with one only, Lord Dufferin, now Under-Secretary for War, in the Lords. Sir Charles Wood is now Viscount Halifax ; he has chosen this title because he long represented the borough of Halifax in Parliament. The title has been borne before him by two distinguished English 1 This provision is in the Act of 1858, which transferred the Government of India to the Crown, and created a fifth Secretary of State for India. In the session of 1864, it was found that a strange oversight had occurred, and that five Under-Secretaries had been sitting for some time in the House of Com. statesmen, not related to each other, nor either of them to the new Lord Halifax; one the witty, brilliant, and versatile George Savile, successively Viscount, Earl, and Marquis of, Halifax, on whose character Lord Macaulay has dwelt with such delight; and the other, Charles Montague, who joined respectable literature with respectable statesmanship, and had been, like our new peer, Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mem Mr. Forster and Mr. Stansfeld, who have lately been appointed UnderSecretaries, and Mr. Childers, who, since the general election, succeeded Mr. Frederick Peel as Secretary of the Treasury, have not vacated their seats, and writs were not issued for new elections in their cases. The law makes a distinction between offices received directly from the Crown and offices received from some officer of the Crown. bers accepting offices of the latter class do not vacate their seats by acceptance. The Under-Secretaryships of State and the Secretaryships of the Treasury and Admiralty are received from the heads of the respective offices, and not from the Crown. The Act 6 Anne, c. 7 (1707), which is the governing Act on this subject, provides that all offices "under the Crown" in existence before October 25, 1705, shall, with the exception of certain offices named as disqualifying, be compatible with a seat in Parliament, but that all new offices under the Crown created after that date shall disqualify for Parliament; and it further provides that offices under the Crown, of origin anterior to October 25, 1705, which are received direct from the Crown, shall vacate the seats of members of the House of Commons who accept them, the acceptors being re-eligible. The various Under-Secretaryships and the Secretaryships of the Treasury and Admiralty are all regarded as offices in existence before 1705. There were, indeed, before that time only two Secretaries of State and two Under-Secretaries: but the law knows only one Secretary of State, and regards the five Secretaryships of the present of one office.1 Such are some of the technical minutiæ of our Constitution. ELECTION PETITIONS. Sixty election-petitions in all had been presented when the fourteen days had expired. One of them was Mr. Smollett's petition in consequence of the double election for Dumbartonshire, where the two candidates had an equal number of votes; but as the other candidate, Mr. Stirling, declined to contest the petition, Mr. Smollett has obtained the seat without the necessity of an Election Committee. The remaining fifty-nine petitions affected seventy-one seats; forty-eight of members classed as Liberal, and twenty-three of Conservative members. Some of these have been already withdrawn, and more will probably vanish before the moment of trial. Petitions are often presented on both sides by the zealous and not over-scrupulous agents of political parties, with a view to effect by negotiation withdrawals on the other side. Such was, probably, the secret history of the petition against Mr. Chichester Fortescue, for whose speedy return to the House the Government might have been expected to be willing to make some sacrifice. The known and natural greater activity of the agents for the Opposition probably accounts for the larger number of petitions against Liberal members; but it does not follow that there is the same greater proportion of bond fide petitions against them. As yet, Committees have been appointed to try only five petitions. The remainder will be disposed of after Easter. The general result will probably leave the balance of parties in the House of Commons much as it is at present. But it is still impossible to say what will be the value, under the altered circumstances since Lord Palmerston's death, of any calculation yet made of 1 "See "Commons' Journals," March 19, 1801, on the appointment of Lord Hawkesbury to be Third Secretary of State, and the debate in Hansard's "Parliamentary History" on Sir Joseph Mawbey's motion on Lord George Germain's appointment to be Third Secretary balance of parties, when any question like Parliamentary Reform or Jamaica shall lead, after Easter, to a marshalling for battle of opposing forces. Bribery and corruption have been charged in the election-petitions against fifty-two constituencies. It is notorious that corruption has prevailed in a large number of constituencies for which there are no petitions; the difficulties of detection and proof, the expense of petitions and the uncertainty attendant on them, and the great defects of the tribunal, are so many props and pillars of electoral corruption. When constituencies are placed on their trial before Election Committees, some of the same causes prevent searching inquiry and full exposure. The