There is every prospect that the Autumn Session of Parliament which opened on Monday will be as short as the Government. desire, for practically the only subject other than the war in South Africa to which the Opposition intend to direct their attention is the Government contract question xs effecting Mr. Chamberlain and his family. The first three days of the Session were devoted, after the re-election of Mr. Gully as Speaker, to the swearing-in of members by the antiquated and cumbrous method to which the House still clings, as it does to meny other obsolete forms and practices.
the ceremony was reliever by one humor: ous incident. Mr. Keir Hardie elected to affirm instead of taking the anth, on the ground that he had a conscientious objection" to kissing the sume book as Mr. Chamberlain. Last night the Queen'sSpeech was reached, and with it " great field-night in both Houses—a field-night in which so many of the leaders on both sides took part that one may confidently reckon that the whole debate on the Address will be compressed into a very few days. The leaders of the two parties in the Lords—tho Marquis of Saiabury and the Earl of Kimberley—both sp ko, and so did the two leaders in the Commons—Mr. Balfour and Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, But interested as everyone was in the pronouncement of Lord Salisbury as to the settlement which would follow the war, these were not the speeches which at'ric*- 1 most attention in either Hous, In the Lords it was that of the Earl of Roseb: ry, and in the Commons that of Mr. Chamberlain.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.