The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-11-16 00:00:00

THE POSSIBLE FALL OF FARM RENTS.

The Spectator says The landlords of England—
on the whole, the best-off class in the world—are just
now not happy; and they have some reason for their
unhappiness. Two potent causes are in operation
which may force them to consent either to a general or
large reduction of rents, or to an alteration of the
tenure upon which their social ascendancy is built. It
is difficult to doubt the accumulating evidence as to
the declining position of the farming interest. We
believe that a deep change of feeling about farming is
passing over farmers, and is answerable for much
of the difficulty in letting farms. Formerly the
business was greatly protected by a sense that farm-
ing was a pleasant occupation, one in which a man
commanded many obedient persons, and lived in the
open air, and was exempt from the anxieties of towns-
men, and lived in his degree a quiet, unchanging,
restful, and decidedly useful life. He, first of all, fed
the people. There is a class of small men who enter-
tain that feeling still, who look to a farm as their one
possible avocation, and a most honourable one, and
who would rather be slowly impoverished by farming
than make ten per cent. in any business keeping
them much indoors, or much in the bustle of town
life, The farmers above that grade, however, are
wearying of the work. They do not get much for
their money; they have to think about markets as
hard as tradesmen; they suffer as much from fluctua-
tions; they find ruling their men disagreeable work,
demanding much care and ever-increasing weekly out-
lays, besides involving constant friction; and, above
all, they see none of the chances, either for themselves
or their sons, of which other businesses are so full.
The consequence is a readiness to throw up farms,
which this Michaelmas has in many districts dia..
tbetly frightened landlords. Every day we hear new
instances of farms surrendered, sometimes by the
dozen in a single district, for which there is no applica-
tion, The facts of course, we must leave to experts ;
but if farming 'by tenants is as unprofitable as they
say, and if cultivation by tenants cannot go on safely
and steadily, as the agricultural papers say, then Cul-
tivation by quasi-proprietors is the nearly certain
alternative. Such a change will not be a pleasant one
to landlords, and will, indeed, involve a considerable
'social revolution, but it is difficult to see any other
'way likely to be found out of it."

g It is reported that gold has been discovered in India.
IS'inety outcrops of ore reef, in an area of 25 miles by 13,
•have been discovered in the district of Wynaad, in the
Madras Presidency. • The reefs vary in thickness from two to
cf our feet, and promise to yield from a few pennyweights to
, 200 ounces per ton. It is believed that with capital anttgeot
management the industry will pay. The climate is healthy
and suitable to Europeans for nine months in the year, but
for the other three months it is feverish.

DEAN STANLEY ON JOHN WESLEY.
On the evening of thei lat inst. a rwption was given to
Dean Stanley in t. Paul's 3fetho4ist Etiscepal Churth, New
York, by the clergy and laity of the Methodist Episcopal
Church in that city. An address, drawn up by the ministers
And members of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America,
was read, and presented to the Dean by the Rev. Dr. King.
rhe New York Tirnsz gives th'e following report of the Dean's
reply :
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_
Bishops, Pastors, and Members of the Methodist
Episcopal Church of America,—l have to tender to
you my sincere and grateful thanks for the honour
which you have done to me and to the Church and
country which I humbly represent, by the kindness
and cordiality with which you have welcomed me. I
am aware that one of the chief grounds—l may say the
chief ground—of this kind welcome is the recognition
which I am thankful to have been enabled to pay to
the founder of the Society of Methodists. When I
think of this vast assemblage; when I think of the
immense results which Methodism has achieved in this
great country, it is tempting to me to enlarge on the
hopes and prospects which may be open to your
Church, but I feel that the ignorance under which a
stranger necessarily Comes to this country forbids
him enlarging on a field of which he must know
very little, and therefore I prefer to confine the
few remarks which I venture to make on this
occasion to the reasons which induced me in England,
and which induce me here to pay my humble tribute
to John Wesley, the founder of this great society. He
then explained at. some length how some eight or ten
years ago the President of the Wesleyan Conference
waited upon him, and in courteous terms asked that a
monument might be admitted into Westminster Abbey
to the memory of Charles Wesley, "the sweet psalmist
of our English Israel," and he had then said, as stated
in the address which he held in his hand, "And why
not John?" A monument to the memory of the two
illustrious brothers was accordingly erected in the
Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey, close to a
monument erected a century before to the memory of
the poet Isaac Watts. Passing on to speak of the
claims which the character and career of John Wesley
had upon their reverence, and not on theirs only but
on the whole of English Christendom, he admitted
that in their claiming him as founder they enjoyed a
peculiar privilege. "Among the various communions,"
he said, "which have from time to time broken
off, or at least varied from the communion of the
Church of England, the founder of the English
Baptists is comparatively unknown; the founder
of the English Congregationalists—l say it without a
shadow of disrespect—is also comparatively unknown;
the founder of the English Unitarians is comparatively
obscure, and the founder of the Society of Friends, even
George Fox, has been superseded in celebrity by
William Penn, and by other illustrious Friends who
have arisen in that society. But it is in no disrespect
to the great Society of Methodists, and to the many
eminent and revered persons who sit around me, that
I say no one has arisen in the Methodist Society equal
to their founder, John Wesley." Proceeding to con-
sider in what particular John Wesley had attained his
pre-eminence, he referred to him in the language of a
modern English critic, who wrote: "He had a genius
for godliness," and referring to his entreaties to his
followers not to part from the mother Church, said
there were possibly those in America who thought the
Methodist might possibly be one of the links between
the mother Church of England and those who were
more or less astray from it, but upon this and whether
a unification was at all likely to take place, he would pro-
nounce no opinion ; he knew that separations once made
was very difficult to reconcile. Discussing further the
characteristics of Wesley, the Dean alluded to his text,
"The word is my parish," and showed some of the
advantages of a settled pastorate as compared with the
itinerant preaching Wesley so strongly advocated. He
next made special mention of the broad and compre-
hensive Christianity of the founder of Methodism,
which had for its object the welfare of humanity
throughout the whole world, and remarked, "It is for
this not only, but chiefly, that I delight to receive this
kindly' welcome from you as his followers. It is for
this cause—the kindness and pertinacity with which
he maintained this fundamental doctrine of the
Christian religion—that I rejoiced to have his monu-
ment among those of the kings and the great lights,
whether of literature or science, that adorn the walls of
Westminster Abbey. I thank you all for the generous
and unexpected sympathy with which I have been re-
ceived among you in this my too brief visit to this
great country, and to this famous City.