The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-07-23 00:00:00

AT LAST !-WAR TO THE DEATH!

'The sword has been drawn, and the sword must decide'
There hove been wars, even in our time, in which the
c•ntsindiviu forces have been as great, and the populations
from which they were drawn as numerous; but here we have
the two greatest, most civilized, and most powerful nations
of the C ettinent meeting with feelings of mutual exaspera-
tion, such as few wars have exdited at the beginning, and with
kuoeledge on either side that to flinch will be fatal. The
Emperor stakes his dynasty on succors. No one knows
lietter than he that In iudh as enterpriee, besun in despite of
European opinion ned Rir. st the remonstrances of his
nearest ally, the only safety lies in a series of brilliant vic-
tories, followed by a triumph int peace. To extort such a
peace fr ma first-close State is a work which may test the
highest qoulions if General and arm) ; but when it can only
be won Ivy trampling on the neck of a nation of forty
millions, the enterprise is hazardous indeed. The Ger-
mans, Olt thtir side, a, II litow that to 3 hid would be
political ruin. Wnat they lone they cm never recover ;
the mention they accept at the Close Oi RIICh a war they
can never escape from. The war is for he Rhine, which has
for centuriea been the avowed object of French ambition.
lithe French succe-d in conqeering it and holding It under
a treaty of peace, t hero to not the seediest hope that it could
ever be won egain by Germany. The left bank would
become as Indissolubly incorporated with France as Alsace,
/old the territory 1 the defeated and once more divided
Fatherland would he permanently curtailed. Gan it he
supponed that a nation which sees in the future the pos-
sibility of a loss so overwhelming will not strain every nerve
to defence of its safety, we might almost say its exist-
ence ? Ever) German haa passed his life in pondering on this
very struegle, which tiss come at last. At last ! alter being
threatened by France as long as each man can recollecd, in
speeches and essay s. in plays and rhymes, In ttv conversation
of high and low. The Gem out on sneir par. have bvett sing-
ing about the Rhine as beg as they OM remember with a
displdy of pa; rtotiain which would make any section of
the people ludicrous and despicable in heir country-
men's eyes and their own if they held ah.f from the present
conflict. What is poising In only what might have been ex.
pinged 'I he South German stater stand by the national
ilag which is held aloft by Frus.ia, and the feeling at Vienna
avid in the German provleces of S'raateis Joseph is already
such that a Court with Frm:rh sympathies will hnve to con-
ceal them carefully, it not abandon them altogether."—The
Temea, Tuesday.

HOLDERS OF SECURITIES SHOULD NOT BE ALARMED.

"The visit maprity of investors hi America, in England,
and even on the Continent—the savings' hanks In the States
—the national bmks, whet, are compelled by law to hold so
much of Government bonds against their authorised note
circulation—retaiu over their stocks a hold which is no more
affected by last week's event than it was hy the re cent eclipse
of the moot,. They look unmoved on the ebb, because they
know that they shall soon witness the reflex The same re-
mark at plies with even greater free to English railway
stocks. Ti say that the Loudon and North-Western
capital is depreciated to the extent of three-quarters of a
million sterling, merely because a figure in the share list has
been changed, is utterly misleading. The property is In its
essence untouched, and the proprietary, too, remains almost
unaltered. The great hody of shareholders known, that the
ups SIM dCOVIIS Oil the Stock Eschange are simply so many
betting transactions, which no tuoreaffeet the inherent value
of the thing treated, than the fluctuations in the odds modify
the blood or breeding of a particular horse. The speculation
which is to notch talked !.nout, one which creates or cures a
panic, touches only a fringe, astir welt:, of the broad interests
concerned, and represents nothing more than the transfer of
various sums from the pockets of one gambler to those of
another."—Daity Tetegraph.