The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-10-22 00:00:00

Ebe tourbribL(e Obetter

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1837.

A REMEDY FOR DEPRESSION.

TH E lack, or rather limitation, of profitable
employment in Great Britain is the root and
cause of most of the troubles which are just
now perplexing poliCcians, and the same be
said of Ireland ; for the ills of the distress-
ful isle are in a great measure traceable to
.ommercial and agricultural depression.
People parade our great cities and towns in
gangs, crying "We've got no work to do ;''
and among such demonstrations there are
doubtless always some would be industrious
toilers whose occupation is gone by reason of
trade stagnation, while many too proud to
exhibit their misfortunes in the streets are
wearily and hungrily searching for" a job"
from morn till night, the while their -wives
and little ones at home have to endure
"short commons." In the country districts
the case is only a shade better, for agricul-
turist on hands eompain and it cannot
be said without cause—of hard timcs and in-
cresing difficulties in making ends meet ;
while the landowners fined themselves com-
pelled to reduce rents almost everywhere in
order to give their tenants a chance to keep
their heads above water. Tradesmen in
populous centres grumble more and more as
the months grow on, averring that where
there is sufficisnt business to support a shop
fhree or feuc are always opened. to the ruin
of many and the impoverishment of all. So
all classes in turn feel the pinch of prevalent
depression more or less, and no one is opti-
mistical enough to hope for much better
things in the near future. What is thereat
cause of all this ? Undoubtedly the chief
reason of the depression is a rapidly increas-
ing population within limited areas. These
isles are getting more thickly inhabited year
by year, and the producing capacity of the
realm does not relatively increase—does not,
iodeed, ma idtain its past standard, A
greater proportion of our fellow-countrymen
and women live, as education advances, by
their wits, and fewer by the sweat of their
brows Hence depression and its attendant
miseries. Competition in the struggle for
existence drives many, again, looking only
to selfish ends and their immediate surround-
ings, to engage in adventures or industries
which seem to promise even temporary profit
without regard to those laws of economy
which govern the well-being of the whole
community. Thus labour is wasted in the
pred.tstrion of articles which are often not
wanted ; supplies are created Where the is
no demand. To enquire searchingly into all
the causes of depression one would require
the insight of a great (philosopher, and the
tolling of the story would exhaust the space
of a vast volume. Suffice it that the depres-
sion most unmistakably exists, that it is the
cause of most of the miseries and discom—
forts of the United Kingdom, and that the
multiplication T.,-of the inhabitants of the
nation is at least one potent factor in bring-
ing about such a lamentable state of things. '
Such being the case those politicians who
look below the surface, and seek to get back
to the begiuings of evil in order to remedy
distress, have long seen that emigration,
wherever it can be brought about at all ad-
vantageously, is one of the most likely
method- of contributing to a satisfactor so-
lution of the difficulty. Not the indiscrim-
inate transportation of tha destitute from
our shores simply to make room for the
residue ; but a well-planned system of re-
moving the surplus population to lands
where their labours might be utilised to
their own prosperity and the benefit of the
human race. Doubtless an exodus of this
kind is necessary for the future welfare of
Britain and Ireland, but the movement must
be made with caution and the regard to the
(rood of all ; and it ought to be supple-
mented:, by a gigantic endeavour to so wisely
control production that supplies should not
in any branch of industry greatly exceed de-
inand, and by an attempt to curtail the
sphere of that vampire drone, the middle-
man, whose lazy luxuries hive done much to
suck away the sap of our commercial pro s-
perity. The merchant, as a conveyor from
-producer to consumer, is a necessity, and
seeett 1 lit;e adequa,to remuneration for the
essvice he readers to bote ; but he should
not Ise permitted to gamble with what others
have laboa-e I had for and spent much on,
a al to tretaipnlate the world's markets for
fes his •own gain. Proceeding from the
cr ecleral to fio nartienlar, it will be re.:
merkettl II it t:i • Nys k Ir. Ceine, a theaght:
fal Parli 111 211 t aa ho sits for Barrow,
li a 4ho.et7 ; ! • I r fro ra Canal ,
'siege! hs i - hieconstituentsepso•
peeing teiet teso t thousand families
of the surplue p i L i el of Ireland should
be sent out to the fertile tracts of the great
North-West by Government, and set up in
business in a Frnal way as agriculturists at
t!-,e Cost to the St:l.o Of £lO9 each family, to
e. -repaid byeeel-b;e, when psosperity- should
suceeteled pevert.e. This practical
polities as agai:ee; 2 1.,.:ty strife which
g ene rally seeks to. settle the Irish problem;
and as the plan s one of ieimense magnitnele
involviti an hilt it! outlay of twenty millions
ate -ling, it des:ewes full consideration, for,
atter all, what i 8 that, or even a larger sum,
to be compared to a cessation of civil strife
„md the reasonable prospect of a permanent
cure for depression ? What in that case
et-'al remedy for Ireland's ills
• .0 •
could be applied to the relief of an over-
Waked population in Britain also ; and with

