My Lords and Gentlemen, I beg to introduce the following Resolution for the consideration of the House.
Quote:BE IT RESOLVED that it is the sense of this House that British parliamentary procedure, including the customary procedural words and phrases, and the ordinary methods of composing legislation, should be perpetuated and upheld as a tradition of this Parliament by the Speaker and all Members of Parliament.
My Lords and Gentlemen, as you know I am opposed to the direct emulation of Great Britain in many ways, and more specifically to the adoption of certain practices simply because they are British. However, Hanover has used British parliamentary procedures for many years now, and I think this has become a genuine tradition of this House, which should be protected.
Recently however, first under Lady Nymala, and now under Lord Gottingen, we have witnessed a refusal to accept these traditions by the Speaker. Therefore I have proposed this Resolution.
My Lords and Gentlemen,
I beg to point out the most brazen hypocrisy of the Livingston administration which just a short time ago promised us all it would not do the following:
Quote:Thus my Government dismisses the notion that Hanover should seek to re-create or excessively emulate the governments and cultures of foreign nations, considering the ingenuity of the Hanoverian people -- tempered and informed by a knowledge of history -- a vastly superior source.
And yet here it is breaking that promise even in face of both a Germanic influence on the rise and a potential revival. This resolution as put forth is a road sign that says "Go back!"
He has the temerity to pretend this is some sort of tradition when in fact it is merely been what he has been doing, more or less, all along. There is new blood in the nation and it is fitting and right to explore new means if we are to ever develop a national culture of our own.
I ask the good gentlemen to that the decency to withdraw this resolution which seeks nothing more than to put Hanover back into his vary narrowly defined little British colored box.
My Lords and Gentlemen,
First I must note that, now that His Majesty has accepted my resignation, there is no more "Livingston Administration". I am a private citizen, expressing my personal opinion. The next Government may very well oppose this Resolution.
My position is that Hanover should not adopt new practices simply because they are British, not that we should purge ourselves of all Anglophilia. However, the usage of British parliamentary procedure has become a tradition here, although I admit the particular form of it we use has varied from time to time. Sir Kieran used it when he was Speaker, I used it when I presided as Lord Chancellor, and so did Mr. Marchmain as I recall.
Perhaps Parliament does not think that it is a tradition. Perhaps we want to create our own new system of procedures. That's fine by me, if it is done by orderly discussion and the adoption of new rules. But what's currently happening is the gradual loss of the customary words and procedures, and the adoption of American practices in their place by the Speaker. Seconds, cloture, and so forth. All very nice, but we've never done that in Hanover to my recollection, and it isn't the Speaker's place to impose it.
My Lords and Gentlemen,
I had not received word of your resignation. Let me be the first to commend and thank you you on your service to the King and the nation.
Your allegations against myself are absurd. There has been no use of force or even coercion.
God save the King
My Lords and Gentlemen,
Is not typical that the Goverment officially remains until the next Goverment takes office even if the current Government vacated the position in reality.
Changing to a new system is a part of that tradition. Even the British system has changed. for example being a Lord in Britian does not automatically convey a seat in the House of Lords.
My Lords and Gentlemen,
My resignation was made known in a
speech to this Parliament, and its confirmation was recently announced in the
Court Circular.
I said nothing about force or coercion, if by that force against other Members is meant. I say that the Noble Lord has ignored the past practices of this House, and has unilaterally begun using his his own terms (cloture, etc.), and his own procedures (seconds; the wording used to call divisions; etc.).
My Lords and Gentlemen,
I stand corrected about the end of the Livingston administration.
Mr. Livingston did attempt to assert that the Speaker had in some way violated the house, which is sheer poppycock, or am I not allowed to use that term until it becomes Livingston approved?
The organic law, the acts of parliament and the standing orders are mostly silent to the terms and procedures here and thus my office is given great latitude, and my practices have been shown effective as the house has fully understood my meaning.
Livingston has made a fine case to allow the Speaker to continue doing as he has been doing based on the Speakers excellent results.
I say lets not stick ourselves in our British colored box.
God save the King
My Lords and Gentlemen,
The office of King is also given a great deal of latitude, and yet everyone seems agreed that the monarchy should be limited by British-style constitutionalism, because (whether or not we have always lived up to it) that is a Hanoverian tradition.
This is what we call convention. Even though the King, or the Speaker, or a Judge, could legally start doing things his own way, they are expected to remain within the broad spectrum of previous custom until the people, embodied in Parliament, say otherwise.
Terms like cloture are indeed understood by Members, because all current Members are Americans. That is a coincidence of location, not something fundamentally superior about the word cloture. The term "Executive Order" would also be understood by Members, and yet we call them Proclamations, Orders-in-Council, and so forth, because that is all part of the Hanoverian tradition.
If we are going to change the whole direction of our parliamentary practise, let us at least have a Resolution saying what direction it's going in. If Parliament wants a system apparently based on the science of computation, and loaded with Americanisms, let them say so, and I will go back into my box.
My Lords and Gentlemen:
As many of you know, I have a bit of an attachment to the ways of Old Britannia, and I do confess that I would like to see a number of those of our traditions inspired by Westminster maintained here, at Bergen.
Elsewhere throughout the Realm, I find myself no longer so...rigid...in my opinions that Hanover's universal atmosphere ought to be distinctly English in character. But here at the capital, at least, I think it best that those high Westminster ways that we have become used to be maintained, at least as far as is reasonable.
In my Church--the Roman Catholic Church--the expression, the presentation of liturgical celebrations varies greatly from culture-to-culture, throughout the world. There are American innovations and Asian ones and African, and so on, and so on.
But at Rome, herself, the liturgy is celebrated by the book in the most solemn fashion possible. What a celebrant can get away with in Los Angeles or in Cologne or in Osaka, he cannot get away with in Rome. At Rome, the high ceremonial of the Roman Empire is preserved even today in the most solemn forms of the Roman Liturgy and other Papal ceremonies.
I believe that this kingdom should behave like what it claims to be: a Constitutional Monarchy in the Western European tradition. She ought not to behave like the American Republic.
Now, I say that with all due respect to my own country, whose traditions I wholly love and cherish. Washington's approach to the ordering of legislative business in Congress is every bit as dignified as that of Westminster, if not more so. But this kingdom long ago adopted the ways of Westminster and it is my opinion that we do well to maintain them, at least here in Bergen.
But again, I do not reject the Washington style because I feel it lacks dignity in any way. On the contrary. Should it happen that this body decide to adopt rules and terms more similar to those of, say, the United States Senate, I would not worry at all that Hanover's Parliament had lost any measure of dignity or propriety. I would be concerned, however, that we had traded something we've come to cherish for something foreign to our Hanoverian experience...and perhaps without good reason.
Hear, hear!
My Lords and Gentlemen, this is of course one of that small group of subjects where I agree totally with the Honourable Gentleman, Mr. Marchmain.