THE ROYAL DECLARATION. (Hansard, 5 August 1909)

§ LORD BRAYE

My Lords, I rise to ask His Majesty's Government whether the meeting of the Parliament on 14th February, 1901, was the meeting of the first Parliament summoned next after the accession of His Most Gracious Majesty, or the first meeting in the present reign of a pre-existing Parliament; and, if the latter, whether the Royal Declaration enacted by the Act of 1688, and made in Parliament on 14th February, 1901, was made in pursuance of the said Bill of Rights which enacts that it shall be made by every King or Queen thereafter coming to the Crown on the first day of the meeting of the first Parliament next after his or her coming to the Crown or at his or her Coronation (whichever shall first happen); and, if not, whether or not it was in fact made on the first day of the meeting by His Gracious Majesty of the Second Session of the last Parliament of Her late Majesty Queen Victoria, which first met on 3rd, December, 1900, and was prolonged by force and in virtue of the Representation of the People Act, 1867, in spite of the demise of the Crown; and whether, if then and so made, the said Declaration had or has any statutory or other sanction whatsoever.

This Question is a somewhat long one in, appearance, but it can be compressed into a much shorter compass. The question arises whether the present Parliament was the first Parliament of the present reign. As a mere layman I speak in fear and trembling before the legal luminaries in your Lordships' House, but it seems to me there is no doubt that this Parliament is the first Parliament of the present reign. If that is the case, the Declaration that was enacted by William and Mary in 1688 was not taken at the time that that Statute enacted that it should be taken, and therefore, if taken at another time and in other circumstances, it is evident it has no Parliamentary sanction and ought to be expunged from the Journals of this House although taken here. If we cast a glance at history we find that what happened at the beginning of this reign in 1901 did not happen in all the previous reigns during which this Declaration was in force. I 958 presume that Queen Anne was the first Sovereign to take this Declaration and she took it at her Coronation, and there is no doubt whatever that the Declaration was made by George I. at his Coronation.

But coming down to more modern times we find that in the last reign, which commenced in 1837, the Declaration was taken at the meeting of the first Parliament, which is the alternative permitted by the Statute of 1688, whichever should happen first, the Coronation or the meeting of the first Parliament. It was taken on November 20, 1837; but a different event occurred in 1901. For some reason, of which I am not aware, the Declaration was made in a very great hurry only a few days after the accession. Why this hurry I do not presume to conjecture. I may remind your Lordships that in 1696 an Act was passed in which Parliament was prolonged for six months after the demise of the Crown, but in 1867 a clause was inserted in the Representation of the People Act by which it was enacted that the Parliament should continue at the demise of the Crown as if that demise had not taken place—that is to say, it should share the fate of any, ordinary Parliament and go on either until it expired or until it dissolved. Those who drafted that Bill were not thinking for one instant, of course, of the curious circumstances to which I have alluded—namely, that this Declaration should be taken either at the Coronation or the meeting of the first Parliament—and therefore they made no allusion whatever to it. And here I may incidentally say that nobody, either in Parliament or out of Parliament, during the last reign called any attention to this Declaration. It escaped the notice of everybody, except, perhaps, a few individuals who from time to time have called attention to it as an antiquarian monstrosity. But the country generally knew nothing about it, and it was not until the year 1901 that it cropped up and caused general excitement and in a large portion of the community deep-seated indignation and disgust.

I will not enter upon the subject-matter, which has been gone into in great detail on more than one occasion since 1901, but I would remind your Lordships, in justification for my calling attention to the matter at all, that both in this House and in another place the subject of this question has been denounced by the highest authority. 959 The late Lord Salisbury, when Prime Minister, denounced the Declaration as indecent; he also called it "a stain on the Statute Book." These were very emphatic words, and words of great importance as falling from the lips of the Prime Minister of this country in your Lordships' House. But to come to a later period and to bring the matter, so to speak, up to date, I may remind your Lordships that only the other day the present Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, denounced this Declaration in language almost as emphatic; at all events, the burden of his speech was to the effect that if he had the power he would tear it out of the Statute Book and that it had no right to be there at all. So that in giving utterance to the wish that the day may not be far distant when this stain on the Statute Book shall be removed I am not speaking merely for myself. In that case I would not ask your Lordships to listen to me; but I am stating views in accord with those of the late Prime Minister and the present Prime Minister representing both political parties. I am also speaking in sympathy with twelve million subjects whose faith is grossly insulted and held up to ridicule and obloquy, not only before this country but before three hundred and fifty millions, if that be the right figure, of the inhabitants of India, whose religious faiths, by the way, are not denounced though ours is.

I recollect going across Canada one summer and having audiences with all the Archbishops separately in their own provinces, and asking what they wished to be done by way of application for the removal of this Declaration. The answer I received from all of them was that they left the matter to the Imperial Parliament, however desirous they might be of raising local agitation; and in an interview at Ottawa with Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the eminent Prime Minister of Canada, I met with the same sympathy that I received from ecclesiastical quarters. He, too, promised that he would do all in his power to aid in the removal of the Declaration, but he left it to the Imperial Parliament. I have always found, I am glad to say, in the Colonies that the reverence for the Imperial Parliament, which they call the Mother of Parliaments, is very great, and no initiation of a matter of this kind would take place in the Colonies unless they took their cue and their example from the Imperial Parliament.

960 Well, my Lords, here we are in the Imperial Parliament. We have had certain indications in the House of Commons of how they regard this Declaration. We also had long and painful discussions in this House in 1901, 1903 and 1904, in which your Lordships were severally invited to give your opinions as to the desirability of removing this Declaration from the Statute Book. Nothing, however, came of those discussions, and it is in order to keep the matter alive and to keep it above water that I have ventured from time to time to bring the subject again to your Lordships' notice. There is no doubt that, if this House had its way, there would be no discussion about this matter, and the "indecency" to which Lord Salisbury referred would be removed. The power which prevents that course being taken is the Puritan power in this country, but I feel convinced that if your Lordships were only to take your courage in your hands and give a Second Reading to a Bill for this purpose no opposition in the country would be maintained for a month or for a week.

It is self-evident in these times, when persecution for religion has passed away, at all events in this country, that this gross anomaly should no longer remain. The civil disabilities under which Roman Catholics laboured were so great that no persons professing that faith could sit in either House of Parliament until the year 1829. Now there are several of that faith in your Lordships' House, and many in the other House. The penal laws were not only cruel, but they were vexatious. No Catholic could come within five miles of London, no Catholic could inherit real property; another enactment was that no Catholic could possess a horse of the value of over £5, etc., etc., etc. All these laws have been rightly abolished, but this Declaration still remains; it ought to have gone with the others, and I have therefore brought the matter once more before your Lordships' attention.