less crowded towns and fewer fighting for a
livelihood we should be encouraged to set
f3eience more actively at work on the land,
and give a great new start to all our Stag-
nant home industries. There is s ,methivg-
more than a -nere day-dream in all this if
looked at in earnest.

CO-UIIENTS ON CURRENT NEWS.

DISEASI', and death a7-e no respectors of
rank. Just as, in the time appointed, the
dreaded Destroyer will scale the royal castle
wall as readily as he will make his gloomy
ingress to the rustic dwelling, so, despite the
safeguards of scientific sanitation, sickness
ever and anon pays unwelcome vists to court
and cottage, impartially plunging princes
and the lowly into troubled anxiety. In
London there are, as these lines are printed,
over two thousand two hundred cases of
scarlet fever under:treatment in the hospital
the patients being drawn almost entirely
from the homes of tl:e poor, while in several
other popnlons centres zymotic disease is
working painful havoc. And this week, too,
the mental eye of Britain:llas travelled- sym-
pathetically Denmarkvvards, where, at Fred-
enborg, scions of several Royal houses have
been suffering from an outbreak of measles,
among those smitten being our own
Princesses Maud and Victoria of Wales.
The attack was of the mild German type,
less dangerous than the form common hero,
but considerably more infectious'

MR. GLADSTONE has made his expected
great speech at Nottingham, and a host of
lesser political lights of every variety of
persuasion have declaimed from public plat-
forms in all parts of -the country upon one
all-pervading subject, the state of Ireland,
and yet the impartial looker-on gets no
glimpse of the hoped-for light which is to
show the nation how to govern the Green
Isle with equal acceptation to Ulster and the
South. The truth is that the campaign is
at present being carried on in a conflicting
spirit of partisanship. The bitter recrimin-
ations of jealous leaders of opposing political
camgs are distressing to listen to. The big
blot on our political system is the fact that
the shrewdness and sagacity of a Salisbury,
the unparralleled parliamentary experience
of a Gladstone, the sledge-hammar oratory of
a Chamberlain, the rounded deliverances 01
a Courtney, the scholarly philosophy of a
John Morley, the rieened power of a Goschen,
the belligerent rhetoric of a Randolph
Churchill, the biting sarcasm of an Argyll,
the brilliant epigrams of a Harcourt, the
incisiveness of a Bright, the knowledge and
the skill of a Parnell, and all the best efforts
of all the other prominant men in the ranks
of Conservatism, Gladstonianism, Liberal
Unionism, Nationalism, Orangeism, and the
rest of the "isms" which divide and distract-
our latter-day statesmanship, are sadly too
much piostituted to the service of party,
instead of being united in one great, glorious
and all compassing patriotism.

