I, —— ——, swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to his Majesty King George, his heirs and successors, according to law. So help me, God.
The Speaker then signs the Test Roll, which, differing in form from the Roll of Parliament in the Upper House, is a large book strongly bound in leather, with brass clasps, opening at the bottom instead of at the sides, and with a sheet of blotting-paper between every two leaves. A new Test Roll is provided for each new Parliament.
After the Speaker, Members are sworn in in batches. To expedite matters, two tables are brought into the Chamber, and, being placed in line with the Clerk’s Table, are each supplied with copies of the New Testament and five large paste-boards, on which the oath is printed in bold type. At each table one of the clerks-assistant stands, and administers the oath to the Members, as they present themselves in groups of five, two or three holding between them a Testament, and each having in his left hand one of the oath-cards, the words of which they repeat, and then kiss the book. The first to take the oath and sign the roll after the Speaker are the Leader of the House and the Leader of the Opposition. Members of “his Majesty’s most honourable Privy Council,” and the Ministers, past and present, next have precedence, and take the oath separately from the other Members.
In the Lords, as we have seen, each peer, before taking the oath and subscribing the Roll, gives the Clerk his writ of summons. But in the Commons no proof of identity—no evidence that they are duly elected M.P.’s—is required from the gentlemen that present themselves at the Table to take the oath and subscribe the Test Roll. It is true that the Clerk of the Crown in Chancery receives at his office at Westminster from the returning officer of every constituency what is called the return of the writ—that is, actually the writ of election, with the name of the elected representative certified on the back—and that the names of the Members, with the constituency each represents, are inscribed in a book, called the “Return Book,” which is delivered by the Clerk of the Crown to the Clerk of the House of Commons on the day the new Parliament opens.
But though ordinarily all the approaches to the Chamber are guarded by vigilant policemen and door-keepers, who know every Member of the House, it is obviously impossible at the opening of a new Parliament—when there is a large influx of new Members—for the officials on duty to be able to discriminate between those who say they are representatives and those who may be strangers. It would not be difficult, therefore, for an impostor of nerve and audacity, with some knowledge of the House and its ways, to enter the House by personating some Member whom he knew could not be in attendance, to vote in a division on the Speakership, should there be a contest for the Chair, and even to take the oath and subscribe the Roll. There is no case of personation on record, but it is possible in the circumstances. The Return Book is a conspicuous object on the Table during the swearing-in of Members. It is there for reference by the Clerk, in the event of a question arising as to the identity of any person who may present himself. However, as it contains merely the name of each Member and his constituency, and not his portrait and description, it is hardly an insuperable bar to personation, and accordingly, in the case of new Members, the question of identity has to be taken on trust by the Clerk. But there is no doubt that a Member who for any reason did not want to take the oath could quite easily evade the obligation.
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In the case of a contested election for the Speakership, Members would of course have to vote without having been sworn. What, it may be asked, would happen in the event of a Member, after the election of the Speaker, sitting and voting without having taken the oath and signed the Roll? The penalties provided by an Act passed in 1866 are a fine of £500 for each commission of the offence of voting, and the immediate deprivation of the seat, which, ipso facto, becomes vacant. The payment of the fines, when the offence has been committed through mistake, ignorance, or inadvertence, can be remitted by an Act of Indemnity, but it is contended that nothing can avoid the instant vacating of the seat. I remember hearing it persistently whispered that one Member elected at a certain General Election had never taken the oath or signed the Roll. The matter, however, was never brought to the notice of the House. A peer who takes his seat and votes without having previously subscribed to the oath is likewise liable for every such vote to a penalty of £500. Peers have so inadvertently violated the law. Each explained that having taken the oath and signed the Roll on his accession to the peerage he thought he was not obliged to do so again when a new Parliament assembled. This excuse was accepted in the case of four peers in 1906. Bills of Indemnity were then said to be no longer necessary.
The swearing-in of Members returned to the House of Commons at the General Election of 1918—the first after the World War—had one new feature. It was introduced owing to changes in the law of election made by the Reform Act of 1918. It is provided by that Act that a candidate must lodge £150 with the returning officer at his nomination, which sum is not given back until the returning officer is officially informed that the candidate, if elected, has taken the oath and signed the Roll. Accordingly, to provide a means of ready discovery as to whether a particular Member had or had not subscribed to the oath, two clerks sat at the Table, with printed lists of the names and constituencies, which they ticked off as the name and the constituency of each Member was announced by the Clerk of the House in the course of the introduction of the Member to the Speaker.
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As Members take the oath, they proceed, in single file, to subscribe the Test Roll, over which the Clerk stands sentinel. Each Member writes his full name and that of his constituency. He is then introduced by the Clerk to the Speaker, who shakes hands with him. So the process of swearing-in goes on for two or three days. It is slow and tedious work, and the House is not a lively place while it is in progress. Occasionally a special incident relieves the tedium of the proceedings. Some Members claim to make an affirmation instead of being sworn, on the ground that he has no religious belief, or that the taking of an oath is contrary to his religious belief. The affirmation is in the same form as the oath, except that the words “Solemnly, sincerely and truly declare and affirm” are substituted for the word “swear,” and the words, “So help me, God” are omitted. These have to sign their names on a different part of the Test Roll. It is no unusual thing either to see a Member, wearing his hat, sworn on a book provided by himself. He belongs to the Jewish persuasion, which requires the oath to be taken with covered head on a copy of the Pentateuch, or first five books of the Old Testament. Others prefer to swear with uplifted hand instead of by kissing the New Testament. The oath is administered in about a minute to each batch. It is in signing the Test Roll that time is consumed. The Member who has not his glasses adjusted, or who searches on the Table for the pen that suits him best, with which to inscribe his name on the roll of fame in bold and lasting caligraphy, may block a group anxious to get to the lunch-rooms or smoking-rooms, and may prove the same kind of nuisance to his fellows as the man who wants to change a five-pound note at the railway booking-office, though there is a long and impatient queue behind, and the train is on the point of starting.