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IK PARLIAMENT.

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IK PARLIAMENT. MONDAY. In the House of Lords the Queen's Speech was tfeod. It contained three paragraphs. After the &8U&1 adjournment the House re-assembled, and Lord Denbigh moved and Earl Powis seconded an Address in reply to the Speech. Lord Kimberley declined to enter into a discussion of a Speech which contained nothing. Lords Cowper and North- brook having attacked the Liberals, the Marquis of Salisbury addressed the House. He enlarged ttpoa the importance of the part which that House, lepreeenting, as he said, the opinion of the island in which they lived," would have to play in the next year. The Duke of Devonshire made an elaborate Attack on the Liberal leaders, and complained of their refusal to stare how the country would be governed until February. He was especially anxious to know what would be done in Egypt, and seemed to be of opinion that the Government would have bean justified in retaining office until the House of Commons had refused supplies. Lord Herschell briefly justified the policy of the Opposition peers in .declining to enter on a useless debate, and hinted that the foreign affairs of the country might still be iscccessfully conducted even if Lord Salisbury were not in power. The Address was agreed to, and the Bonae adjourned. The House of Commons assembled at four o clock, when Mr Barton, in the elegant attire of an Irish -Queen's Counsel less wig and gown, rose to move an Address to the Crown in response to the Speech from the Throne. Mr Barton on several occasions during the last session of the late Parliament, showed some fikill and more aplomb as a debater. Much, therefore, was expected of him. for his task, though dificult, afforded i-cope for the exhibition of either an ironical OT ft playful humour. Mr Barton, however, achieved a faifare. Instead of his usual ease of gesture and fluency of speech, he read closely from a manuscript from wbieh he rarely raised his eyes. This is always distressing, and, what is more, is unfair. Yet had the contents of the manuscript been good it oould have been forgiven him but the contents were not good, being trivial to the last degree. Mr Cross, who followed, made more stir. He is a burly youth, full to overflowing with an ingenuous simplicity. His speech was full of a childish humour. He made many references to "absent friends" and chuckled over their graves with the ill-timed mewiment of a Tony Lumpkin. He emphasised the fact that the Government he was supporting stood condemned, and indeed his frankness on the unpleasing topic was evidently distressful to his excellent and business- r like father, who, sitting in the Peers' gallery, was observed to bury his face in his hands and ipre- aamably) to shed bitter tears at such unfiiial jesting. Altogether, Mr Cross cannot be congratulated 011 his speech and generally up to this point the whole Houge felt it was being badly treated. When Mr Aaquith rose to move his amendment, which was (put briefly) an imperative notice to quit, the House experienced great relief ai-id set itself to listen with I pleasure and composure. The speech was conceived in a spirit of stern, almost ascetic, self-denial. The orator never allowed himself even for a moment to wander from the logical track he had laid down for himself. His propositions were few and simple. A' Mir, 'sters ought to enjoy the confidence both of the House and of the country. You enjoy neither. The elections prove it. Lay down your seals and go." From this text he preached a short and excellent sermon, enlivened by some strokes of sareasm levelled at the sham situation of the Tories and the "perverted fidelity" of the Liberal Unionists, but not lit up by any animated passages of rhetoris or crowned by any overwhelming quotations. When he Bat down the general verdict was that he had done excellently well. Severity of treatment and a rigorous loppicg away of extraneous twigs of fancy are things much too good to quarrel with. Still, if a speech is to be remembered for more than two days after its delivery it must contain some elements not to be found in Mr Asquith's weil-considered, Well-delivered, and most effective indictment. Perhaps after all it only lacked a dash of delivery, which may not be a good thing. Mr Burt followed at considerable length, and said nothing which was not wtru worth saying. But already the debate had begtio to and its hollowness too, become ap. parent. Csesar has been appealed to and hs made his answer. To sneer at King Majority is lawful enough, but not within the precincts of his own pala,ae-tlie House of Commons. Mr Goschen followed Mr Burt, and was a bitter disappointment. He was as noisy as ever, but where was his slashing blow," his crashing repartee, his contagious if ungainly merriment? He was futile as a baby; he said nothing which annoyed anybody. What ailed him I do not know. Perhaps he was angry at being made to siieak so e&rlv. However that may be, not even Mr Balfour could have wished him to speak worn. To follow the debate any further would be wasted labour. Mr M'Curthy was mild. Mr Wynd- h&m monotonous, Mr Parker Smith melancholy, Mr Josee Oollings moon-struck, and all men asked one another, How is this to be kept up till Thursday lit midnight ?" TUESDAY. Mr Gladstone resumed the debate in a House crowded still more, if that wc-re possible, than it was yestetd.