LONDON has been this week almost turned
inside out by "loafers, loiterers, and vaga-
bonds," as Sir Henry Knight aptly styled
the staple of the crowds who have swarmed
behind black and red flags, aud created a
commotion under the pretext of seeking
employment. The demonstrations in
Trafalgar-square, at the London Mansion
House, at Westminster Abbey, in Hyde-
park, at Bow-street Police-court, and else-
where, have not been the genuine plea of
workless labourers for the wherewithal to
obtain sustenance ; but "got up" displays of
poverty and want, devised by idle agitators
and salf-appointed spokesmen of the toiling
classes. Their violent horang,ues, and men-
acing ac tion are calculated to divert sympathy
from the really distressed ; and any of the
"horny-handed," out of luck, who may have
been deluded into joining in the processions
of "tag-rail and bob-tail" which have stalked
through the streets of London for some days
past, may hereafter reproach themselves for
having contributed to a needless injury to
the cause of those of the unemployed who
would, but for misfortune, be industrious.
Anyone who has seen the noisy herdes who
have been furnishing unsavoury occupation
to the Metroplitan Police does not doubt
for a moment that the balk of the demon-
strators would regard the finding of work
as the greatest calamity which could come
to them.

"IT is the pace that kills." What more
fitting sentence could have place upon the
coffin lid of poor Fordham, the celebrated
jockey who was laid in his last resting place
in the old churchyard of Upton, on Tuesday?
But, in his fifty-first year, he had worn out a
wiry constitution by the high-pressure living
which is indispensable to the Buccessf ul
rider of race horses. To the kings of the
great turf game l in England affluence is
almost a certainty ; but the price of their
proud eminence is a heavy one—an emaci-
ated frame and premature old age. Of what
avail is the friendship of the high-born now
to the groom's son who of late lived in
lordly style at the Villa liontrose hard by
the Royal Nursery at Slough? It is pleasant
to reflect, though, that George Fordham
leaves behind him an untarnished fame, won
in a field baistling with temptations. Though
the pace killed him at last, he ran straight
in the race of lire, and his will ho a honored
memory.

CARPING critics of British administrative
machinery have from time to time sought
to show that our Monarchical system has
given us a monopoly in governmental petty
corruption and incompetence, but recent
events across the "silver streak" go to prove
that those who dwell under Republican rule
do not enjoy immunity from *improper pro-
ceedings in high places. By blundering and
neglect wa, have had faulty weapons and iii-
ferioa stores served out to our soldiers when
the taxpayer has been levied on for the
supply of munitions, equipments, and rations
of good quality ; and Ocasionally dishonest
offcials have sold Government aecrets to the
agents of foreign Powors ; but Great Britain
has hitherto been spared the disgrace of
wholesale trafficking in the insigne, of its
orders of merit ani distinction. Our Generals
and Wax Ministers do not intrigue for, and
countenance, the dispensation of State
honours to the conipanions of courtesans and
and ambitious nobodies in return for hard
Gish or for private services, its Seems, to have
been the practice in France. The Gallic
nation should hasten to purge itself of evil-
doers and evil doings of this unsightly sort.

SOMEBODY has made a good suggestion as
how to put a stop to depredations of foreign
vessels on our fishing-grounds. A few gun-
boats at present cruise here and there to
protect the trawlers, hnt, their presence not-
withstanding, one is constantly hearing of
wanton damage by stranger ships— a state
of things which leads to much disturt ance
and more ill-feeling. It is proposed th the
British Governme:l t, should take n. and
equip half-a-dozen pod swift-sailir ,
going smacks, put a complement Mae
jackets and a 11:.:ti Ey gun or two o. board,
and let them mix with the working fleets.
should have its nets and two or three
fishermen, and go out with the Yarmouth and
Uriutbsy smacks to the trawling grounds in

the North Sea and elswhere. Then when
any foreign depredatory sail was detected in
an act of piracy, the Government smack
haul in its nets, give chase, opea fire
if necessary, capture the offender, and de
ver its crew over to the custody of a couit
of British justice. A pretty scheme which
ought to be workable, and should commend
itself lo:the attention of the powers that be..