The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1885-11-21 00:00:00

Our tifonb.on Corrtspodent.
[We dm it tight to state thtt we do not at all wilts
L2ntiiy ou‘telvos with ohr C6rretpoudent's opizns

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Even those who customarily do not fedi any
deep interest in politics are forced just now to
pay heed to the issues which are involved in the
general election. Representatives of both the
great parties in the State press upon them the
necessity of suppertine• or opposing a particular
policy; and as upon the result of the elections
wLich will take place within the next few days,
the destiny of England for some years to come
will undoubtedly rest, there needs no elaborate
argument to prove that it is a most important
contest upon which the whole country is just
now engaged. What the issue will be time alone
can show, for indulgence in political prophecy is
just as futile as indulgence in any other kind of
forecast where questions of individual opinion
are bound to affect the prophet. But it will be
taken for granted by All except the most eager
partisans that whichever party holds power as a
result of this general election, England will stand
•in no danger of ruin. All of us may desire-re-and
those who are keen politicians are bound to desire—
that one particularset af spokesmen shall have the
control of our country's destinies; but when we
think the matter over in the quiet of our homes, we
are apt to come to the conclusion that the other
side are probably not quite so black as partisans
would paint them. As long as the kingdom is
ruled upon a party basis, it is right and proper that
men who adopt a side should do so because they
honestly believe it to be the best; but in the
extremity of partisanship there is often un-
wisdom and not infrequently a little dishonesty.
There is one reason why the coming contest
will be watched with greater eagerness than is
customary, and that is beaause it will be taken
upon a basis which is so new that the result even
to keen wire-pullers is incalculable. More than
two millions of our iellow-eolintrymen will now
exercise the suffrage for the first time, and it is
irnpcssible to say how that suffrage will bo cast.
Further,- the effect of. the Redistribution Act
has been to make so many new constituencies,
and to divide the old into such a number of frag-
ments that to estimate probabilities by cora-
parisenxyith previous dissolutions is futile. The
Reform Act of 1867, though a large measure,
• mad,O comparatively little difference to the
' number of constituencies, and we must carry the
memory back to 1832 to find anything like a
parallel to the present circumstances. The
problem to be solved is, therefore, a difficult one,
and those who have to deal with politics have,
perhaps, never before been so inclined to agree
with that American humourist, who /aid it down
as an axiom that it is never well to prophesy
until you know.
Every new and again a question is raised in
the newspabers:which serves the purpose of a pro-
longed controversy, and is then relegated to the
obscurity from which it had temporarily been
dragged. The number of points which can be
argued about in this fashion is, pragtically
illimitable; for almost everything which
broadly touches human affairs can be
made the subject of debate. It depends
very much upon other influences than
the• intrinsic importance of the ques-
tion itself, how long it was suffered to be
kept 'before the public. In the "dead season,"
when there islittle news stirring, and what there
is does not appear to be of absorbing :nterest, a
very small affair suffices to set the ball of contro-
versy rolling, and it does not cease its movement
until something more stirring occupies the public
mind. An over-charge in a Swiss hotel, a blunder
on an English railway, the commissariat of an
Atlantic " liner ' —all these and a hundred others
give occasion for a lavish flow of ink. It may be
that in the end—when the editor, in sheer
despair of the controversy ceasing from.natural
causes, has to append the footnote "We can
insert no further contributions upon this subject"
—nothing in particular can be said to have
resulted from the labour which has
been expended during the progress of the
diseussion, but it would be rash to say that no
good has arisen from it. The sum of human
happiness has distinctly been increased by the
opportunity it has given to many worthy folks to
see their names and opinions in print, and this is no
light matter. Fnrther it is certain that, as in
the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom, so
out of a long controversy carried on by several
persons of varying temperament and styles of
thought, some good ideas are almost certain to
• be evolved. It is almost impossible for such a
friction of minds to be set up without provoking
iseveral thoughts which are worth retaining; and
although the onloG7zer may often laugh at the
animated newspaper debate which customarily
marks the dead "season," the fruits even of this
ancient institution are not always to be derided.
It must be confessed, however, that there are
some problems which appear to be advanced no
further towards solution whatever number of
times they may be discussed, and one of these
is certainly the existence Of fogs in London.
Those who are not constrained to dwell within
what the old-fashioned phrase calls "the bills of
mortality," may be excused for thinking that
Londoners are always crying Out against what on
the surface appears a very small thing. A fog,
our country friends may think, is unpleasant,
but is too trifling a matter to make so much
• fuis about. This is, however, a view in which
no one who knows London in November will be
likely to coincide. It is not merely to the dis-
comfort that we object, though that is great;
it is not merely to the business loss that it
entails, though that is greater; it is to the actual
danger, and that is greatest. About the dis-
comfort none will argue who have had ex-
perience; about the business loss all will agree
*who have shops in the City; but about the
'extent of the danger, not even Londoners them-
selves are always well-informed. Traffic by river,
road, and rail is rendered so insecure that that
on the first has often to be stopped, that on the
second is only partially curried on, and that on
the' third is continued upon hazardous condi-
tions. The number of accidents in the streets
by falls upon the pavements rendered slippery
by the fog, and by being pavements,
down by
-passing and almost unseen vehicles, is very large;
and the effect upon the asthmatic, the old, and
all .who suffer from any complaint of the chest,
may best be judged from the fact reported by
the Registrar-General some years since, that
during a week of fog the number of deaths in
London was double the average. It is not much
wonder then that residents.within the metro-
politan area should be often found making
reference in the winter season to the subject of
fogs.
Englishmen are so accustomed to think of
lakes as comparatively finial patches of water
devoted to the wants of the pleasure-seeker, that
it is always with some astonishment that they
hear of any facts which tend to show that there
are lakes it this world which come under a very
different category. Those who know only of
Windermere or Ullswater can scarcely realise the
existence of such an inland body of water as
Lake Superior, upon which a terrible catastrophe
has just taken place. Were it not for the
absence of tides, and for the fact that the
water is fresh, it would seem that the
word " sea " rather than " lake " was properly
, applicable to a sheet of water of such vast ex-
tent. Passenger steamers of great size ply on
its bosom, and it was to one of these, in the
midst of a terrific gale, accompanied by sleet and
snow, that the catastrophe occurred, by which
about fifty lives were lost. It is this liability to
sudden storms which renders many of the great
lakes so dangerous to navigation. The Lake of
Geneva, for instance, only recently witnessed an
almost similar catastrophe to that of Lake
Superior. The suddenness of the gale which
sweeps down upon the confined body of water
proves irresistible, and many a good ship which
has started from the shore with every prospect of
a safe passage, has succumbed to the outburst of
storm, which no one had expected when the
harbour was left; and .for which it was impossible
to have. made any especial preparation.
' The Mention of one disaster on the American
. side of the Atlantic is a reminder of another
Which, like'the firgt, is of a kind not likely to be
Witnessed to anything of the same extent in our
(min country. 'With the recollection of the
great fires at Boston and Chicago still fresh in
. many minds it does not seem wonderful to read
of the conflagration at Galveston, Texas, by
which a larp and valuable part of that town was
destroyed. Fifty-two squares were burned down,
'and the loss in building property alone is esti-
mated at a -million and- a half dollars. The
, amount. of misery calmed by., fire like this is
. -almost incalculable. It Is uot Merely the loss at
ondition to whin the moment, Or the.hOm._eleag.e
:
Pf • in° Agiffer,ers arO'reduced;
1` ;Sympathy flows freely at Pileh tiraes, and help is
ungrudgingly rendered to those- need: But
the shock given to trade is not readily recovered.
- The whole scicial system is disorganised, and;
while it is being reconstructed, the amount
waste is enormous. American cities, of course, are ,
peculiaily lidble to these visitations, because thd '
• wi'joiity Of the houses ir So`niany of thena'are
•Ictult.of pine and other woods. ..The bandies,,
well as the cheapest material- is made use.
but often with 1"*777, bad results ;* for when aafiie-.,