art celare artem is successfully cultivated by the bribery experts of innumerable boroughs, where corrupt practices are ancient institutions. The futility of all recent efforts (and they are many) to legislate against electoral corruption proves, in the opinion. of some, that laws are for the most part ineffectual against this evil, but really proves that the subject has never been properly handled, and is a standing reproach against the competency, if not against even the sincerity, of our legislators. CATTLE PLAGUE AND IRISH CONSPIRACY DEBATES. Seldom has a session begun with so much serious work and business-like labour as were witnessed during the month of February in both Houses. The urgent question of the Cattle Plague, —quæ cura bovum,-and the necessity for instant severe repression of Fenian insurrection in Ireland, have both served to bring forth the earnestness and business-like capacity of both Houses. In both debates, Mr. Mill took an early opportunity of showing his determination to endeavour to impress principles on the House without striving at rhetoric or stage-artifices. Mr. Bright, who has taken in this session the position of a leader, made a speech on the Bill for suspending the Habeas Corpus Act in out of doors as perhaps the greatest speech he ever made, and as almost a sign that Radicalism was outbursting itself, and catching sight of a theory of politics and of the duties of Government hitherto almost repudiated by the Radical creed, but, if once accepted, applicable certainly no less to England and Scotland than to Ireland-was nevertheless, with regard to the precise moment selected for its delivery, open to the retort administered by Mr. Roebuck. If successive ministers for years past are not statesmen, because Ireland is not yet contented and tranquil, what, Mr. Roebuck implied, is Mr. Bright himself? If ministers, burdened, as Mr. Bright said, with administrative duties, have done nothing for Ireland, why has Mr. Bright himself, during upwards of twenty years of Parlia mentary life, done nothing or proposed nothing? Mr. Roebuck's terseness and skill and vigour of reply hardly ever appeared to more advantage than when, on this occasion, he followed Mr. Bright. THE PARLIAMENTARY REFORM BILL. The interest of the early part of the session has culminated in Mr. Gladstone's exposition of the ministerial measure of Parliamentary Reform, and the two nights' debate which followed. The elaborate array of reasons produced by the Chancellor of the Exchequer to prove why time would not admit of including in a Bill to be passed this session more than the question of franchise, can only be regarded as a constrained effort of an unrivalled ingenuity. It is well known that the circumstances of the Cabinet are the cause of this restriction. It has been necessary that Lord Russell's Government should propose something: some of his colleagues have consented to a reduction of the borough and county franchises, but their want of reforming zeal rendered it impossible to go into other questions. It is pretty certain that the pressure of colleagues, aided by the conclusions apparently to be drawn from the electoral returns which have been collected, effected the change to 147. and 71. from chises which had been proposed in Lord John Russell's Bills of 1854 and 1860. The new electoral statistics have caused great surprise by the evidence produced of the numbers of the working classes already in possession of the franchise,twenty-one per cent. of the existing electoral body of about 900,000. It has been suggested that the accuracy of this part of the returns is not perfect; but, making fair allowance for some exaggeration in the estimate, it is clear that the present state of things is far from the exclusion of the working classes which Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone had imagined. Working men are already a not inconsiderable part of the electoral body; the case, then, as it had been presented, for a measure confined, as this is, to the franchise question, is weakened: but the same returns furnish also a good weapon against the assaults on the Bill of Mr. Lowe and other alarmists, for they prove that the possession by a large number of the working classes of the franchise has not prevented a state of political society and a working of the Constitution which they describe as perfect; and there cannot be the danger which, in an ignorance of the real state of things shared with Lord Russell and Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Lowe and Lord Cranborne have prophesied as certain to arise from the admission of any number of working men to the electoral body. The returns, probably, prove that Mr. Lowe's existing Utopia contains, to his surprise, full as many artisan electors as he had expected to come in through a 67. borough franchise; a franchise which, in 1859, he thought indispensable, and which, in 1860, being a member of Lord Palmerston's Government, he supported, but against which, as indeed against any reduction of the existing franchise, he has even raved, since he ceased to be an official in 1864, with a vehemence the more surprising as it was not on account of any scruples about Parliamentary Reform that he quitted the Treasury Bench and Whitehall. Earnest parliamentary reformers will |