-iy. The Peers, being idle, choked up their gallerv. The Members' Gallery on the Tory fide of the Hoose was thronged with Tories and Liberals alike, nld latter having chosen this side that they might face their great leader when he was addressing the house. In ttie Strangers' Gallery the heads of the ftuectators rose tier above tier in closest array, and the benches on the two sides of the floor of the House were packed with members, who were squeezed in as thickly as they could be packed. Mr Gladstone was loudiy cheered on rising, and he was in splendid votes, There was no huskiness from beginning to end. For a time in the middle of his speech ha spoke in low tones, as if his strength was flagging, but such was really not the case, and he soon ro^e aQain to his earlier clearness and volume. His speech was very quiet in character. The victor does not need to tramp's on his foe when ho is down. A great portion of what he said was taken up with replying to Mr Justin McCarthy's demands for asauraoces on certain points, and it is enough to say that he met them all It1 a manner which must have been satisfactory to that section of the Nationalists. Home lu;o is to be in th front of the battle. The case of the evicted tenants will be dealt with. The House of Lords receivad. an ominous warning if they reject the Bill, An inquiry by the new Home Secretary into the sentences on the political prisoners was as good as Jromiseo, and he would select what might seem to im to be the best farm of settling the relations between the Imperial and Irish Par liaments, and do his Ise&t to carry it out. He did ntit-fcake the slightest notice of Mr Relmond's demands-L, neglect which Mr Bsdmond and his handful of followers will -remember next session. Mr Balfour, who followed Mr Gladstone, rung the changes upo'; this Kturlied negleet;, and made what capital he could out of it. He will not, however, get the Redmoudite vote, as the party dare not vote to keep a coercionist Govern- ment in office. They may try on the second reading of tba Home Rule Bill to combine with the coercion- istgí, however, to give Mr Gladstone a throw if they can, and they will not forget what hag taken place to-night. The burden of Mr Balfour's speech was that of Mr Goschen's-a series of questions as to the nature of the Bill. As the Oracle it.->eli, however, had spoken and said nothing, there was no!, much to* be gained by shouting across the floor of the House whether or not the Irish Parliament was to be free and unfettered as Mr Redmond demanded. Inquiries < £ thai kind will be the dying groan of the Govern- inent ii their last speech of the debate; and they Will find that they will have to wait till next year before the answer comea to their question. Mr T. P. O'Conner excelled himself to-night, and almost ■excelled every previous effort he had made He was .overflowing at one time with humour and at another with indignation. He was very amusing^ in his account of the part beer played in winning Unionist votes, and he read some election placards, especially one relating to Mr Oscar Browning, with gr? at effect. The House emptied when he sat down, Mr O'Connor himself going out also, though Mr T. W. Russell rose to reply to him. Mr Russell was dreadfully hish- strunjf to-night, aad it was almost painful to listen -to euch eevere intensity of feeling, and to the way in which he shouted his speech, as if he were addressing a House suffering from a severe infliction of deafness. The burden of his argument, by way of retort to Mr ■-O'COBHor, was what he called the foul intimidation etercifecl by the Irish priesthood over the voters. But while Mr O'Connor's speech wan fresh from 'beginning to end, Mr Russell's was an old threadbare friend. Mr Naoroji spoke during the dinner hour in faultless English and with great good sense, and -though the House was thin he was warmly cheered ¡QD both sides when he sat down. I ought to say, also, that he spoke with great modesty, and is evidently very proud of his seat in the English •Dar{ia,ment. Colonel Saunderson made one oi' his Tory speeches, and wound up with the Uj.grt.ga.d0ci0 that if Home Rule wore setup in Ire- Uol the Loyalists there would crumble it into dust, Mr W- Redmond drew