The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-09-29 00:00:00

Our 3tonbau Or)cri respoithent.

(7,re deem it right to state th^t" we do not at all thmer
ftintify ou-selves with our Correspondent's .ipinions.l

Menaced institutions, like threatened men, live long.
In no Ca9o has the truth of this been exemplified to a
greater extent than in that of the Corporation of
7:andon. When the Menicipal Reform Act of 1835
was passed, Lord Melbourne's Government excluded
London from the measure, promising to deal with
it in a separate bill; but the Whig Ministry of
that day did not care to face the civic autho•
rities, and the Corporation remained untouched so
far as its constitution was concerned. The question
slumbered during nearly thirty years, until in
1863, an attempt was made by Sir George Grey, Home
Secretary in the Cabinet of laird Palmerston, to
transfer the management of the City Police to the care
of the Commissioner of the Metropolitan force, so as to
plece the whole of the guardians of the peace of the
aepital under one heed. The msasure was strongly
opposed and was ultimately withdrawn. Coming to
more recent times we have witnessed the pledges tf two
Administrations to deal with the question, which has,
however, proved too vast and too com; Heated to have
a session all to itself, which it really denoands. '
The Lord Mayor of London is practically elected on
Michaeln aa Day, and another 29t,h of September rolls
round to find all the ancient usages and customs in
full for., as theugh no bill had ever been prepared
with a view of re'orming the City Corporation and
then she:ved in the pieeon holes of the Home Office
through want of time for its consideration. Every
care is taken to let it appear that the choice of the
chief magistrate of the city is that f the citieens them-
selves. The aldermen withdraw frcm the scene of the
election whilst the bu-inese is proceeding, but the
choice of the citiz ns is submitted to the City
Fathers for ratHcation, and they have the power, if
they choo-e to exercise it, of setting it aside. That
is to say, two names are returned by the Livery
to the Court of Aldermen, the practice being to select
the first of the two. Occasionally, however, the
aldermen have chosen the second, although in very
rare instances. When this takes place the gentleman
who has been passed over invariably sends in his
resignation.
The liking of the German Emperor for military
displee has again been shown by his constant atten-
tion to the &tails of the autumn manceuvrea which
have just beea brought to a close. For a man of
eighty-six to be in the saddle three or four lours
at a time must be a very great strain on his
physical powers; and it must be remembered that
the veteran monarch has never spared himself
from youth to old age when the interests of his
country required his presence upon the tented plain.
With a remembrance of the Battle of Jena, when the
First Napoleon imagined that he had for ever broken
the power of Prussia, he took part in the campaigns
which immediately preceeded Waterloo, and entered
Paris with the Allied Sovereigns in 1814, when Napo-
leon was dent to Elba. More than 55 years afterwards
he again passed through the French capital as a
conqueror, after the espitulation of that city to the
Germans during the war of 1870. The passion of
the venerable Sovereign for things military has
resulted in the country being converted into a vast
camp, where all able-bodied men who can bear arras
are compelled for a time to serve as soldiers, irre-
spective of the enormous loss which such a system
must cause to the productive power of the country.
Travellers in Germany do not fail to note the increas-
ing discontent which this paralysis of industry causes
amongst the people.
Queen Victoria is more than twenty years younger
than her augnet Ensman. Kaiser Vi'L helm, yet while
one is within three years of celebrating her juhilee,
that event never can be commemorated by the present
occupant of the German throne, who began to reign
at the age at which her Majesty has now arrived—
sixty-four. No contrast could be greater than the
way in which the rulers of two great empires are
spending the autumn—the one amid the calm retreats
of the distant Highlands, surrounded by every acces-
sory of quietude and peace, and the other witnessing
the perfection of the most complete military machine
which has ever done its work in Europe. As to her
Majesty's jubilee, there is every reason to hope and
believe that it will be commemorated in a way which
will mark the appreciation by the people of a long
and exemplary reign.

The relations between Great Britain and the French
Republic have of late been the subject of considerable
comment, Madagascar, Tonquin, Annam, and
China are names suggestive of enabarrasirg compli-
cations, which it has taken all the tact of Lord Gran-
ville to prevent becoming serious. Yet the relations
between the two countries have on more than one
occasion durir g the last forty years been considerably
more strained than over recent events. This was more
especially the case in 1840, about the time that
Napoleon's remains were brought to Paris from
St. Helena; again in 1846 over the Spanish mar-
riages; and in 1858, after the attempted assassination
of the Emperor Napoleon by Orsini. It was soon
after this that Mr Tennyson wrote his spirit stilling
appeal, "R &men, firm !"

The mention of Mr. Tennyson's name is a reminder
of the cruise viedch the ilinetriouis Poet Laureate has
had in the Pembroke Castle, in company with Mr.
Gladstone. Paris is the pelitscal centre of Europe ;
but not only in the French capital, but in Vienna and
Berlin we the visit of the English Premier to Copen-
hagen made the subject of endless speculation. Jour.
nalists with lively imaginations could rot believe
but that behind the reading by Mr. Tennyson of ex-
tracts from his works to the Emperor of Russia and
the Kings of Denmark and Greece, there lay some
dark design azainst the peace of Europe. Well
may this be called the "dead season" when the
summer trip of a distinguished man, even a Prime
Minister, can be magnified into an affair of such import-
tance that Use safety of Europe is said to depend upon
thi results. As to Mr. Tennysor, whose voyage in
the Pembroke Castle added so much to the interest of
the trip, his is a face which is very seldom seen in the
streets of Loudon. As he walked with Mr. Gladstone
from Charing Cross railway station to the Premier's
official residence in Downing-street, the familiar
features of the Prime Minister were easily recognised
by the crowd, but those of Mr. Tennyson were not so
easily distinguishable by the throng which is always
moving up and down Parliament street between
Charing Cro.s and the venerable Abbey.
The Manchester election comes in the midst of the
recess as a reawakening of the dry bones of political
life. It is the most important constituency which has
been vacated this year, one of the three cornered crea-
tions of the Reform Act of 1867. In the recess of last
year Liverpool was called upon to elect a new mem-
ber in the room of the present Earl of Harrowby
when he was call,d to the peerage on the death
of his father, and now Manchester, by the death
of Mr. Birley, is called upon to pronounce upon the
policy of the Government and the tactics of the oppo-
sition. It is only in a bye-electiou that the strength
of parties in these and other unicorn cenetituencies can
be properly tested. When three members have to be
chosen, each elector has but two vetes, and the voting
power of the body politic is thus shorn of a third of its
strength. Where, however, the contest is on the old
fashioned principle, "One and one," there can be no
mistake about the intelligibility of the issue or the
significance of the result.