The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-03-23 00:00:00

3itr Yon)oit eorttspoilbutt.

[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
tdencify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

The Act of Parliament for the government of the
Navy, which is passed by the Legislature year by
year, recites that upon this arm of the service, "under
the good providence of God, the wealth, strength, and
safety of the kindom chiefly „depend." Of this there
can be no doubt whatever; and the advisers of the
Crown, no matter of what politics they may happen
to be, need fear no adverse criticism when they do
their best to maintain the power of the Navy. Thus
It comes to pass that the recent purchase of four iron-
clads—two from the Turkish, one from the Japanese,
and one from the Brazilian governments—meets with
the approval of the nation. This substantial
addition to our ironc.lad fleet, forming indeed a
squadron in itself is, however, of no foreign origin.
The ships were built in the busy yards of the Thames,
by British workmen, and conaequently-have never
been out of British waters. They will be completed
by British industry, manned by British seamen, and,
when finished, will fly the British flag. If the foreign
countries for whom they were constructed want some
more, they eau. hake themacelthe great shipyards of
the Thttnies,vie with Her Majesty's dockyards in the
excellence t thail.,labour. Very often the Channel,
squadron consists only of four first-class -ironclath,
and this was the number forming the Reserve
Squadron when the Vanguard was ripped open
by the Iron Duke 'in.-, the Irish', Channel on
the Ist of Septetabey; - 1875. It is, therefore;
easy to see what- an important accession is obtained by ,
the,purchase A thesa,four ,iron.clads now, Iring corn-
• ple,ted witlaithe utmost energy.. Very oftea there are
- fifteen ormore in the Mediterranean,, restlessly pacing,
like guardian sentinels, the surface of that great sea.
On the night of the 6th of September, 1870, Admiral
• Milne, then in command of the Mediterrilnean squad-
ron, had eleven battle-ships, flying the British flag.
In the hours of darkness a furious gale sprang
up, and when the wild and lurid morning- broke, he
could connt only ten. The missing one was
the Captain. Where had she gone? The 'Admiral
had been on board of her on the previous day, when
the waves were sweeping over her decks, and had
,declined an invitation to dine with her gallant com-
mander, Captain Burgoyne. Returning to the
Minotaur Admiral Milne exclaimed "Thank God I
am again on board my own ship !" He seemed to
have a presentiment of the coming disaster; and when
the tempestuous morning, once more flung the light of
day over the troubled sea, there was little doubt in his
mind'what had become of the missing ship. She had
foundered with all her crew, and was then lying at
The bottom, twelve hundred fathoms below the surface
of the waves :

• lit

"Down, down beneath the deep,
Which oft in triumph bore them,
They sleep a calm and peaceful sleep,
The salt waves rolling o'er them.
"And though no stone may tell
Their name, their place, their glory;
They live in hearts that loved them well,
They grace Britannia's story."
But the names of every one on board who perished on
that fatal night have been engraved upon enduring
brass in a monumental plate on the north wall of St.
Paul's Cathedral. Thus does Great Britain com-
memorate those who as surely died in her service as
though they had been slain in battle.
The two Houses of the Legislature now know the
period of their release and time of their vacation at
Easter: Ordinarily about six or seven weeks elapse
between the opening of the session and the Easter
holidays; but this year Parliament met unusually early,
and Easter falls unusually late. There will now have
been a continuous sitting of thirteen weeks, and in that
time, as our legislators betake themselves to their
respective counties, they will see that a wondrous
change has passed over the land. They came up from
their mansions in the depth of winter, as the middle of
January may truly enough be called. They will
return to their parks, their lawns, and their woods,
to have the full enjoyment of the fresh breath of
Spring. The trees, the shrubs, the blades of grass,
will be instinct with a new and active life, telling
of the prevalence of the soft south wind, and
rejoicing in a revived existence before the cold easterly
blasts of May, so dreaded by invalids, sweep alike
over the crowded town and the peaceful plain. And
after the vacation, those who are able to enjoy the
delightful work of Nature at a time of the year when
that work can be seen at its brightest and its best,
will leave the fresh air and the luxuriant foliage, so
rich in its varied shades of greenery, to come up to
London for what are termed the pleasures of the
season. Dinners, receptions, parties',-- at homes,'
concerts, balls, festivities of all descriptions, carried
far into the night, thus not permitting those who take
part in them to be up in the morning and enjoy the
air before it becomes laden with the smoke and the
impurities arising from the presence of a vast popula-
tion.

Why should the annual financial statement of the
Chancellor of the Exchequer be called the Budget?
It must have often struck many persons as being a
singular expression, and if they have not looked up
the derivation it may be explained that it comes from
the French bougette, a small bag. In former times the
Chancellor's documents, upon which he founded
his exposition, were conveyed from the Treasury
to the Houses of Parliament in a leather bag,
hence the origin of the term Budget. The most
important Budgets of recent times have been those
of 1442, when Sir Robert Peel called into existence,
the income tax; of 1846, when the same Minister
wrought great fiscal changes consequent upon the
repeal of the Corn Laws; of 1854, when Mr. Gladstone
had to provide for the expenses of the Russian war;
and of 1860, When the right hon. gentleman explained
the provisiens of the French Commercial Treaty. His
Budgets were indeed an annual feature during the
many years in which he was Chancellor of the
Exchequer in Lord Palmerston's Government, and St.
Stephen's-hall was crowded as early as eight o'clock in
the morning by pereons with members' orders for the
Strangers' Gallery. The principle then was first come
first served; now it bi different. The bearers of orders
have to be at the House only half an hour before the
time of meeting, and cast lots for admission to the
gallery, which is capable of accommodating about
seventy or eighty of the much larger number who
desire admission.

