MOMENTOUS SESSION OPENED.

Colonist, Volume LVI, Issue 13391, 12 February 1914, Page 5

MOMENTOUS SESSION OPENED.

SPEECH FROM- THE THRONE.

HOME RULE

UNIONIST AMENDMENT TO THE : ADDRESS. " : ■■■'",.

London, Feb. 10.

King George and Queen Mary drove in state to the opening of Parliament. The day was fine. ' .

The Speech from the Throne regret-, ted the failure of the efforts to solve Home Rule by agreement, and expressed the hope that in dealing with the matter, in which hopes' and fears "vere so many, and in which all were so_ keenly concerned, arid which unless 1? an dledrrinw^ «ritfe ftv*©ssgtel^fjXnlgiti^Jt/j1 and a. spirit ;bfe r mutual :c6ncessfen=ithreatened grscve-. difficultrajg. the 'co.-operati6iife.of- all partie^JaaS creeds would secure a lasting svttla naent.

Pi-oposals would be submitted to reconstitute the Second Chamber.

Measures woSild be introduced to deal with industrial and agricultural housing; also Imperial naturalisation 5 and development of national education The Government would give effect to the Safety at Sea Conference's recommendations.

The Speech referred to the friendly foreign relations a*hd the approaching visit of tha King and Queen to President Poincare, and stated that satisfactory negotiations were proceeding wi.th Germany and Turkey regarding industrial and- commercial interests in Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf.

Mr. W. H. Long, in moving the Unionist amendment to the Addfess-in-Reply, declared that the United Kingdom was for the first time for centuries threatened with civil war. A hundred thousand Ulstermen were deter mined at the cost of their lives to regist the Home Rule Bill. Bloodshed had. been avoided only by Sir Edward Carson's resolute and l>rave leadership. Ho asked whether the Government wa: sure that the struggle would be confined to Ireland. The Government's not daring to interfere in South Africa at the present moment showed how idle was the Imperial Parliament's boasted supremacy. He urged the Premier to pause and consult the electorates. It would be a crime of the first magnitude to shoot down the people of Ulster.