The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-02-15 00:00:00

Our POon Corresponlnnt,

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

The political crisis in France has been quietly cen-
fronted ; and that country now possesses a new Presi-
dent of the Republic, and a new Ministry, while a
new President has been elected by the Chamber of

Deputies. Time was when such events would have
led to convulsions; bat France has passed through the
furnace of affliction, and seems to have been purified
thereby. Meadwhile a great question with the people
of Paris is whether the Parliament of the nation will
once more sit in the midst of the capital. I:7p to the
election of the National A?sembly in 1871, it was accus-
tomed to do so; but in times of revolution the halls of
the Legislature were invaded by a surging and clamorous
mob, in the presence of which debate or delibera-
tion was impossible. The last time this happened
was on Sunday the 4th September, 1870, when the
iiews arrived in Paris of the capitulation at Sedan,
and of the capture of the Emperor Napoleon by the
King of Prussia. The intelligence acted in Paris
_

like the bursting of a political volcano. The Corps

Legislatif met, surrounded by a vast and excited
multitude, which demanded the deposition of the
Napoleonic dynasty. This was voted, and from
that day the Parliament of France has not met in the
capital. The Corps Legislatif never assembled again;
but when Paris surrendered to the German army in
January, 1871, it became necessary for the country,.
through its representatives, to agree to terms of peace.
They could not meet in- Paris, because it was
isurrounded by the hosts of its enemies, so they
gathered together at Bordeaux, and when the Germans
had withdrawn from Versailles, they removed to that

. _
town, where the sittings have been held in the capacious
Palace of the Bourbon kings. Versailles is about
twelve miles from Paris—a distance which is some
protection from the march of a revolutionary mob in
times of commotion. The people of Paris have long

resented this removal of the Legislature from its
legitimate centre; and the turbulent populations of
Belleville and Montmartre now see what a mistake they
made when they overawed by violence the collective
wisdom of the land. But Paris knows very well.that
it possesses no stately building like our Houses of Par-
liament for the accommodation of the Legislature. It
_

has palaces, cathedrals, churches, hospitals, and
museums, but a structure like our Palace at West-
minster is quite unknown there. Even if the French
Parliament came back to the metropolis at once, the
Assembly and the Senate could not both meet under
the same roof. The Assembly would have to put up
with the ifecommodation supplied by the old Corps
Legislatif ; while the Senate would have to find a local
habitation as best it could. Nothing, perhaps, could
more strikingly illustrate the estimation in which
Parliamentary institutions have been held in France
through successive ages by different kinds ef govern-
ment.
From the French Legislature to our own at the pre-
sent time, is a natural transition. London has not to
make the same complaint as Paris. The Parliament
sits in the midst of the capital, the heart of the nation,
the Empire, and the world. It assembles in a build-
ing more sumptuous and costly than that which has
been raised by any other people. The pile upon the
banks of the Thames is indeed well worthy of the
country once eloquently described by Mr. Bright as
"the home of liberty, the mother of free Parliaments."
Its stately towers, with their gilded pinnacles illumined
by the noon-day sun, are among the most conspicuous
and striking spectacles of the many sights afforded
by the million-peopled city. The gilded chamber
of the House of Lords, and the more business-like and
solid appointments of the House of Commons, repre-
sent the wealth and the power of the nation—the
wealth which comes from landed inheritance and vast
possessions, and the power which is derived from the
irresistible influence of a great people. Well might
the inhabitants of London be proud of the Palace of
Westminster! When the late Emperor Nicholas was
over here in 1844, he was so impressed with the magni-
ficence of the structure that in its then unfinished state
he pronounced it to be "a dream in stone ! " A gene•
ration of men has passed away, and the Emperor him-
self has gone, but the dream iii stone of that day has
become a splendid palatial reality.
The winter which is now passing away has been
more remarkable for its severity than for those fierce
gales, with their accompanying loss of life, which have
se often come up on the wings of the south-west
wind. It seems remarkable that while the national
expenditure of this maritime nation now amounts to
eighty millions sterling annually, the coat of rescuing
lives from shipwreck is met by voluntary con-
tributions. In a little side street off the Strand,
with its windows looking down upon the surface of
the ever-heaving Thames, are the offices of the
Royal National Lifeboat Institution, never ceasing
in the performance of its good work. In the very
same number of the. great London newspapers
Which recorded the actual beginning of the Zulu
war, the continuation of the contest in Afghanistan,
the first message of the new President of the French
Republic, and the opening speech of M. Gambetta,
in taking the Presidential chair in the Versailles
Assembly, all printed in large and prominent type,
was a paragraph set in the smallest, .which told how,
in the. month of January, rewards amounting to
several hundred pounds were voted to the crews of
life-boats by this noble institution, and that 156 lives
were saved from ships in distress during that month.
Amid so much other intelligence of absorbing interest,
this in all probability commanded but little attention ;
but it is well the public should know that amid the
progress of wars abroad and the occurrence of events
of great political interest, the Lifeboat Institution
continues its mission, which is founded upon the
principle that it is better to save life than to destroy.
The recent fire on board the three-decker, Duke of
Wellington, the flagship of Admiral Fanshawe, in
Portsmouth Harbour, recalled to many a memory a
striking incident in the history of that gallant vessel.
Not that she has 3 battle-scroll at all equal to
that of the stately old liner the Victory, which
is anchored very near her; but she has done
something in the service of her country, and of
more modern date than the days when Nelson
walked the quarter-deck of her neighbour. It is now
nearly a quarter of a century since, on the 11th
March, 1854, the Baltic Fleet under the command of
Sir Charles Napier, left Spithead, having been visited
by her Majesty and the Prince Consort on the pre-
vious day. A few days previously the Reform Club
had entertained the Admiral at dinner, Lord Pal-
merston in the chair. Sir James Graham, at that
time First Lord of the Admiralty, said that he
lookei upon Sir Charles not only as a gallant
but as a discreet commander, and he had his
entire confidence. "He does not go forth,"
said Sir James Graham, "under any hypocritical pre-
tence of conducting a religious war, but to assert the
independence of Europe, to maintain the balance of
power, and to resist as lawless a spirit of aggression
and of reckless aggrandisement as ever disgraced AU
country. My gallant friend says that when he goes
Into the Baltic he will declare war. I, as First Lord
of the Admiralty, give him my free consent to do so.
I hope that the war may be short, and that it may be
sharp." Such was the spirit in which the Minister
of Marine of that day bade Sir Charles Napier do
his work; and upon the date already named, the
Baltic fleet set sail, the Admiral in command
flying his flag from the Mike of Wellington.
It was one of the most magnificent spectacles
which even Spithead had ever witnessed, for
there were no ironclads then, and the ships were
all either three or two deckers, carrying a large
quantity of sail. The Duke of Wellington had 131
guns, with a thousand men on board, and she could
throw six tons of iron shct in four minutes. What a
contrast to the ordnance of to-day! Less than
five-and-twenty years ago the Duke of Wellington
was the finest vessel in the British navy; she is now,
for war purposes, as obsolete as the ark itself.
The Registrar-General has more than once told us
that a rise in the marriage-rate is a sure indication of
a country's prosperity, and that its decline so surely
marks the presence of straitened times. The latest
published returns bring the marriages down to the end
of the third quarter of last year, and it seems that
while these have gradually declined in numbere since
1872, for the three months ending last September
they were fewer than in any quarter on record in the
preceeling ten years. In those three months 03,020
persons were united in the holy bonds of matrimony
in England and Wales. The annual marriage-rate
was equal to 14 8 per thousand of the estimated
population, against rates declining steadily from 17 1
to 154 in the six preceding corresponding quarters,
But while there is thus such an indication that the
country is not so thriving as it was, food is much
cheaper than it used to be in the days of high wages
nada bundant labour. In the December quarter wheat
steed at a. fewer price than it had been quoted- since
March, 1865. The mean wholesale prices of beef and
'mutton averaged Bd, and id. per lb., showing a decline
of Id. and d per lb. respectively.upon the prices
prevailing in the previonsqnzirter. The quotations for
coal, too, have steadily declined, Therefore, terribly
severe as the winter has proved, food and fuel have
been obtainable with more comparativecave than was
the case some little time ago, when the fear of :La im-
pendir g coal famine seemed to give rise .to wickets
spprehensions.
There is at length a break in the time of gieora
through which we have passed—a rift in the clouds
which have so long overspread the land. The Chan-
cellor of the Exchequer meets Parliament this week
with hopes and antieipationa very different from those
writel he itai when the tw'o tionses adjourned on tla

