FROM AMERCIAN PAPERS.

Thames Star, Volume IX, Issue 3072, 19 December 1878, Page 1

FROM AMERCIAN PAPERS.

THE EASTERN QUESTION. Londoh, November 19.—The Committee organised to urge an early meeting of Parliament in view of a war with Afghanistan having asked Lord Beaconfield to give them an interview, the Premier has written a letter to their Chairman, Lord Lawrence, in reply. Lord Beacons Geld. says he is at a loss to perceive what useful purpose can be served by a more extended expression through a deputation from the Committee of the opinions which Lord and others have so frequently and copiously explained in regard to the assembling of "Parliament. The Govern- ,„ ment will, as a matter of course, be prepared in the event. of the com* mencement of hostilities in India to advise Her Majesty to make such commu, nication to Parliament as the letter and ! spirit of the Act regulating.the regulations of the Crown with India may seem to require. This would, seem, .to be a not less satisfactory and scarcely a.less constitu- . tinal mode of meeting the occasion than a series of, memorials and deputations. Papers relative to India will be published .before.-the end of the month. Lord Lawrence's Committee to-day passed a resolution regretting Lord Beaconsfield's refusal to receive the deputation, and emphatically condemning his apparent determination, in the event of war being declared, not to advise, Her Majesty, to consult Parliament,' until hostilities have commenced. The Committee adjourned till Friday, and decided meanwhile to collect signatures to the protest. The Act cited by Lord Beaoonsfield in .his letter to Lord Lawrence prescribes .that when Parliament ia sitting any order directing an actual commencement of hostilities by Her Majesty's • forcesi in India must be communicated to i it within three months, and if Parliament

is not sitting, then a month after it re-as-sembles. Thus the Government is under no legal obligation to call Parliament earlier than usual. .