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CHAPTER VII

THE OFFICIAL REPORTER

history of freedom and the services

“ No circumstance in the history of our country, - not even parlia

mentary reform, - has done more for freedom and good government, than the unfettered liberty of reporting. And of all the services which

than

the press has rendered to free institutions, none has been greater than

its bold defiance of parliamentary privilege, while laboring for the

interests of the people.” — T. E. May. “ The Reporters Gallery is an elaborate organization for the spread ing of news of the Imperial Parliament to all the ends of the

earth .” — Macdonagh. The official reporter of legislative and legal proceedings has been a comparatively recent development of the press. As long as the news sheet was simply a means of communication between

those absent in foreign wars and friends at home, the conduct and the actionsof public officialswereofno concern to readers; as long as public officials regarded their conduct and actions as sacro sanct, they considered any report of their proceedings an unwar ranted interference with their public work. With the enlarge

ment of the sphere of the press, and with the development of the theory that the public has a right to know what is said by its

political representatives, the parliamentary reporter made his surreptitious entrance.

Yet the way had been long prepared for him. Sir Symonds D 'Ewes in the early seventeenth century was restless under the admonitions of the Speaker of the House of Commons that the Members should not discuss its affairs out-of-doors and should give no note of its proceedings to " any person or persons whatso ever, not being members of this House.” i During the reigns of Elizabeth and of James I, “ strangers who had found their way into the House were held in custody of the sergeant-at-arms until

they had sworn at the bar not to disclose what they heard within 1 The Journals of all the Parliaments during the reign of Queen Elizabeth

both of the House of Lords and House of Commons, pp. 432,