§ THE LORD PRIVY SEAL (VISCOUNT HALIFAX)My Lords, before we pass to the business on the Paper I anticipate that it will be your Lordships' wish to have some report upon the progress of the noble and learned Viscount who customarily sits on the Woolsack, in order that we may learn what progress he is making from the indisposition that unhappily deprived us of his services before the Summer Recess. I am glad to be able to give your Lordships reassuring information which, perhaps, I can best 468 give in the words of the Lord Chancellor himself. He has written to me begging me to inform your Lordships that while, under medical advice, he will, to his regret, be unable to take his place on the Woolsack until after Christmas, he is assured that there will be no difficulty in his resuming his normal duties in this House at the beginning of the new year.
I am quite sure that I should be correctly interpreting the feelings of your Lordships if I conveyed to the noble and learned Viscount a message of our sympathy, of the satisfaction with which we have heard the report that he is able to give of himself, and of our hope that the intervening weeks may lead to a complete restoration of health. At the same time I should also perhaps add that, anxious as we are to see the noble and learned Viscount back in his place, we should not wish the desire to return there, which I know he must strongly feel, in any way to encourage him in any disobedience to any orders his medical advisers may think fit to enforce upon him.
§ LORD SNELLMy Lords, my noble friends would wish to associate themselves with what has fallen from the noble Leader of the House. We are all extraordinarily glad to learn that the Lord Chancellor is making progress. We shall miss him a great deal in our debates until he returns to us, but if he pursues his quest for renewed health with the same thoroughness with which he performs his task in your Lordships' House, we may hope to see him back in a very short time.
§ LORD GAINFORDMy Lords, on behalf of those with whom I am associated I desire also to express our deepest sympathy with the noble and learned Viscount who usually acts as Speaker in your Lordships' House, and to say how much we have regretted his illness and how glad we shall be to see him back again in renewed health at the beginning of next year.