whether at the opening of a new Parliament or a new session, is usually greeted with Ministerial shouts of approbation or Opposition cries of dissent. These Party cheers constitute a complete acknowledgment that the King’s Speech is the speech, not of the King, but of his Ministers. 2 In each House a motion for an Address to the King for his “most gracious Speech” is submitted on behalf of the Government. The proposer and seconder of the Address in each House are in uniform or full dress. This is the only occasion, be it noted, when a Member, whether of the Peerage or of the Commons, is permitted to appear in Parliament otherwise than in civilian clothes, a rule which, probably in the history of Parliament, was suspended only during the Great War, when many Members wore khaki. The uniforms of the Militia or Yeomanry are much affected, and, failing the commission to wear them, Court costume or levee dress is the rule. Another order, which prohibits Members of either House from “carrying a lethal weapon,” is also suspended for the occasion in favour of the sword of the soldier or courtier. There is, however, one instance of the Address having been seconded by a Member who wore no costume of ceremony. That was when Charles Fenwick, the Labour representative, who at the opening of the first session of the Liberal Parliament of 1893-95 discharged that function in his ordinary everyday clothes. In March 1894 the same Liberal Administration being in office—save that Lord Rosebery had succeeded Gladstone as Premier—an amendment to the Address moved by Labouchere, Member for Northampton, hostile to the House of Lords, was carried against the Government by the narrow majority of two—147 votes to 145. It declared “that the power now enjoyed by persons not elected to Parliament by the possessors of the parliamentary franchise to prevent Bills being submitted to your Majesty for your Royal approval shall cease,” and expressed the hope that “if it be necessary your Majesty will, with and by the advice of your responsible Ministers, use the powers vested in your Majesty to secure the passing of this much-needed reform.” The method suggested by Labouchere was the creation of 500 peers who would be willing to carry through the House of Lords a Bill for the abolition of that Chamber and themselves. Sir William Harcourt, Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons, declined to treat the reverse as a vote of censure, or to add the amendment to the Address. “The Address in answer to the Speech from the Throne,” said he, “is a proceeding for which her Majesty’s Government make themselves responsible—responsible as the representatives of the majority in the House of Commons from whom that Address proceeds. I think that is a clear constitutional principle which nobody will be disposed to dispute. The Government could not present to the Sovereign in a formal manner a document of which they are not prepared to accept the