Britons Fooled

Carrying out a tradition more than a century old, His Majesty's Faithful House of Commons petitioned George V to bestow "some signal mark of favor" on the retiring Speaker of the House, firm, courteous, precise John Henry Whitley (TIME, July 2).

Custom entitles every retiring Speaker to receive a viscountcy. The King-Emperor has no choice as to which "signal mark of favor" he must bestow. Moreover, in Mr. Whitley's case the Sovereign was impelled not by necessity but by liveliest gratitude. Well His Majesty knows that through seven stormy years the dignity of the Throne and the sanctity of tradition have been upheld by Speaker Whitley in an often ribald House of Commons. Therefore most Britons were positive that Mr. Whitley was about to become a viscount--but they were fooled.

In his firm, courteous, precise way John Henry Whitley informed both King and Country, last week, that he will not accept a peerage. "My reasons," he said, "are personal."

Thus did a seven-year-stickler for tradition speak amuck, at last, shattering a precedent which was established when Speaker Charles Shaw Lefevre was created Viscount Eversley by Queen Victoria in 1857.* Perhaps only once before has John Henry Whitley broken with tradition. In 1921 he was the first Briton ever to take the Speaker's Chair after having been "in trade" (in business). Modest yet inflexible, he last week retired as a commoner entitled to a pension of -L-4,000 ($19,440) a year, having risen from the nonentity of a poor cotton spinner. His successor is Speaker the Rt. Hon. Edward Algernon Fitzroy, son of Baron Southampton, one-time Page of Honor to Queen Victoria, but now called "Mr. Speaker" and ranking as "First Commoner of the Realm."

Sly and shrewd was a dig taken at Right Honorable Members by Speaker Whitley in his last address to the House of Commons: "The duties of the Chair do not become lighter as the years pass on. With each new Parliament there are more members who wish to take an active part in the proceedings by question or in debate, and a Speaker often carries to his pillow an acute sense of loss for the speeches that were undelivered--speeches no doubt much better than those to which he has listened. [Laughter, cheers.]"

*The "mark of favor" precedent was set in 1817 when George III created retiring Speaker Charles Abbott a baron; but the mark was not subsidized at viscountcy until 1857.