IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1197, 8 February 1895, Page 28

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

London, February 5. The House of Lords has agreed to the Address-in-Reply. Mr 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 the Throne he regards as a farce, and says it has not the slightest chance of passing. The Duko of Devonshire, in the course of a speech, stated that the Liberal Unionists will maintain their alliance with, but will not merge their identity in, the Conservative Party. London, February 6. The Marquis of Salisbury, in the course of a speech in the House of Lords, referred to the reported reformation of that Chamber, and declared that to maintain the House of Lords as a sham, while destroying its reality, was ridiculous and contemptible. The Government, ho argued, were engaged in sterile contests, and neglecting the vital interests of the poor. Lord Rosebery insisted that a measure dealing with the House of Lords 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 resolution in a Speech from the Throne. The debate in the House of Commons on the Address-in-Reply is up to the present of an uninteresting character. Colonel Howard Vincent, M.P. for Sheffield, withdrew an amendment which he proposed for a Customs union of the Empire on the Government promising a Bill to enable Australia to enter into fiscal relations with the other colonies. Colonel Vincent said he wished to meet the colonies as far as possible, and hoped they would succeed in enlarging their intercolonial trade, despite treaty difficulties. The Opposition Party moved an amendment that in view of the large constitutional changes proposed, 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 Marquis of Salisbury in his speech in the House of Lords declared that the resolution dealing with the House of Lords had not been given notice of in the first lists owing to the trivial majority of the Government, who had raised the popular agitation to divert attention from other measures, so as to pass these by means of log-rolling. , Lord Rosebery said the passing of such a resolution would virtually involve a dissolution.

The Tories offered to support Mr John Redmond in a vote of want of confidence if ho would limit his demands to a dissolution merely. Mr Sydney Buxton, Parliamentary Secretary to the Colonial Office, speaking in the House, said the greatest attention would be paid to the deliberations of the Ottawa Conference. He highly praised the Earl of Jersey for his great tact as British representative, and his valuable report on tho proceedings. In replying to a question, Mr Buxton said that next session a lßill would be introduced allowing intercolonial trade treaties, and that the Government were considering, amongst other matters, whether the German or Belgian treaties, while allowing England to favour colonial goods as against foreign, prevented the colonies receiving a preference regarding English goods.