The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-08-21 00:00:00

sommensural

It seems a long time to antiCipate—fhe year
11100. There is something in the very aspect of
the figures which looks strange and weird—
something so different from that to which we
have been accustomed all our lives. If we carry
our minds back a quarter of a century, and trace
the course of history since 1850, we shall see
what wonderful changes have come over many
lands in that period, which makes so short a
sontribution to the history of a nation. We our.
selves have been engaged in a great European
war, and have seen the Treaty which was made
GIP II result of that conflict torn up and thrown
In oar faces. A new race of public men has ap-
peared upon the scene in both Houses of Parlia-
ment. In 1850 Sir Robert Peel was yet a Com-
moner of England; yet what an age seems to
have elapsed since that fine summer morning
when he was thrown from his horse and mortally
injured. One by one the great figures who then
stood out so prominently in the public eye have
disappeared from the political arena. Lord
Palmerston and Lord Aberdeen, Sir James
Graham and Lord Brougham, with a host of
others whose names were so well,known by both
sides of politicians—" have passed to where
beyond those voices there is peace." The Prince
Concert, then a yaung man just turned thirty
yean of age, has now been in the grave /4 years.
Lord Russell, the Prime Minister of that day,
yet remains to us, but at the age of 83, surveys
the scene as a veteran who fought his last battle
long ago, and is content to leave the work in
younger hands. Two of those younger hands
U that time have since made the Senate ring
with the echoes of their eloquence. The Prime
Minister of to-day, although then as now the
leader of a great party in the State, had not up
to that time held office. He was then in the
prime and plentitude of his intellectual powers,
sad was 45 years of age. He has since held the
bAsheet position which any subject of this realm
eon ill, and now that seventy years have passed
over his head, cannot expect to witness a length-
ened official career now. His illustrious rival,
Mr. Gladstone, was then only 41. Five and
twenty years have made him to approach very
nearly the alloted age of man, as set forth in the
writings of the Psalmist; yet there is no per-
'G&W° abatement in the intellectual power of
the grey-haired man who, but a short time ago,
vu Prime Minister of England. Again, at the
period of which we speak, the Duke of Welliag-
ton, "the hero of a hundred fights" lived, and
moved, and had his being in our midst; but for
over a score years he has been sleeping his long
Sabbath of repose alongside his fellow-conqueror,
Nelson under the spreading roof of St. Paul's
Cathedral. Abroad, thrones have been upset,
and dynasties overturned, some nationalities
have been created, and others have melted away;
great military empires have been crushed, and
tates, unpretending enough at that time, are
new preponderating influences in Europe. A
wido field of speculation is offered up if we ask
ourselves what will be the relative positions of
Prance and Germany in 1000 will they have
fought that great battle of Arnmageddon which
every one now sees is inevitable 2 Verily, with
alb our boasted progress and enlightenment, we
Mill seem to be a long way from the time spoken
of in Holy writ, when men shall turn their
swords into ploughshares and their spears into
pruning hooks, when nation shall no longer rise
up against nation, neither shall they learn war
any more I

THE IRON-----i-----1!1-1ADE.
WoLvERHASIrroN, Wednesday.
Orders were declared this afternoon to be scarce
ear nearly all kinds of finished iron. Nevertheless
there are few houses who are not slightly better
a for work than they were a few weeks ago.
But the specifications embrace quantities so small
that mills are kept with only just enough work to
suable from half to three-eight time to be run.
Prices are not strong for finished iron, and
. lanadry pigs alone either show strength or hold
their own in the matter of quotations.
In addition to the furnaces mentioned last week
am having been put out, we have to record one
Belonging to the Parkfield Company, which leaves
two of that company's plant blowing. Then, Mr.
David Rose is preparing to blow out one of his fur-
naces. Very quickly, therefore, there will hove
been a reduction in a few weeks of no less than
eight furnaces. This lessened make is assisting
in checking the rapidity of the downward direc-
tion of prices. It cannot, however be reported
that it is more than checking it, inasmuch as quo-
tations for Staffordshire iron were mostly easy this
etternoon and the instances were mentioned in
which, for inferior qualities, even 10s. under open
market prices were being accepted. If sales upon
such a basis should continue, then there will be a
further lessening of the a.ggiegate output; for,
rather than have to submit to the rates which
vrould appear inevitable during the prevalence of
such competition, there are makers who assert that
they will meet the difficulty by declining to make
The lower prices to which allusion is here made,
are believed to apply not alone to iron sold in this
district, but likewise to iron which has been sent
sway to other mill and forge districts. North
Derbyshire pigs sold here this afternoon at £3 7s.
44.,,and Cleveland at £3. 3s.
All the blast-furnace proprietors hereabouts
have not been able to adjust matters with their
operatives, a few of whom still refuse to accept
the full 10 per cent. drop.
Coal is plentiful, notwithstanding the continu-
ance of the strike in the Warwickshire district.
The employers have offered to arbitiate all future
questions if the men will go in at the drop for
which they have received notice; but the men
will not consent to resume unless the present no-
tate is arbitrated. As there would have had to be
an arbitration close upon the heels of the accept-
arise by the men of the 10 per cent., they now re-
even if they had accepted their masters' re-
vised offer. The course now open to the masters
wor!id seem to he to arbitrate at once the whole
position as at this time existing—not alone the
10 per cent., but the father reduction also, which
tlse7 claim to be entitled to under the altered con-
dition of things brought about by the reduction of
▪ in the price of leading Staffordshire coal—a re-
ductakfa which has ben declared since the notice
i yaw given n the WarwiAshire field four months
ago. Whether, however, the employers would
eonsent to even tho.e terms is open to doubt; but
the enggestion was, this afternoon' deemed to em-
brawn s. means of adjustment upon which the dis-
pute might be ended, without loss of self-respect
by either masters or men,

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