IMPERIAL POLITICS.

Press, Volume LII, Issue 9022, 7 February 1895, Page 5

IMPERIAL POLITICS.

Press Associ«tion-By Tcli^rapa-Copjright.

CABLE NEWS.

Loxdox, February 5.

The Duke of Devonshire, in the course of a speech, stated that the Unionists will maintain an alliance •with, but will not merge their identity in the Conservative party.

The House of Lords has agreed to the Address-in-Reply.

The Right Hon. A. J. Balfour states that the agricultural depression in Great Britain has reached the stage of a national tragedy. The Government programme set forth in the Speech from tbe Throne he regards as a farce, and he says it has not the slightest chance of passing. February 6. The Marquis of Salisbury, referring to the reported reformation of the Lords, declared that to maintain the House of Lords as a sham while destroying its reality, was ridiculous and contemptible. The Government, he argued, were engaged in sterile contests and neglecting the vital interests of the poor. Lord Rosebery insisted that the measure would be honestly submitted by the Government and pressed to a division while they retained a majority in the Lower Chamber. There was not, he declared, any precedent for referring to the House of Lords by a resolution in a speech from the Throne. The debate in the House of Commons on the Address-in-Eeply is up to the present of an uninteresting character.

Mr Howard Vincent, M.P. for Sheffield, withdrew his amendment for a Customs Union of the empire on the Imperial Government promising a Bill to enable Australia to enter into fiscal relations with other colonies. He said he wished to meet the colonies as far as possible, and hoped they would succeed in enlarging the intercolonial trade, despite treaty difficulties.

The Opposition moved an amendment —"That in view of the large constitutional changes an early appeal to the country is desirable."

Mr J. E. Redmond, M.P. for Waterford city, has several amendments to propose to the Address in Reply.

The Irish party in Parliament have re-elected Mr Jus tin McCarthy as Chairman.

The Tories ofiered to support Mr John Redmond p a vote of want of confidence, if he would limit his demand to a dissolution.

The Marquis of Salisbury, in the Lords, declared that the resolution limiting the House of Lords had not been given notice of in the first lists owing to the trivial majority of the Government, which raised a popular agitation to divert attention and pass other measures by means of logrolling.

Lord Rosebery said the passage of such a resolution would virtually involve a dissolution.