s
request the privilege of addressing the chamber, the peers themselves
decide which shall have the floor. Order in debate is enforced, not by
the Chancellor, but by the members, and when they speak they address,
not the chair, but "My Lords." Although, if a peer, the Chancellor may
speak and vote as any other member, he possesses as presiding officer
no power of the casting vote. In short, the position which the Chancellor
occupies in the chamber is all but purely formal. In addition to
"deputy speakers," designated to preside in the Chancellor's absence,
the remaining officials of the Lords who owe their positions to
governmental appointment are the Clerk of Parliament, who keeps the
records; the Sergeant-at-Arms, who attends personally the presiding
officer and acts as custodian of the mace; and the Gentleman Usher of
the Black Rod, a pompous dignitary whose function it is to summon the
Commons when their attendance is required and to play a more or less
useful part upon other ceremonial occasions. The one important
official whom the House itself elects is the Lord Chairman of
Committees, whose duty it is to preside in Committee of the Whole.

[Footnote 181: See p. 127.]

[Footnote 182: See p. 63.]

[Footnote 183: In the days of Elizabeth the
presiding official sat upon a sack actually filled
with wool. He sits now, as a matter of fact, upon
an ottoman, upholstered in red. But the ancient
designation of the seat survives.]

IV. PRIVILEGES OF THE HOUSES AND OF MEMBERS

*133. Nature and Extent of Privileges.*--On the basis in part of custom
and in part of statute there exists a body of definitely established
privileges, some of which appertain to the Commons as a chamber, some
similarly to the Lords, and some to the individual members of both
houses. The privileges which at the opening of a parliament the
newly-elected Speaker requests and, as a matter of course, obtains for
the chamber over which he presides include principally those of
freedom from arrest, freedom of speech, access to the sovereign, and a
"favorable construction" upon the proceedings of the House. Freedom
from arrest is enjoyed by members during a session and a period of
forty days before and after it, but it does not protect a member (p. 127)
from the consequences of any indictable offense nor, in civil action