seizes a city, tho..„dw.ellings being mainly of
wood, conclude:46i\ ett''Tery large, area being
•
swept by the flantitt.
Whenever suot:tl catastrophe occurs, fve are
apt to congratul4te ourselves that, fOr varieus
reasons, it is armOst impossible to have a, repeti-
tion of it in England. Our houses are mainly
built of stone and brick, and our fire-brigade
system is remargably efficient, even in many-of -
the smallest of provincial towns. As far-as the
metropol is is-concerned, it m ay be taken fargranted
that such a disaster as the historical "Great Fire
of London" can never be repeated. But it isnot to
be forgotten that those who are responsible for the
security of London against fire are not as satis-
fied with the present arrangements as the out-
side public appears to be. They point out
frequently that although the Metropolitan Fire
Brigade can cope with one extensive conflagra-
tion at a time, it would be a serious danger if
two were to break out on_the_sanse nigl4. ancl
as it is not impossible to conceive that even
three might simultaneonsly occur, it will be seen
that if these fears are well founded, London is
tot so secure as it is the custom to think. Those
who raise the question are very far from being
alarmists; they are practical men desirous of
arousing the metropolis to a full recognition of
the dangers from fire which must always menace
such a crowded.cityas ours. - -
Whatever view any may take of the war
which has broken out in the East of Europe, all
will hope that it will speedily come to an end.
But while it lasts much misery is bound to result,
and
.although the armies engaged are small,
the sufferings of the sick and wounded will be
relatively as great as if the armed hosts of the
largest Continental Powers were meeting
on the field. It will be no matter for surprise,
when this fact is brought home to the public
mind, to find an appeal made for a fund to
succour the sick and wounded of the carnpaign.
Questions of politics do not enter into a matter
of simple humanity, and although there Are some
rigid theorists who hold that nations ought to
suffer all the pains of their own wars, and that
outsiders ought to do nothing to succour the
battle-stricken, people generally will not be found
to agree with this view. The horrors of war are
too great to be thoroughly realised by any but
those who have had to be in the midst of them;
but sufficient is known by all of us to prove that
it is an act of the highest humanity to do what in
each of us lies to mitigate their rigour.
A. F. R