The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-06-04 00:00:00

FRANCE has during the last few days passed
through the most critical point of anoth( r
of those political disturbances which so often
trouble it. To Englishmen, and indeed to
Europe generally, the chief question in.
volved was that of General Boulanger's
position. The fiery war minister, who has
attained to considerable power in France, is
not included in the Cabinet which M.
Roavier has formed. So much the better
for peace prospects. Boulanger is one who
would hurry his country to battle in the
hope of adding to her glory, and there are
many Frenchmen who uphold his dangerous
views. General Ferron, who succeeds him,
.a good soldier, quite as jealous of the
honour of the Grand Army; but he is no
filibuster, and would much rather ward off
war by -being ever prepared for it, than rash
headlong into hostilities. As to how long
the President will be served by his present
advisers, he would be a bold man to pro-
phesy. French Ministries have of late ben
very short and uncertain of life.

FORTY tons of French broize money have
beqn gathered in through the Post Office to
the Mint since the prohibition in mid-April
of the circulation of the imported tokens,
and now they are as rare as before they were
common. France, irate at our repudiation
of her currency, has proclaimed the passing
of English bronze from hand to hand across
the Channel as illegal, and as there are a
good many hundred pound's worth of pence
and half-pence at present located in our
n ighbour country, their rejection will go far
to relieve the scarcity of bronze which is al-
ready being experienced here. The Mint
holds French bronze to the value of £17,000.
What will they do with it? Melt it down,
probably, for it is believed that many of the
coins are now as near France as ever they
hwe been. It has been ascertained that a
big business has been done in Birmingham
counterfeiting the French coin and palming
it off through an organised system of distri-
bution, upon the British public, in place of
the penny, for the purpose of securing not
only what would be the French legitimate
Government minting profit, but the differ-
ence to the good in value of the shilling be-
yond the franc also. The stoppage of the
circulation of French bronze here will put
the enterprising Birmingham metal workers
under the necessity of developing a newer
and more honest, if less profitable, industry.

FOR the purpose of preventing the publica-
tion of indecent evidence given in the law
courts, a bill is about to be introduced into
the House of. Commons by such capable and
public-spirited lawyers as Mr. Finlay, Mr.
Lockwood, and others. It proposes to give
the judge of a superior court the power of
ordering that. such and such evidence shall
not be included in a newspaper and published
report of a case, his own sense of the fitness
of things being the judge's guide and
governor in the issue of any such order.
Now, if this sort of thing became law as re-
garis the superior courts, it would be
difficult to keep the princ:ple from subse-
quent introduction at'quarter sessions and
in the county court and at magisterial hear-
ings; and such a state of things, we venture
to predict, would not strengthen the public
trust in the fairness and impartiality of the
administration of justice. The openness of
our trials gives them their chiefest value ;
we must be careful how we attempt to set
them a.:ide for close suspicion-arousing
tribunals. The good taste of editors, news-
paper-publishers, and above all of news-
paper readers, should be the safeguard
the matter. Literary filth ought certainly
to be kept out of those popular prints which
are read by everybody, but it must be done
without any judicial prohibitions which might
at all be open to misconstruction.

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