an amusing picture of thecolonel for the benefit of the new members, des- .vribing him as warlike in the last degree in appear- ance, but perfectly harmless in reality. Mr Ross, the Conservative gentleman who turned Mr M'Carthy Ollt of Londonderry, made his maiden speech, which mSAAtwed a good deal of vigour and volubility. The debato stood adjourned. A motion by Mr Chamberlain was met by a protest by Mr Healy against the waste of time, the object of whih was polely to let the Government perpetuate Irish lobs. An assertion that the Government had mad 4;) appointments since May was indignantly Aftii,.a h J 3tlr Jackson, and Mr Stevenson then rose and talked the motion out. The Government left the Trsaeur.v bench, and Mr Healy moved the adjoura- of pe House amid Irish laughter. THURSDAY. In the House of Commons there was such a large attendance of members that for the first time for attendance of members that for the first time for many years chairs had to be placed 011 the floor of the House below the gangway. The Peers' and Strangers' Galleries were aho filled. Notices for next session were given by Mr A. C. Morton and Mr D. H. Ni acfarlane; and a number of questions were put in reference to affairs in Afghanistan and the Straits Settlement, the loan to British Columbia, the British Mission to Morocco, innoculation for pleuro pneu- monia, free coinage in India, &c. The debate on the no confidence amendment to the Address in reply to the Speech from the Throne was resumed at twenty minutes past four by Mr Chamberlain, who first pointed out that the Liberal Unionists have come back a party 48 strong, soon to be increased to 49-a thing which had never before happened to a third party. They remained a political force whose influence in the country was not to be measured by their influence in that House. The member for Midlothian, he continued, had spoken of the debate as the most singular in the records of the House, and he agreed with him in that, and also in his statement that the issue between the Unionists and the Home Rule party had been decided by the country. But he could not admit that it was, under the circumstances, irrelevant to do anything more than expel the present Government from office, with- out any regard to the Government of the future, which, with something more than his usual felicity of expression, the right h°D. gentleman had described as a nebular hypothesis. For the next five or six months the nebular hypothesis was going to carry on the whole administration of the country, and to decide its policy, and the opinion of the House of Commons could not be taken upon it. Referring to what he called the conspiracy of silence on the Liberal benches, he asked whether the Welsh members, whose great cry was the disestablishment of the Church, had got any assurance upon that question. Their prospects were not promising, in view of Mr Redmond's mandate that no question was to be brought forward which would be likely to distract attention from Home Rule. He proceeded to quote from speeches de- livered bv Sir W. Harcourt and Mr Gladstone, in which both right hon. gentlemen bad declared in favour of the supremacy of the British Parliament. But the Irish Nationalist party had always demanded in the strongest possible terms that the Irish Parliament should be absolutely supreme in regard to the affairs committed to it, and that no veto upon its acta should be exercised on the advice of the English Government. The result would be that there would be in office for the next six months a Government which, if it kept faith with England, would ensure the hostility of the Irish Nationalist party, and the incoming Government, instead of being in a majority of 40, would be in a minority of 150. There were two conditions essential to the prosecution of the designs of the Opposition—one was that they should be abbolutely agreed amongst themselves, the other that they should be able to count upon a spirit of moderation and conciliation amongst their allies; but they knew that upon many and important questions there were serious differ- ences amongst themselves, and that those whom they sought to benefit were even now professing an intention to dictate to them. He would ask the wisest amongst them to reconsider their position. They could not conceal from themselves that they would be unable to gratify the expectations they had raised, and that their efforts were doomed to inevitable failure. The debate having been continued by, among others, Mr Macartney, Sit John Lubbock, the Solicitor-General, Mr S. Woods, and Sir Henry •Tames, fhe Hmiso with the following result:- For the amendment 350 Against 310 Majority against Government 40 I On the motion of Mr Balfour, the House then at 12-25 adjourned till Thursday next.

LLANSANTFFRAID.

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