§ The Right Hon. Sir James Fergus-son, Baronet, K.C.M.G., G.C.S.I. (Member for Manchester, N.E.) stood up, and addressed himself to Mr. Archibald Milman, C.B., the Clerk of the House, who standing up, pointed to him, and then sat down.
* SIR JAMES FERGTJSSONMr. Milman, in accordance with the gracious message we have just received from the Crown, our first duty will be without delay to elect our Speaker. I am permitted, and it is with great satisfaction I accept the duty, to propose the re-election of the Right Hon. William Court Gully, Member for Carlisle. I feel the greater satisfaction, as I have reason to believe that he will be chosen unanimously by the House of Commons. In the last Parliament in 1895 the re-election of the right hon. Gentleman was proposed by one whose presence here we miss to-day; one of the most respected Members of the House, as he was our senior in point of continuous service. I cannot claim that distinction of most prolonged continuous service, but, nevertheless, I must confess to a certain antiquity, as it is forty-six years, I think, to-day since I was first elected to this House, and I believe that I alone among Members of the House sat in the Parliament of 1852, and I believe I am the oldest Privy Councillor remaining. 5 Such seniority gives the right, I suppose, few will covet, but I am privileged by the kindness of my friends to take the place of my right hon. friend, now no more, and to propose the re-election of one who has shown himself fully equal to the best traditions of the office of Speaker, who has shown that after so many centuries it is still possible to bring increased weight to the office, and to secure, amid all the fever of modern politics, the most entire deference to the decisions of the Chair. It would ill become me to attempt to analyse the methods of the right hon. Gentleman, but I may be permitted to say that his conspicuous fairness and impartiality have been universally recognised. I believe that to himself these methods are matters of course, but it seems to me that their full development is an admirable quality. All who have had experience as Members of this House are well aware how readily his valuable advice and counsel have been given to all who have had need to resort to him for assistance, and how entirely they could rely upon his advice. In his direction, in his management and control of debate, he has been firm but forbearing, and I think it has been the continuous confidence we have felt in his decisions that has led us one and all gladly to submit to his rulings. In the management of the private business of the House, in which such largo interests are involved, the right hon. Gentleman has brought to bear his great legal experience, and on all occasions the decisions of his judicial mind have been of the greatest value and service to the House. I am sure all the new Members who take their seats here for the first time will gladly recognise the traditions of the House in the deference paid to the Speaker in the exercise of an authority which is in reality the best protection for the liberties of the House. There have been times when in various quarters there seemed to be a danger of our falling away from the high standard and traditions of the past, but from such danger we were saved by 6 the judicious rule of the right hon. Gentleman and his predecessor. I am sure that Members of this Parliament, new and old, will be jointly actuated by the desire that nothing in their action shall tend to the falling away from that high respect with which the House of Commons has always been regarded by the country. It is, after all, by the support of the House that the authority of the Chair is maintained. I have heard more than one Speaker declare that in the exercise of his office he was but speaking the sense of the House; the influence of the Speaker and the support of the House react on each other, and between the two is preserved the dignity of the House, which from our hearts we desire to maintain. It is always the source of the greatest pain and grief to us when anything like what is called "a scene" takes place in the House, and this feeling is shared throughout the country. Feeling sure that whatever difficulties may arise in the future the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Carlisle will be fully equal to cope with them, as he has been with those that have occurred in the past, relying with confidence on the generous support of the House, I now move, "That the Right Hon. William Court Gully do take the chair of this House as Speaker."
§ * DR. FARQUHARSON (Aberdeenshire, W.)I am afraid I am but a comparative novice in the House as compared with the somewhat surprising antiquity the right hon. Gentleman opposite has admitted, and I am bound to say I feel a strangeness in our proceedings to-day. The chair is vacant to which we turn when ambitious of oratorical distinction, and we miss the struggle for the temporary possession of the Speaker's eye. Whether we succeed or fail in our effort we have the conviction that we are treated with perfect impartiality. On an occasion like this there might be a strain of sadness, for we might be parting with an old friend, but happily there is nothing of the kind. We have, I am 7 happy to say, gratitude for past service, but we have also in our hearts that gratitude which has been said to consist of a sense of those favours which are yet to come. We have the opportunity of inviting our late Speaker to again take his place in the chair, and I appreciate the high distinction of being permitted to come to this House and initiate our proceedings by inviting our respected friend to again assume the leading part he has filled with so much dignity. It is one of the most difficult tasks to which a human being can be appointed—that of Speaker in that chair—to maintain order in a mixed assembly, to command obedience from fiery Celts and more phlegmatic Saxons, to maintain order among young Members who might be disposed—I do not say they will be, but they might—to pick holes in our procedure and render the work of the Speaker difficult. Nothing of the kind has happened; the prestige and dignity of the House of Commons have been maintained. Mr. Gully has passed through the ordeal successfully. He has shown himself worthy to take his place after predecessors who have earned our gratitude and respect. When I came into the House, Speaker Brand occupied the chair, and I thought nothing could exceed or equal the dignity with which the office was filled. Then came Speaker Peel, who, I thought, attained the highest possible limit of dignity and eminence of distinction. He, too, passed to a quieter atmosphere, and then came Mr. Gully, and when his turn comes to retire—and it will be long, I hope, before that time comes—I am bound to say it will be difficult to find his successor, because he has presided over us with dignity and distinction, with the well-balanced mind of a judge, the tact and sagacity of a man of the world, the knowledge of a politician, and the easy accessibility of a friend. The House of Commons, not always unanimous, will be unanimous on this occasion in welcoming our friend and counsellor back to the 8 chair, and I have great pleasure and pride in seconding this resolution.
