NEWS OF THE WEEK.
PARLIAMENT was prorogued on Monday, when a very uninteresting Queen's Speech was read by the Lord Chan- eellor,—one about as different from what her Majesty would have delivered, had she really been disposed to give the nation a glimpse of her mind, as are the conventional greetings of strangers from their real thoughts about each other. The queen remarks that her relations with all foreign Powers "con- tinue to be of a pacific and friendly character;" that in order not to get to quarrelling about Africa she has entered into negotiations with the Powers principally concerned "for the purpose of marking out the boundaries within which the action of the respective Governments is to be confined," including, of course, the mutual recognition by France and Great Britain of the Zanzibar protectorate and the Madagascar protec- torate. The Queen explains that she has offered to submit to arbitration the principal subject of difference with the United :States as to the seal-fishing in Behring Sea, and is doing all in her power to adjust the matters in dispute between France and England as to the Newfoundland fisheries ; she refers to her pleasure in sanctioning the Act for conferring free institutions upon Western Australia, and the satisfaction with which she has learnt that a treaty has been concluded with the Boers as to Swaziland ; she then enumerates the scanty list of important legislative measures carried, and concludes by proroguing Parliament to October 25th, when it will no doubt be again prorogued till the second or third week in November. True to his rode to the end, the private Member whose voice was the last heard in cross-examination of the Government was Sir George Campbell. He was inquisitive about Northern Queensland, about Swaziland, and about servants of the State and directorships of public Companies, up to the moment when the sitting was suspended.
