The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1884-10-25 00:00:00

POLITICAL GATHERINGS.

In London on Monday, Lord Kensington, M.P.,
presided over a crowded meeting in the Westbourne-
park Institute. Among the speakers were Sir Thomas
Chambers, M.P.. Mr. Daniel Grant, Mr. Caine,
M.P., and Mr. E. Collins, M.P.

In London a crowded meeting, characterised by
much enthusiasm, was held on Monday in the South-
wark Town Hall, which was addressed by Mr. Cohen,
Q.C., and Mr. Thorold Rogers, the members for the
borough. Resolutions were passed condemning the
action taken by the peers on the Franchise Bill, and
expressing a hope that the Government would be
firmly supported in the approaching crisis.

Speaking at a Woman's Suffrage meeting held at
Halifax on Monday, Mr. Stansfeld, M.P., said the
movement had made great progress during the last
seventeen years, and when the Franchise Bill is
passed woman's suffrage will become a question of
practical politics. Although not a party question, he
believed it was involved in the principles of Liberalism.
When, however, a question became one of practical
politics it was apt to develop into a party question.
Nevertheless, he trusted that the franchise would be
conferred upon women with the consent of both poli-
tical parties.

Mr. Chamberlain was present on Monday at a
great demonstration of North Wales Liberals at Den-
bigh, and addressed nearly ten thousund persons. He
compared the straightforward policy of the Liberals
with that of their opponents, who twisted and
changed every full moon. He felt convinced that
the people of Wales would no longer submit to the
exclusion of millions of people from the fran-
chise, and remarked that it was a matter which
very much interested the Principality. He was
sure the country would not submit to an oligarchy
which was the mere accident of birth. Sir
Stafford Northcote had said he had a spite
against the House of Lords, but the remark was un-
necessary and, he thought, silly. He had a
reverence for the House of Lords as a national
monument, and had no desire to deface it; but he
did not see how they could build up a Government
on those ancient ruins. The Lords had never done
anything to further the interest of the people. They
had throughout obstructed every measure passed in
the interest of the people, and it had been admitted,
when those measures had been passed by pressure,
that it would have been far better had they become
law earlier.

Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. Firth, the members for
Chelsea, addressed a densely-througed gathering of
their constituents at Kensington, on Monday. A
resolution, moved by Commissary-General Downes,
was carried by an enormous majority expressing un-
abated confidence in Mr. Gladstone's Administration,
and pledging the meeting to support them in any
measure they may think fit to take in order to secure
the early passing of the Franchise Bill.

On Monday night the Chancellor of the Exchequer
addressed a crowded meeting of his constituents at
Pontefract. He said that the Franchise Bill was the
question uppermost in the mind of the people, and
they were determined that it should be carried.
Since 1883 their opponents had undergone a sort of
death-bed conversion, and they were now professedly
anxious that 2,000,000 of citizens should be enfran-
chised. There was however, be understood, no reliance
to be placed upon conversions of that character.
The Conservatives now told them that if they
passed the Franchise Bill they would lose their only
weapon with which to fight the Redistribution Bill.
The electoral and party calculations in reference to
the bill were completely worthless. What they
wanted to do in the matter was to follow the
principles adopted iR 1832 and 1867. He hoped the
Lords would not again reject the Franchise Bill, the
misfortune of which would be incalculable

A great Conservative meeting was held on Tuesday
night at Dumfries, presided over by the Duke of
Buccleuch, at which the Marquis of Salisbury
delivered the last of his political addresses during
the recess. He said the,campaign had shown that
there was a tendency to give increased power to the
Ministry of the day, more especially to the Minister
at its head, which the country ought to resist to the
utmost, for it was absurd to say that any Government
should retain power simply because it could command
a majority of votes in the House of Commons. The
agitation, he believed, had strengthened the House of
Lords, which did not say they had the right to dictate
when a dissolution should take place. They desired
that the people should be consulted, and as that could
not be done by a show of hands they demanded a
poll in the constitutional way. That poll would
come in the natural way shortly, and the Lords were
willing to wait, but Parliament could not be treated
as a baby with a drenching-spoon, nor could discussion
be assisted with bludgeons and chair-backs.

Speaking at a meeting of the Hereford County
3nservative and Constitutional Union at Hereford
on Tuesday evening, Sir Michael Hicks Beach said
the Liberal horizon appeared to be bounded by the
franchise portion of the question of reform. Our
capital might be unproductive, commerce languishing,
and home and foreign difficulties enormous, but the
Government cared nothing about these things. He
claimed that the country was entitled to know during
the autumn session the result of Lord Northbrook's
mission. He denounced the Egyptian and South
African policy of the Government, and said when
history recorded the heroism of Khartoum she would
also record shame and indelible disgrace in Downing-
street. He did not think the redistribution scheme
as published either fair or satisfactory. The Govern-
ment shrank from appealing to the present constitu-
encies, which proved that they had lost confidence in
those who had returned them in 1880.

