LORD DENMANwished to explain, in reference to what he had said yesterday regarding his proposal for excluding The Times reporters from the Gallery of the House of Lords on the ground of the inaccuracy of the reports of his speeches in the House which ap- 867 peared in that journal, that he had himself been guilty of a gross mistake in stating that the Serjeant at Arms had power to exclude the reporters of that newspaper from the Gallery. He should have stated that that power rested with the Ushers of the Black Rod, and not with the Serjeant at Arms. He had seen an order for admission to the Re-porters' Gallery signed by Sir William Knollys. He believed the Speaker of the House of Commons had power to allot seats to the different reporters; and as the Standing Order only allowed reports "by the leave of the House," he thought that truth might be secured. The condition on which newspaper reporters were admitted to the Gallery was that their reports should be truthful, and the reports of his speeches which appeared in The Times were certainly not truthful. The Times had 14 places in the Gallery; and, therefore, that journal should take care that its reports were accurate.
THE EARL OF KIMBERLEYI beg to state that I make no complaint of anybody with regard to the inaccuracy of the report of what I said yesterday. The imperfection of the report, I have no doubt, arose from my not having spoken very distinctly.