The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-07-20 00:00:00

rWe (19era right to state that we do not at all times
Identify ourzelves with our Correspondent's opizinus.)

The balance of power in the Mediterranean is an
expression which is often used, and has again come to
the front in connection with the acquisition of the
Isle of Cyprus by Great Britain. In modern, as well
as in ancient times, the geographical position of this
famaus sea secures for its command an importance
which attaches to no other sheet of water in the
world. Centuries before either England or France
aspired to be a naval Power in the Mediterranean, the
Syrians and the Phcenicians, the Greeks and the
Egyptians, the Romans and the Carthaginians,
alternately struggled for supremacy upon its sur-
face. The commerce of the whole globe seems
to have a natural or instinctive tendency to flow
almost of its own accord into the Mediter-
ranean Sea. The traveller, who has an admira-
tion for its archipelago of beautiful islands, may
wander over its waters from Carthage to Egypt,
may recall the vicissitudes of Tyre and Sidon, think
over the departed glories of Rhodes and Troy, reflect
upon the history of Ephesus and Athens, Corinth and
Argos, Syracuse and Rome. The picture before him
is like that of the waves of this great sea, which,
resembling the transitory life of the empires and the
kingdoms which have successively held sway upon its
coasts, one after another, rise, break, and fade away.
For thousands of years an intermittent contest has
been waged for the mastery of the Mediterranean,
and so far as modern strnggles are concerned, there
can be no question that Great Britain has come out
the victor. The British flag has long waved over
Gibraltar and Malta, and now its folds have been
flung out over the island of Cyprus. Other Powers do
not like it. Russia, whose ships of war were forbidden
to enter the Mediterranean by the Treaty of 1856, has
given utterance to angry murmurs; France and Italy,
both Mediterranean Powers, do not approve of the
augmentation of British influence in that sea. In 1840
England and France very nearly came to war over this
very question. Both, however, know better now, and
there can be little doubt that the feeling of irritation on
the part of France will soon pass away. The time has
gone by when the two countries regarded each other as
natural enemies, and every year of commercial inter-
course which now brings them more closely into as-
sociation, diminishes the chances of an unfriendly feel-
ing developing into war.

The physical and geographical characteristics of
Cyprus have been so fully dealt with that it is un-
necessary to refer to them at any length here. It
does, however, seem appropriate enough that a Chris-
tian nation like England should take possession of an
island which was the first place where Christianity
was planted after it left the mainland of Asia. It
was one of the spots visited by St. Paul, whose
powerful writings will remain a source of interest as
long as language lasts. The island, originally divided
among several petty kings until the time of Cyrus
of Persia, who subdued them, next fell under the
rule of the Greeks, was then conquered by the
Saracens, recovered by the Greeks, passed into the
possession of the Venetians, and for the last 300
years has been subject to the dominion of the Turks.
To pass from Turkish to British rule is a blessing
which may well be appreciated by the Cypriotes, and
to exchange a pasha for Sir Garnet Wolseley as
governor of the island is a fate which the Cretans
would have willingly accepted. The cypress tree,
so familiar in our cemeteries, was originally found in
this island :

"Exhausted travellers who have undergone
The long fatigues of life's tempestuous zone,
Enter the cypress groves and rest beneath
The trees which tell of the cool shade of death."
A very long while ago the Athenians were accustomed
to bury their heroes in coffins made of this wood, of
which many of the Egyptian mummy chests were also
fabrlcated. The cypress was brought to England
about four centuries and a-half ago, and there are few
of us who are not in some way acquainted with its
mournful associations.
The completion of the work of the Berlin Congress
ought to roll a heavy load off the public mind of
Europe. For three years, and ever since the outbreak
of the insurrection in the Herzegovina, has the Eastern
Question overshadowed all other subjects of interest;
it has plunged two nations into war, led to the dis-
memberment of Turkey, and brought Great Britain
and Russia to the very brink of hostilities. It has
paralysed the energy of the capitalist, lessened the
demand for labour, checked the growth of trade, and
retarded the development of commercial enterprise.
All this while the uncertainty as to whether we
should be involved in war has led to increased
armaments, and to an augmentation of the
national burthens at a time when the people are
ill prepared to bear it. Having so long cast its dark
shadow over the whole of Europe, from London to
St. Petersburgh, the European Powers have agreed to
a settlement which should at least chase away any
immediate fear of impending war. It may therefore
be naturally expected that the clouds which have so
long overcast the political horizon will now gradually
disappear, and that the industrial paralysis of which
so many have complained will soon be known no more
amongst us.