London is teo far from the sea for any of the saline
particles thrown up by the waves to reach its atmo-
sphere, and consequently its people vastly do enjoy a
few hours of the sea air when they can get them. It
is now within an hour and forty minutes of the coast
by a speciarservice of fast trains. For many months in
the year large numbers leave the great wilderness of
brick and mortar on Saturday afternoon and go to the
numerous watering places in Kent and Sussex, returning
to business on Monday, all the better for the change. It
is not often that upon the shores of these islands any
tidal phenomenon occurs to excite anxiety or alarm.
Fortunately the English Channel is not open to those
vast Pacific rollers which sometimes sweep over the sur-
face of that peaceful sea fully three thousand miles,
losing none of their force at the end of that long dis-
tance, and at last breaking with destructive effect
upon some far-off island, to the terror of the ignorant
and benighted people. Such a visitation, for instance,
as that which lately befel the people of Lima must
have made them wish that they lived a little farther
away from the great waters. The sun was shining
brightly; there was no storm; the wind was blowing
gently from the south; when suddenly and without
warning there rolled in a series of giant waves
upon the town, doing damage in a few minutes
to the extent of half- a million sterling. The
breakwater was demolished, docks . were torn
to pieces, warehouses built upon them were swept
away, and barges were left high and dry upon the
laud. Both the sea and the solid earth in those lati-
tudes are subject to convulsions of an extremely
violent character, from which in these temperate
climes we are happily free. The thundering surges of
the Atlantic wage perpetul war upon the wild shores
of Connaught, and break with a giant's force upon the
ironbound coasts of Cornwall, but the action of that
tempestuous ocean can be calculated with a great deal
more certainty than that of the Pacific.
To a large class of the community the question of
the day is not the fate of Turkey, the probable bank-
ruptcy of Russia, the possession of Constantinople,
the terms of the Treaty of Peace, the subjects to be
discussed at the Congress, the Debates in Parliament
or or the prospects of unravelling the mysteries of Egyp-
tian finance. The burning topic s not whether there
is to be a speedy dissolution of Parliament, the hopes
of one political party, or the expectations of another.
What can it be, then? The answer is clear—the forth.
coming University boat race. Men and youths follow
with the deepest interest day by day the accounts
of the practice of the crews upon the Isla and the
Cam, compare the weights, note the changes in
the boats, and eagerly discuss the qualificatiens
of the coaoh. Very often Paterfamilias finds
that his daily paper has been mutulated before he
takes it up at breakfast time. A third of a column
has been cut out bodily; and in the process some
important foreign telegrams at the back have disap-
peared. He gets very angry, but no one knows any-
thing about it. His promising sontas taken train for
the City, where he is either at one of the public schools
so numerous there, or at his employment, but he has
need his penknife upon the paper to remove the report
of the previous day's practice, and attentively studies
this in the train. Papa protests but consoles himself
vith the reilection that these things do not la.st for ever.

The crews will be upon the Thames for practice on the
25th instant.

The interest taken in the admission of Greece to the
Congress, and the demand that the claims of other
nationalities should be recognized, show how great is
the advance sound political principles have made since
the Congress at Vienna. France was then defeated,
and was menaced with partition. She can scarcely be
said to have had a friend amongst the nations except
Great Britain, with whom she had been in deadly
antagonism nearly a quarter of a century. It is
well known that the Duke of Wellington and
Lord Castleredgh "Were, cOliapellacrto interfgre
her favour against Prussia, Austria, arid Russik
Those great military monarchies' were Utterly
hostile to all public freedom. They had .but one
policy, and that was to keep the people in their own
dominions and wherever their power extended, under
an iron despotism. The truth of Lord Palmerston's
saying as .to -the dangerous legacy of "d, 4sueeessfill
wrong, has more than once been fully illustrated by
events. Austria was under the impression that she
had turned that Congress to a good account, but
neither Italy nor Germany could be permanently
kept down, as Austria found to her cost in 1806.
The fifteen years whieh followed the Treaty of
Vienna were the .darkest in modern Europe. The
Sovereigns. -of Prussia, -Austria, and Russia
formed themselves into what was called a Holy
Alliance, with the real object of combining against all
manifestations of popular freedom, and all patriotic
efforts to obtain constitutional wvernment. The
rising of the Greeks in 1827 was followed by the expul-
sion of the Bourbons from France in 1830; representa-
tive reform was brcarght about in England; Italy
has since been consolidated; Germany is once more
an empire ; and kings and rulers hate learnt more than
one lesson. showing the power of the people, and the
strength of popular rights.