17th December. On the last night ef the sitting, Mr.
Hubbard, one of the members 144 the City of London,
asked the House Secretary whether we was aware of the
existence of a state of distress such as the country had
not witnessed for thirty years. Mr. Cross promised
to make inquiries, and expressed a hope that
the suffering was not quite so intense as had
been represented. The two Houses adjourned for
the Christmas recess with a disheartening prospeet
befcre the industrial classes of the community. The
cold was fearful, trade was paralysed, and from one
end of the kingclom to the other there were vast num-
bers of unemployed. These unfortunately still re-
main, although perhaps not quite to so great an
extent; but there is one thing for which mcst of us
- are thankful, and that is for every sign which tells
us of the departure of winter. When the bitter
wind swept over hill and dale, and navigable rivers
were looked up by ice; when the sun was hidden
day after day and week after week by vast banks
of dark and impenetrable cloud, and when even
the pale thin moonbeEms failed to reach us, we seemed
to have forgotten what fine weather was, after so naany
a night of frost and so many a day of frigid and pitiless
gloom. But it is a long lane that has no turning, and
welcome enough have been some recent indications
that the hardest winter of modern years Is at last
drawing to a close. The sun has once more come out
to tell us of brighter days in store; and what must be
very satisfactory to the Chancellor of the Exchequer
is the fact that tile revenue is now showing up much
better than it did two months ago. There will
probably be an increase of receipts amounting
to a couple of millions, and meanwhile the economies
in the different departments of the Government are
being unsparingly carried out. Contrasting our
situation with that of this time twelve months, we
were then on the brink of war, with an increasing
expenditure, and a declining revenue; we are now
assured that the Treaty of Berlin will be carried out,
the expenditure is being reduced, and the -revenue is
rising. All this cannot but have its effect upon trade,
in which we may now soon expect to see a revival.

There can be no doubt that the general public always
reap the benefit of competition. Some months ago a great
reputation was claimed for the illuminating power of the
electric light, and the shares of the gas companies
were depreciated to a very considerable extent. They
are now rapidly recovering, and the companies are
carrying out many a beneficial improvement and
reform in street lighting. The Waterloo-road is one
instance of what can be done with better gas and more
effective appliances; but nowhere is the change more
striking than in that portion of Regent-street which
extends from the Colonnade and Glasshouse-street to
Waterloo-place, in Pall Mall, which, being wide and
spacious, used formerly to be enveloped in Cimmerian
.darkness. Now, however, with patent burners and
parachute-shaped opal glass lamps; a warm, soft
light is thrnwn upon the thoroughfare, by which a
newspaper can be read. In many respects the gas 83
managed gives a light equal, if not superior, to that
of electricity. It is in the pubic ways, if anywhere,
that the competition between gas and the electric light
will be most keen, and it is well that the gas com-
panies should be enabled to show what they can do
in holding their own against the discoveries which
scientific men bring forward for the inspection of the
practical man as well as of the philosopher.