SPEAKER, a title of the presiding officer in the legislatures of various countries. In the English parliament the lord chan cellor acts as Speaker of the House of Lords, but should his office be in commission the Crown usually appoints a Speaker to supply his place, a case in point being that of Sir L. Shadwell, vice chancellor, who in 1835 was appointed Speaker during the time the Great Seal was in commission.
The Speaker of the House of Lords need not necessarily be a member of the house; Brougham in 183o sat on the woolsack as Speaker in his capacity of lord chancellor, being then plain Mr. Brougham, his patent of nobility not having yet been made out. The House of Lords has also deputy Speakers who are appointed by commission. The duties of the Speaker of the House of Lords are defined by a standing order as follows : "The lord chancellor, when he speaks to the house, is always to speak uncovered and is not to adjourn the house, or do anything else as mouth of the house, without the consent of the Lords first had, except the ordinary thing about bills, which are of course, wherein the Lords may likewise overrule; as for preferring one bill before another, and such-like; and in case of difference among the Lords, it is to be put to the question; and if the lord chancellor will speak to anything particularly he is to go to his own place as a peer." The Speaker of the House of Lords, as compared with the Speaker of the House of Commons, is an official without power; even his seat, the woolsack, is technically outside the house. Contrary to the practice in the Commons, he acts as a strong party man, making speeches on behalf of Government measures as a peer.
From time immemorial the Speaker of the House of Commons has been the guardian of its powers, dignities, liberties and privileges which the house has won for itself in a period extend ing over seven centuries. Chosen by his fellow-members, subject to the approval of the Crown, to preside over their deliberations, the Speaker is entrusted with the duty of enforcing multifarious rules and orders, the outcome of long years of experience. These include the putting every question on bills and motions before the house. They empower the chair to accept or refuse the closure, to check irrelevance or tedious repetition, to quell disorder, to issue warrants for the issue of new writs, to reprimand, or, if may be, to commit offenders against its rules.
Often, also, it is the duty of the Speaker to decide on the spur of the moment, what is and what is not a parliamentary expression. In recent times at least one occupant of the chair had constantly by his side a list of admissible parliamentary expletives. From time to time new adjectives and nouns have to be adjudicated upon but it is within the discretion of the chair to determine how far they must be taken with the context and the circumstances of the moment, since it is possible for a word to be used in the heat of the moment in a manner calculated to give offence which, on another occasion, might pass without objection from any quarter of the house.
The most weighty decisions have from time to time to be taken at short notice by the chair, on its being suddenly confronted with an unprecedented situation. These decisions require, in addition to infinite tact, patience and courage, the prompt exercise of that peculiar authority and understanding of men which the con fidence and respect of the house at large can alone confer.
The difficulties which confronted Shaw-Lefevre, who was first called to the chair in 1839, when the evolution of the non-partisan Speaker was all but complete, have increased tenfold since that date. A multiplicity of causes have fundamentally changed the temper and spirit of the House of Commons at the present day. The successive lowerings of the franchise, the formation of small subsidiary parties acting independently of the official whips, the heavy strain of practically continuous sessions, the altered mode of procedure mostly tending to enhance the power of the Govern ment of the day at the expense of the independent member, have increased the ever-growing responsibilities of the chair. Tradition, however, binds the Commons together with amazing strength and so long as the peculiar and essential functions of the chair—in ruling by general consent rather than by compulsion, in upholding freedom of speech without allowing it to degenerate into licence— are maintained, it seems safe to predict that the proud heritage of seven centuries of liberty and progress will be handed on unim paired to future generations of a free and self-governing nation.