LATEST CABLE NEWS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume I, Issue 78, 8 January 1881, Page 2

LATEST CABLE NEWS.

THE QUEEN'S SPEECH.

[Retjter's Special to Star.]

London, January 6.

This afternoon Parliament was opened, and to-day the Queen's speech referred to the continued maintenance of the European concert, and said that there was every reason to hope that a peaceful solution of the Turko-Greek difficulty would be arrived at. Alluding to the state of affairs in Southern Africa, the speech said that, owing to the.rebellion of the Boers, it was now necessary to take strong measures to re-assert British authority in the Transvaal. The outbreak in Basutoland would soon, it was hoped, be suppressed. Regarding Afghanistan, the speech an- , nounced that it was not intended to retain vCandahar ; and referring to the unsettled state of Ireland, stated that her Majesty's Government would introduce bills to provide for the necessary coercive measures for the suppression of the existing agitation, and a bill would, at the same time, be brought forward dealing with the Irish land question. Sir E. Wood is to proceed to the Cape to command the British forces in the Transvaal.

Parnell has arrived in London to attend the sittings of Parliament. £200,000 of Adelaide mortgage debentures have been subscribed for at par.

Six more Land Leaguers have been arrested in Ireland, and will shortly be placed on their trial. The official report of the disaster met with by a detachment of the 9th Regiment' in Transvaal almost completely confirms the accounts first-received. The detachment was escorting a convoy of supplies, when it was surrounded by Boers, who summoned the British to surrender, and upon the latter refusing, the Boers swept down on them, and 112 officers and men were killed.