The House of Commons appoints Select Committees
of Inquiry into many subjects demanding investigation,
but probably one of the most remarkable is that which
has been sitting to hear evidence upon the pre-
sent system of Parliamentary reporting. Times
have indeed altered since the House of Corn-
mons set the most vexatious restrictions upon
the publication of the debates, and mercilessly punished
those who dared to set these restrictions at nought.
When the new Houses of Parliament were built,
one of the best of the galleries in the Commons was
set aside for the use of the Press, and every possible
arrangement was made for the convenience of the
reporters and the writers of the summaries and leaders.
The gallery was placed over the Speaker's chair, so that
the old fiction was kept up that the right hon.
gentleman must see no one taking notes of the debates;
still that did not alter the fact that the Press had
been recognised as a great Power. But the gallery
which did very well twenty or even ten years ago, is
now totally inadequate to the demands made upon it.
The seats in it were appropriated to the London
papers long before the marvellous expansion of the
provincial press which has been witnessed since the
transfer of the telegraphs to the State. One metro-
politan journal has, for instance, three front seats in
the gallery for its leader writer, summary writer, and
reporter; while none of the great daily papers of
Liverpool and Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds,
Newcastle and Sheffield, Edinburgh and Glasgow,
Dublin and Belfast, are allowed to have a single front
seat. The Commons, having received frequent re-
monstrances from newspaper proprietors in the
country, at length appointed the present committee
of inquiry; and as the gallery cannot be enlarged to
any appreciable extent, it is more than probable that
there will be a redistribution of seats in it. The pro-
vincial press of the towns above-mentioned is equal in
enterprise and in ability to that of London, and there
is no reason why a monopoly which has continued too
long already, should not now cease to exist.
The Eton and Harrow Cricket Match at Lords is
generally the last great event of that kind during the
season. It is witnessed by an enormous number of
spectators, who testify to the popularity which sur-
rounds this manly game. After the Eton and Harrow
contest, people in the aristocratic part of the town
begin to think of moving away. As a rule the work
of Parliament is then nearly done, and what remains
is mostly routine work which can be transacted by the
requisite forty members kept in hand by the Govern-
ment in order to make up the quorum. In a
week or two you will see the annual announcement
that Londan is empty, which means that a few
weit-end squares and terraces are less lively than
their wont because of the departure of their residents
for their autumnal holiday. But the Wet-end, im-
portant as it is, does not constitute the whole of
London. Take your stand upon the Monument, or
ascend into the golden ball of St. Paul's Cathedral,
and look down upon the great and ever-spreading
capital. You will not perceive the slightest diminu-
tion in the streams of traffic flowing through the main
arteriee east and west, north and south, nor in the
miles of shipping which line the docks. There is the
Bailie hurrying crowd upon London-brid-e. the
exchange and mart are as busy as before; ocean
steamers from all parts of the world still
make their way up and down the rapid tide of
the Thames. There is the same activity in the ship-
yards and the manufactories; for London is a
combination of towns, interests, and industries, whose
• works are as unresting as are the waters of the river
upon whose banks they look down.
Royal visitor has been in our midst for come time
pact whcse presence has not commanded se much
attention as that of some other occupants of thrones,
and whose mission is recre of a useful than of a showy
character. King George of Bonny has come over to
ascertain whether English enterprise can be introduced
into the equatorial region which he rules. Educated in
this country, he speaks English with ease; and in ad-
dressing a meeting at the Mansion House as advocating
the development of the resources of Central Africa,
impressed all who heard him with the earnestness of
his manner and his well-chosen lassguage. The more
that English inflnence is emerted in Africa, certainly
the better. Those who listened to King George of
Bonny must have contrasted that sable monarch,
dressed as one of themselves, and speaking the same
kaguaze, with ithothtz Aldan Kriarcial4 WU° WO lig