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New Members are introduced after questions. Quaint indeed are the contradictions of parliamentary procedure. Rules that are entirely different regulate the taking of the oath of allegiance and their seats in the House of Commons by M.P.’s returned at the General Election, and M.P.’s who come in at by-elections. We have seen on the opening days of Parliament hundreds of men appear at Westminster and being permitted to take the oath and their seats without any examination of credentials or any evidence of identification. It was quite possible, on the occasion of a large influx of new representatives, unknown by appearance to the officials, for a “stranger,” impudent enough and sufficiently strong of nerve, to pass in with the crowd, and snatch the fearful joy of sitting on the sacred Treasury Bench or Opposition Bench—in front even of the brass-bound box associated with leadership and quite close to the Mace—without anyone saying him nay. On the other hand, there is an elaborate ceremony of introduction prescribed for those returned at by-elections. The new Member has to be escorted to the Table, to take the oath of allegiance and sign the Test Roll, by two full-blown Members of the House. This custom has survived from a remote past when, in order to prevent personation, two Members of the House were required to identify the claimant of a seat after a by-election as the person named by the returning officer in the return to the writ. This precaution has been unnecessary for many a year. But such is the reluctance of the House of Commons to part with any of its historic ceremonies, such is its scrupulous regard for ancient precedents—no matter how incongruous they may appear owing to the changes effected by time—that this formality is still retained; and though a representative may appear at the Bar of the House as the unanimous choice of a constituency of 20,000 electors, and produce the certificate of the official return of his election, he will not be sworn in and permitted to take his seat unless two Members act as his sponsors, and so declare that, as the conjurers say, there is positively no deception.
There is the famous case of Dr. Kenealy, counsel for “The Claimant,” in the Tichborne Trial, who was disbarred by the Benchers of Grey’s Inn, and afterwards returned for Stoke-upon-Trent at a by-election in February 1875. He came to the Table alone. It is not clearly established whether he failed to find two Members who would accompany him as sponsors, or whether he wanted to put to the test a custom which, in his opinion, was no part of constitutional law. At any rate, the Speaker informed him that as he had not been introduced by two Members, in accordance with the ancient usage of the House—founded on a Standing Order dating from 1688—he could not be sworn in or take his seat. Kenealy was, therefore, obliged to withdraw from the House. No objection could be raised to Dr. Kenealy’s election. He produced the certificate of his return as Member for Stoke-upon-Trent. Everyone in the House knew that he was the person named in the official document. He laboured under no legal disability. Had he been returned at the General Election he could have taken, without question, the oath and his seat. But coming in at a by-election he was not allowed to do so solely because of his inability to comply with what, after all, in this age is but a mere ceremonial function. The position was, indeed, absurd. It was impossible that a duly elected representative of the people could be excluded from Parliament for so unsubstantial a cause. Accordingly, a special resolution, moved by Disraeli, who was then Prime Minister, was carried dispensing with the ancient introductory ceremony in the particular case of Dr. Kenealy. In the course of the discussion John Bright and another Member named Whalley intimated that they were willing to walk up the floor with Kenealy “out of deference,” as Bright put it, “to the will of a large constituency.” The Member for Stoke-upon-Trent once more came to the Table unaccompanied; the oath was administered to him and he signed the Roll—the sole instance of a departure from a custom observed since 1688. Kenealy then disappeared in the mass of Members among whom he could not count two friends. “He was in the House, but not of it,” said Joseph Cowen, speaking in 1881. He was effectually and completely boycotted.
Sometimes the new M.P., returned at a by-election, forgets to bring to the Table the certificate of the return to the writ. This document, which is sent by the Clerk of the Crown to the Clerk of the House, is given to the new Member on application at the Vote Office, in the Lobby, just before the ceremony of initiation, and must be presented to the Clerk of the House at the Table as evidence that he is the person named in the return to the writ as having been duly elected, before the oath can be administered to him. As a rule, therefore, the new Member takes care that he has this indispensable official paper in his possession before he starts to walk, between his two sponsors, from the Bar to the Table. But Hardinge Giffard, afterwards Earl Halsbury and Lord Chancellor, when elected at a by-election in 1877, found on reaching the Table that the little blue document was missing. In his consternation he hurriedly turned out all the contents of his pockets, piling them upon the Table—letters, a purse, some loose coppers and silver, a bunch of keys, a briar-wood pipe—all sorts of things but the essential certificate. In this case the Speaker refused to accept any evidence—not even the testimony of identification by the two sponsors—but the Clerk of the Crown’s certificate that the man at the Table was the man that had been duly returned at the recent election for Launceston. The House, of course, was amused at the spectacle. Happily, one of the Whips who went in search of the missing return found it in the hat of the new Member, under the cross-bench below the Bar, where Hardinge Giffard had sat with his sponsors awaiting the time for the Speaker to make the customary announcement—“New Members desirous of taking their places will, please, come to the Table.”
Yet it would seem, after all, as if the production of the certificate of the return to the writ were not absolutely necessary before a new Member, coming in at a by-election, can take his seat. On March 11, 1848, Mr. Hames was elected for the Irish borough of Kinsale; on the 15th he took the oath and his seat, but it was not until the 18th that the return to the writ was received by the Clerk of the Crown. The Clerk of the House of Commons had neglected to ask for the certificate on the appearance of the new Member at the Table, thinking that the formality might be dispensed with as the return to the writ had not arrived. When the mistake was discovered there was great wagging of official heads. But none of the authorities could suggest a way out of the difficulty. It was unprecedented. The Clerk went about haunted by visions of the deepest dungeon under the moat of the Tower of London. At last a committee of the House was appointed to make inquiries; and after due investigation they reported that the Clerk had done a perfectly sensible thing, however unwittingly. They said it was true that the return to the writ had always been required by the House as “the best evidence of a Member’s title to be sworn.” “Nevertheless,” continued they, “the absence of that proof cannot affect the validity of the election, nor the right of a person duly elected to be held a Member of the House.” Truly, a most proper decision! Still, the committee recommended a strict adherence to the practice of requiring the production of the document. This much, at least, can be said for it, that it is a picturesque detail in the initiation of a new Member of the House of Commons.
The House then comes to the real business of the sitting. At this stage of the proceedings leave may be asked for to move the adjournment of the House, but, even if it be granted, action is not immediately taken. The object of such a motion is to obtain from the Government an explanation of some act of commission or omission on their part; of something which, in the opinion of the Opposition or any other section of the House, they have wrongly done or left undone. The matter complained of must be—as the Standing Order says—“a definite matter of urgent public importance” in the opinion of the Speaker, and the motion must also have the concurrence of at least forty members. Therefore, when a Member rises after questions and asks leave to move the adjournment of the House, stating at the same time the object he has in view, the Speaker, should he consider the subject definite and urgent, asks whether the hon. Member is supported by forty Members. Immediately the Members in favour of the motion rise in their places, and if they muster forty, leave is granted, but the debate stands over until a quarter past eight o’clock. Forty members make a quorum, without which no business can be done. If leave is not given because it lacks the necessary support, the Member who asks for it may challenge a division in the hope of winning in the lobbies, or for the purpose of getting a record of those for and against his motion. I remember in the session of 1912 when George Lansbury the Socialist startled everyone by claiming that a division should be taken on a motion for the adjournment, in support of which only 38 Members had risen. The Speaker, Mr. Lowther, had recourse to the little book containing the rules of the House which he always has by him on the arm of the Chair, for this was probably the first time that such a request had been made, and satisfied himself that Lansbury was within his rights. The motion was lost by 115 against 86.