§ Mr. Humesaid, as the House is now about to adjourn, I rise to call its attention to a subject, which, though it relates to a matter of etiquette, is nevertheless of no slight importance. There is no privilege with which the Members of this House are invested which we should be enabled to exercise with less restraint than that which enables us to pay our respects to you, Mr. Speaker, in the usual form. I can say, of my own knowledge, that many individuals, during the time I have been a Member of Parliament, have been prevented from 579 paying their respects to you, Sir, at the levees which take place about this period of the year, in consequence of its being obligatory upon them to attend in the court costume of bag-wig and sword. Very few, comparatively, have attended these levees of the Speaker in consequence of being prevented by the continuance of an old, and, as I think, unnecessary custom of Members of this House appearing in any but the costume I have mentioned. Now, as I consider that the Members of this House ought to be allowed full opportunity of paying the usual visits of attention and respect to the Speaker, I am anxious that the House should declare that these visits may be paid in the ordinary evening dress, instead of being compelled to appear in court dress, a dress which many hon. Members have not always at hand, and it may be a matter of inconvenience on the part of some, and disinclination on the part of others, to wear. I hope it will not, for a moment, be supposed that I intend the slightest disrespect to the Speaker by the proposal I have made to the House; on the contrary, it is because I entertain a confident hope that his levees will be more fully attended than any that have taken place for a considerable time that I have suggested the means of accomplishing what I consider an object of very great importance.
§ The Speakersaid, with reference to the subject which the hon. Member has brought under the consideration of the House, I can only say that I shall always cheerfully follow the example of my predecessors in consulting the convenience of the House as to the mode of conducting the customary levees. With respect to the change in dress proposed by the hon. Member I do not feel myself justified in proposing any alteration in it to the House, as I have a prescribed duty to perform with reference to it—namely, to follow the course adopted by my predecessors. However, if the House should, in a matter which exclusively concerns their own feelings and sense of propriety, express any decided opinion on the subject, it will afford me the highest gratification to conform to the wishes of the House.
§ Mr. Warburtonapproved of the proposal which had been made by the hon. Member for Middlesex. It was not, however, because he had no court dress that he was desirous to see the intended change effected, but because he was satis- 580 fied that many hon. Members were restrained from attending on these occasions by being compelled to make merry andrews of themselves in court dresses. It appeared to him that it would be much more decorous to appear in the ordinary evening dress, such as that in which the Members of that House would appear in the Houses of the first noblemen. From what had fallen from the Speaker, he inferred that he was inclined to approve of the proposed alteration in the dress.
§ The SpeakerI have expressed no opinion upon the subject. It is a matter in which I feel that I ought not to interfere.
Mr. Francis BaringI am sure, Sir, that you will be happy to receive the ordinary attentions in any manner which the House may determine; but, looking to the empty benches of the House, I do not think this to be a proper time for taking a decision upon such a question.
§ Lord Sandonthought that an unfavourable time for making any alteration in the mode of paying the customary respects to their Speaker, whose levees he for one, should be most happy to attend, as a proof of his approval of the manner in which he had performed the duties imposed on him.