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Article QUARTERLY COMMUNICATION.—SEPTEMBER 2. ← Page 4 of 8 →
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Quarterly Communication.—September 2.
Grand Lodge Brother Stevens was out of order in attempting to discuss the evidence . " Bro . SANGSTER submitted , that although it might be called a question of order , the not allowing Bro . Stevens to comment on the evidence was in fact deciding the point of law that he had not the right to clo so . But to put the question at rest , he ( Bro . S . ) hacl himself proposed a motion that the Board of General Purposes should produce the evidence taken
before them , which motion the Grand Master would not allow to be put . Pie therefore repeated , that in the case of appeals to Grand Lodge , the Lodge stood in the same position as the House of Lords in appeals from Chancery ; that there the Chancellor or Speaker of the House hacl no more power than any individual member , and that all questions of law , as well as the final decision , must be come to by the House as a body . That H . R . H . and not the Grand Lodge having decided against the
reception of evidence , the whole proceedings were irregular . And he appealed to Bro . D . Pollock , who was so well acquainted with parliamentary proceedings , whether the practice of the House of Lords in cases of appeal was not as he ( Bro . S . ) had stated it . Bro . D . POLLOCK did not answer the question , but stated that he considered the confirmation of minutes to be merely a verification of their accuracy , and that it was not competent to any Brother to object to the
propriety of any motion passed on a previous occasion . f Bro . SANGSTER replied , that the P . G . R . must be ignorant of the practice of Grand Lodge if such were his opinion , it being perfectly well known that in Masonry it was a common practice to object to the confirmation of minutes , however accurate , when the succeeding Grand Lodge did not coincide with the principle . The W . Brother then proceeded to argue that Bro . Stevens should have been allowed to discuss
the evidence on his appeal , but was stopped by the Grand Master , and Bro . Sangster concluded by moving his amendment . Bro . STEVENS , in seconding the amendment , stated his surprise that the legal Brethren should be so little conversant with Masonic law . In the Book of Constitutions it was expressly declared that no new law should come into operation until it had been duly passed in one Grand Lodge ancl confirmed in another . The GRAND MASTER . —The Brother is out of order . We are not
discussing any new law , but whether the minutes shall or shall not be confirmee ! . Bro . STEVENS respectfully submitted that any new law passed for the first time must be embodied in the minutes , ancl that therefore their confirmation or non-confirmation involved the whole question . But he was prepared , as the M . W . Grand Master seemed to desire it , to pass from the question as one of law , and would consider it as one of practice .
All who were present knew what the practice was ; ancl he would illustrate it by a very singular example . The Grand Lodge , some few years since , passed a resolution , unanimously recommending the Asylum for Worthy Aged and Decayed Freemasons to the favourable consideration of the Craft . When , however , the proceedings of that day were published , this resolution was omitted ; upon which the worthy Treasurer of that charity called on the Grand Secretary ( who could at the moment correct
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Quarterly Communication.—September 2.
Grand Lodge Brother Stevens was out of order in attempting to discuss the evidence . " Bro . SANGSTER submitted , that although it might be called a question of order , the not allowing Bro . Stevens to comment on the evidence was in fact deciding the point of law that he had not the right to clo so . But to put the question at rest , he ( Bro . S . ) hacl himself proposed a motion that the Board of General Purposes should produce the evidence taken
before them , which motion the Grand Master would not allow to be put . Pie therefore repeated , that in the case of appeals to Grand Lodge , the Lodge stood in the same position as the House of Lords in appeals from Chancery ; that there the Chancellor or Speaker of the House hacl no more power than any individual member , and that all questions of law , as well as the final decision , must be come to by the House as a body . That H . R . H . and not the Grand Lodge having decided against the
reception of evidence , the whole proceedings were irregular . And he appealed to Bro . D . Pollock , who was so well acquainted with parliamentary proceedings , whether the practice of the House of Lords in cases of appeal was not as he ( Bro . S . ) had stated it . Bro . D . POLLOCK did not answer the question , but stated that he considered the confirmation of minutes to be merely a verification of their accuracy , and that it was not competent to any Brother to object to the
propriety of any motion passed on a previous occasion . f Bro . SANGSTER replied , that the P . G . R . must be ignorant of the practice of Grand Lodge if such were his opinion , it being perfectly well known that in Masonry it was a common practice to object to the confirmation of minutes , however accurate , when the succeeding Grand Lodge did not coincide with the principle . The W . Brother then proceeded to argue that Bro . Stevens should have been allowed to discuss
the evidence on his appeal , but was stopped by the Grand Master , and Bro . Sangster concluded by moving his amendment . Bro . STEVENS , in seconding the amendment , stated his surprise that the legal Brethren should be so little conversant with Masonic law . In the Book of Constitutions it was expressly declared that no new law should come into operation until it had been duly passed in one Grand Lodge ancl confirmed in another . The GRAND MASTER . —The Brother is out of order . We are not
discussing any new law , but whether the minutes shall or shall not be confirmee ! . Bro . STEVENS respectfully submitted that any new law passed for the first time must be embodied in the minutes , ancl that therefore their confirmation or non-confirmation involved the whole question . But he was prepared , as the M . W . Grand Master seemed to desire it , to pass from the question as one of law , and would consider it as one of practice .
All who were present knew what the practice was ; ancl he would illustrate it by a very singular example . The Grand Lodge , some few years since , passed a resolution , unanimously recommending the Asylum for Worthy Aged and Decayed Freemasons to the favourable consideration of the Craft . When , however , the proceedings of that day were published , this resolution was omitted ; upon which the worthy Treasurer of that charity called on the Grand Secretary ( who could at the moment correct