§ MR. MITCHELL HENRYMr. Speaker, I wish, Sir, to address a Question to you, which, at the commencement of the last Parliament, I addressed to your Predecessor. It is with reference to the mode of securing seats in this House. I think it is understood that the only mode in which a Member can secure a particular seat for the night is by placing his hat upon it and attending Prayers, and afterwards depositing a card in the place provided for the purpose on the back of the bench. I wish to ask you, Sir, whether it is permissible for hon. Members to come down to the House, and to place hats, which are not their own working hats, but duplicate hats—very often wideawakes—upon the seat, and then to leave the House and go about their ordinary business, and thus claim the right of retaining the seat during the evening?
§ MR. SPEAKERIn reply to the hon. Gentleman the Member for Glasgow (Mr. Mitchell Henry), I have to say that the conditions of securing a seat, so far as the hats are concerned, are these:—In the first place, that the hat should, undoubtedly, be the bonâ fide ordinary hat in daily use by the hon. Member. The second condition, which is almost implied in the first, is that the hon. Member who owns the hat must be within the precincts of the House, either in the Committee Rooms upstairs, or elsewhere in the House. The third condition is that he must attend Prayers himself before he can 428 secure a seat. I will only remind the House that the whole question is one of mutual arrangement and courtesy between Member and Member; and although I do not wish to anticipate it for a moment, should any inconvenience be felt it would be my duty to revert to the Standing Order on the subject, which I will read to the House—
No Member's name may be affixed to any seat in the House before the hour of Prayers; and that the Speaker is to give directions to the doorkeeper accordingly.