SPEECH FROM THE THRONE

Hokitika Guardian, 12 September 1929, Page 8

SPEECH FROM THE THRONE

We know beforehand that constitutional precedents centuries old, guarantee that the King’s Speech for opening of the new Parliament will contain nothing immediately controversial. For the King’s Speech or Speech from the Throne and the Ad-dress-in-Reply .are essentially an exchange of courtesies between the Crown and the Houses; a handshake, as it were, before the prize fight or boxing bout begins, in which, of course the Crown gracefully retires and leaves the government Party to carry on (states Athelstan Ridgway in the Morning Post). The duty of declaring or “opening the cause of the summons to Parliament” was from the earliest times, assigned to. a principal Minister, generally the Lord Chancellor, as the keeper of the Royal conscience. Yet, the practice, up to a century and a-half ago, was by no means uniform. Once it was quite usual for the Sovereign to say a few words, generally of a complimentary nature before the fonnai official' utterance of his Majesty.

The arch-innovator in these matters was James 1., who greatly fancied himself in the role of dialectician, regardless of the appropriateness or otherwise of tlie occasion.. He favoured his first Parliament with a very lengthy speech and cut the Chancellor’s effort to a bold paragraph or two. Subsequently he dispensed with the vicarious! utterance altogether, and substituted his own ponderous orations. Even Charles i knew ' better than that. On the o-casion of his first Parliament he put'off his crown after prayers had been said, and in right courtly manner knblt by the “chair of estate”; alter which manifestation of dignined humility, he declared the “cause of the summons” in a speech to which certainly no objection could ue taken on the ground of verbosity, ilie antithes.fi of his father’s academic prolixity,, it ran:

“Now, because I am unfit for much speaking, 1 mean to bring up the fashion of my predecessors, to have my Lord Keeper to speak for me in most things; therefore I command him to speak something to you at this time. . which is more for formality than any great matter •he hath to say unto you.” • “Formality” indeed! Irony most regal. It is instructive to follow the changes in those, the swaddling clothes days of our modern constitutional practice, and to observe how sometimes the King’s utterance tends to become the official formal declaration, although, after the Restoration, the formal communication was once more generally left to the Lord Chancellor. Naturally the unconstitutionally-minded Charles II often gave a strongly personal expression to his wishes. In 1680 he read a full-blown Speech from the Throne, which opened thus: “My Lords and Gentlemen—l have many, particulars to open to you; and because I dare not trust my memory with all that is requisite for me to mention, I shall read to you the particulars out of. this paper.” Then came the paper, the reading of which, quite contrary to practice, was not even supplemented by any Minister.

It is really only since the Revolution of 1688 that the modern practice of making only one Address from the nrone really dates. But even then the King is sometimes found uttering the Speech. By whomsoever spoken, however, it was now always treated as the manifesto of the Lord Chancellor and criticised or condemned accordingly with all the customary license of debate. ,

By modern practice the Prime Minister drafts the Speech but in past times an outsider was occasionally entrusted with the task, as when Lord Somers composed an Address for William 111, a monarch who ordinarily was not disposed to accept anything cut and dried. George 111, too, availed himself of the services of ex-Lord Chancellor Hardwicke and his favour.te Bute. '

It is a piquant commentary on the evolution of constitutional precedent to find that complete decorum of phrasing was not attained without a struggle. In these Twentiteh Century days of disarmament proposals, we shall 1 Jertainly look in vain for expressions like those in an Address from the Throne by Queen Anne, who paid off .1 grudge against her quondam Minister, Marlborough, by saying: “I am glad that I can now tell you that, notwithstanding the arts of those who delight in war, both place and time are appointed for opening the Treaty of a general peace.” The faithful Commons were not slow to follow suit in their Address with references to the “arts and devices of those who for private views may delight in war.” Much later George 111 was only restrained with difficulty by Pitt from insisting on the insertion of a reference to “the bloody and ex-pensive-war” Pitt regarding it as an ispersion on his conduct and policy.

In its final draft the Speech from the Throne avoids any phrase or expression which might lead to acrimonious debate or mar the harmony that should subsist between the Crown and the other members of the Legislature. Presumably the Prime Minister now always reads the draft of the Speech to his colleagues at No. 10 Downing St. Once it was the usage to read it in the “Cockpit” or Treasury chambers, so called from the pnrpo-e for which the place was originally built in the reign of Henry VII., but later assigned by Charles. 11. apparently with no implication of malice, to the use of the Treasury. In view of the customary demands of the Stuart monarchs, the place was certainly well named.