*The House then calling Mr. WILLIAM COURT GULLY to the chair, he stood up in his place and said:—Mr. Milman, I am Very sensible of the honour which is done me by the proposal just made to the House, that I should for the third time take upon myself the duties and responsibilities which attach to the occupancy of the chair, and I most sincerely thank my right hon. friend opposite, the Member for North-east Manchester, and my hon. friend behind me, the Member for West Aberdeenshire, for the very kind expressions as regards myself personally and as regards my past conduct in the chair which they have used in laying their proposals before the House. As I have now, Sir, held the office of Speaker of this House for many sessions it is impossible for me to plead inexperience, but at the same time I desire to assure the House that I am most fully and entirely conscious of my many shortcomings in that office, and of the great debt of gratitude which I owe to the House for its indulgence and its constant and most generous support of me in the chair. If it should Please the House to re-elect me, I shall have still to ask for the renewal of that indulgence and the continuance of that support, and, Mr. Milman, it is in the assurance that the House will accord to me as full a measure of that necessary indulgence and support in the future as I have received in the past that I humbly submit myself to the judgment of the House.
*The House then having again unanimously called Mr. William Court Gully to the chair, he was taken out of his place and conducted to the chair by Sir James Fergusson and Dr. Farquharson, and, standing on the upper step, said: From this place, and before I take the seat to which the House has elected me I desire once more to tender my grateful thanks to the House for the high honour it has conferred upon me, and to submit 9 myself to the wishes of the House. With the assistance of the House and to the best of my ability I shall always endeavour faithfully and impartially to maintain and administer the rules and orders and ancient discipline of this House, and to uphold to the best of my power the freedom and dignity of debate.
Then the Mace, which before lay under the Table, was placed on the Table.
§ THE FIRST LORD OF THE TREASURY (Mr. A. J. BALFOUR,) Manchester, E.Mr. Speaker Elect, it is now my duty, as it is my pleasure, to offer on behalf, I think I may say, of the whole House our warm congratulations upon the dignity to which now for the third time you have been elected. There is surely no greater place to which an inhabitant of these islands may aspire than that of presiding over the debates and being the guardian of the honour of the British House of Commons. Mr. Speaker Elect, I suppose the majority of those here present have had personal experience of the admirable manner in which in times past you have fulfilled the onerous and responsible duties of your post. Even those new Members of the House who have never had the pleasure of having personal experience of our business know by common repute and universal fame how great is the deserved reputation which you have obtained in your present position. The duties which devolve upon the Chair consist not merely in the impartial application of the rules and standing orders of this House as between the contending parties or the different individuals of which this assembly is composed; that impartiality you, like your predecessors, have invariably shown; but, after all, this House is what it is not merely in virtue of the rules of debate which it obeys or the skill and impartiality with which those rules are administered from the Chair. There is a spirit that presides over this assembly which is something more than any rule, which no manipulation of our standing 10 orders would confer if you have it not, and which is sufficient largely to supplement any technical defects which our rules may possess. That spirit has survived the shock of factions, great constitutional changes, immense extensions of the suffrage, great changes—great and inevitable changes—in the political forces which the Empire obeys. That spirit has survived through all these changes, as I think, untouched and untarnished, and I do not believe, if a witness could rise from the grave acquainted with the distant traditions of the past, he would see anything in the debates as we conduct them today, Sir, under your auspices, unworthy of the highest traditions of this House. Of those traditions you are the embodiment and you are the guardian, and it is because you have proved yourself so worthy a guardian in the past that it is with the fullest confidence and with absolute unanimity that this House again elects you to fill the great office which you have just consented to accept. Sir, I beg to tender you, on behalf not only of Members on this side, but of the whole House, our warmest congratulations on the event which has just taken place.
§ SIR H. CAMPBELL-BANNERMAN (Stirling Burghs)Mr. Speaker Elect, the First Lord of the Treasury, at the beginning and again at the end of his short speech, has claimed in what he said to represent the feeling of the whole House. On an occasion such as this he is entirely entitled to make that claim, but perhaps it is not wrong and it is usual that I should rise to express, on behalf of all those for whom I am especially entitled to speak, the complete concurrence that we entertain in the opinion and sentiments which have been just expressed by the right lion. Gentleman, Sir, you have been able by your personal qualities, and by the admirable manner in which you have discharged the duties of the Chair, to win for yourself the sincere and complete confidence of all the Members of this House. We have seen that you are able and ready to give due asser- 11 tion to the rights of the House of Commons, and also that you are able to maintain that regulated freedom of debate which is essential in order that the primary object for which the House of Commons exists should be attained. We have seen that you know how to restrain the individual Member when, as sometimes happens, his zeal in the public interest impels him to run counter to the general and reasonable desire of the whole assembly; and also to save the individual Member on another occasion which not infrequently happens, when the impatience of his colleagues threatens to invade his proper rights of speech. What has happened in the past we are sure will happen in the future. I congratulate you, Mr. Speaker Elect, on your appointment by this House to the chair, to the august office of Speaker, and 12 on receiving from your Parliamentary colleagues the highest honour they can bestow; but not less warmly do I congratulate the House itself in that it has found among its Members a man so eminently qualified to fill that office with dignity, with impartiality, and with wisdom.
§ MR. A. J. BALFOUR moved, "This House do now adjourn."
§ Mr. SPEAKER ELECT thereupon put the Question, which being agreed to:—
§ The House adjourned accordingly until To-morrow, and Mr. Speaker Elect went away without the Mace before him.
§ House adjourned at a quarter before Three o'clock until Twelve o'clock to-morrow.