by referring to the rules, or, if needful, to precedents.” It is also the practice for the clerks to have an audience with the Speaker every day before the House meets, to draw his attention to points of order that are likely to arise, and to confer with him generally on the business of the day. Therefore it is a rare experience for the Speaker to be brought suddenly face to face with an unprecedented situation. And in such a difficulty he has the advantage of being able, as the supreme authority in the House, to impose his ruling unquestioned on all concerned, even should he have gone beyond his exact functions and powers as the director of debate, the preserver of order, the guardian of the rights of Members. Mr. Speaker Lowther was asked, May 14, 1920, how a mistake he might make could be redressed. His reply, greeted with loud laughter, was “The Chair, like the Pope, is infallible.” It must not be supposed, however, that smooth and easy is the way of the President of the House of Commons. The whole art of the Speakership does not consist in presenting a dignified, ceremonial figure, in wig and gown, on a carved and canopied Chair, and having a mastery of the technicalities of procedure. The situation that tests most severely the mettle of the Speaker is one that not infrequently arises in the House of Commons, when there is what the newspapers call “a scene,” and he is expected to stand forth on the dais of the Chair the one calm, serious, stern and impartial personality, looming above the noise and recrimination which arises from the benches below. It is not cleverness that is then the indispensable quality in a Speaker. More to the purpose, for the controlling and the moderating of the passions of a popular assembly, are the superficial gifts of an impressive presence, an air of authority, a ready tongue, and a resonant voice. Still, the control of the House in such an emergency will depend not so much upon the appearance, the temperament, the elocution of Mr. Speaker, as upon the measure of the confidence and respect of Members which he has previously won by more sterling qualities; and the qualities upon which the trust of the House of Commons in its Speaker reposes most securely and abidingly are strength of character, fairness of mind, urbanity of temper, or a combination of tactful firmness with strict impartiality.