Conservative
-- Tuesday

On Tuesday evening the Chancellor of the Exche-
quer addressed his constituents at Knottingley, and
after a brief allusion to the Franchise Bill, remarked
that the condition of things in Ireland was much im-
proved; in India and the colonies the state of affairs
was satisfactory, although in South Africa we should
for some time have many difficulties to contend with,
owing to the two mistakes of the annexation of the
Transvaal and the Zulu War. He hoped the discus-
sion on the condition of the navy would continue,
and went on to state that the Government had been
successful with regard to the conversion of the 3 per
Cents. into 21 per Cents. He further explained that
his proposal as to the half-sovereign would give a
coin of greater intrinsic value than 10s. worth of
silver, which was intrinsically worth less than Bs.
A resolution in support of the Franchise Bill was
adopted.

In London, on Tuesday evening, the Earl of Car-
narvon and Mr. W. H. Smith, M.P., were the guests
of the Hackney Conservative Union at their annual
dinner. In responding for the House of Lords, the
Earl of Carnarvon said that the expression of feeling
with which he had been greeted showed that among
the people there was not that animosity to the House
of Lords which Radical orators had stated. The
Conservatives and the House of Lords were not
opposed to tho extension of the franchise, but they
wanted a complete measure. Mr. W. H. Smith said
that in the redistibution scheme which had appeared
he had been unable to see any concession of the rights
which, he clairaea, minorities, whether Conservative
or Liberal, had to parliamentary representation.

Lord Cranbrook, presiding on Tuesday evening at a
dinner of the Constitutional Union, St. James's
Restaurant, London, entered into an elaborate justifi-
cation of the course which had been taken by the
House of Lords with regard to the Franchise Bill,
and maintained that the present cry of the Liberal
party was designed to conceal the blunders of the
foreign and colonial policy of the Government. The
proceedings terminated with a private conference of
the Union.

On Tuesday evening Sir J. C. Lawrence and Sir W.
Arthur, the members for Lambeth, addressed a
meeting of their constituents at the Horns Tavern,
Kennington, London. They respectively moved and
seconded a resolution pledging the meeting to stand
by the Government in their determination to adhere
to the policy of passing the Franchise Bill to be fol-
lowed by a bill for redistribution, and tendering their
thanks to Mr. Gladstone for resisting the unconstitu-
tional endeavours of the Tory Peers to force, a disso-
lution. A resolution was also passed expressing
regret at the intended retirement of SirW. McArthur
and thanking him for his services, and another one
declaring that the House of Lords ought to be
abolished. A further resolution that the meeting
declined to support Sir J. C. Lawrence as a future
candidate was moved, but the meeting broke up in
confusion before it could be formally put.

It is alleged that the oldest church in America is
situated in the village of Tadous, c, where the Canadian
river Saguenay flows into the St. Lawrence. The
church was built by the French discoverer, Jacques
Cartier, for the French colony he had founded. It is
only a small building, being only about twenty feet
square with a very low ceiling, and was erected iu 1517,
twenty-five years after the discovery of the Continent.
It contains a very remarkable picture of the Virgin
Mary, painted more than 300 years ago by one of the
Jesuit fathers at the mission. The objects of interest
in the church—for, besides this picture, there are some
ancient vestments and a very curiously embroidered
altar-cloth—are freely exhibited to strangers.
The Queen's Buckhounds met in dull but seasonable
weather on Tuesday at the Royal Hotel, Ascot, a good
field assembling. An untried hind was released, and
gave a run for over three hours. Nearly all the field
dropped out of the chase. Two serious casualties oc-
curred during the hunt, Mr. Harrison of Datchet, being
thrown and sustaining concussion of the brain, while
the horse of Bartlett (one of the whips) fell, the rider,
it is feared, breaking his collar bone.

In London last week 2812 births and 1517 deaths were
registered. Allowing for increase of population the
births exceeded by 95, while the deaths were 43 below
the average numbers in the corresponding weeks
of the last ten years. The annual death. rate
from all causes, which, in the two preceding weeks,
lad been 17.2 and 17.5 per thousand, further rose
to 191. There were 10 deaths from smallpox, 12 from
measles, 27 from scarlet fever, 21 from diphtheria,
1,5 from whooping-cough, 17 from enteric fever, anti
44 from dysentery.