The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-04-10 00:00:00

SCOTLAND.

Aberdeen City _ Dr. 'Webster 1 . . . . .
Aberdeen (East).. Sir A. Gordon.. 1 1.. --
Aberdeenshire
(West) .. Dr. Farquharson .. 1
Banffshire RW. Duff • • .. 1..
Buteshire .. T. Russell .. .. 1 1.. --
Caithness .. Sir J. G. T. Sinclair 1
Clackmannan
Kinross .. .. Right Hon. W. P.
Adam
Dumbartonshire A. Orr Ewing .. 1 —. •
Dumfries District E. Noel .. 1 —• •
Dumfriesshire .. R. Jardine .. 1 —.•— • •
Dundee G. Armitstead. . .. 1 —.•— • •
F. Henderson .. 1 . . . . • •
Edinburgh City D. MiLaren 1 —• •
J. Cowan.. .. 1
Elgin and Nairn.. Sir G. M. grant .. 1 .. —. •
Forfarshire .. J. W. Barclay .. 1 —. •
Glasgow .. G. Anderson .. 1 —••—
Dr. Cameron .. 1 ..
R. Middleton .. 1 .. ..
Greenock .. .. J. Stewart .. 1. —• •
Haddingtonshire Lord Elcho 1
Inverness Burghs C. F. Mackintosh .. 1 --
Kincardineshirx Sir G. Balfour .. 1 —• •
Lanarkshire(Nth.)- Sir E. Colebrook .. 1 —. •
Leith Burghs .. A. Grant .. 1 —. •
Linlithgowshire P. M'Lagan 1 —. •
Mid Lothian .. -*Right Hon. W. E. Glad-
stone .. 1 .. .. 1 ..
Montrose _ .. W. E. Baxter .. 1
Paisley .. .. Wm. Holms 1 —..—
Perth C. S. Parker .. 1 —.•—
Perthshire .. .. D. Currie.. 1 . . . . 1 . .
Renfrewshire .. Colonel Mure 1
Ross it Cromarty A. Matheson ..
St. Andrews Dis-
trict .. S. JTsllnSOfl .. 1.. . .
Stirlingshire C. Bolton .. 1.. .. 1..
Sutherland .. .. Marquis of Stafford 1
Wick Burghs .. Fender 1 —.•--
Wigton District J. M`Laren 1 . . . 1. .

The foregoing list shows a total return as fol-
lows :--
Liberal Members ... 318
Conservative Members

Liberal Majority 156

- -
These results are arrived at by counting the Home
Rulers among the Liberals. A more exact statement
shows :
Liberals 277

Conservatives
Home Rulers

[lt should be noted that Mr. Gladstone's name
occurs twice in the list, he having been elected for
both Leeds and Mid-Lothian.]

company, was" killed late the other
guard, 60 years of age, and
Matthew Capp, a goods
an old servant a the
night, at the good's yard of the Great Western Company, at
Wolverhampton, by an engine and truck passing over his
body.
The Edinburgh correspondent of the baily News
says the crowd waiting for the appearance of Mr.
Gladstone I overheard a conversation between two sturdy
voters which seems to put the prospects of the representa-
tion of Scotland in a nutshell. Said one, I think a the Tory
members for Scotland wull be able tae gang up tae London
in a first-class compartment." Aye,' said the other, after an
appreciable pause during which it may be presumed the
situation was reviewed, and be able to pit their feet upon
the seat, tae.' This, of course, has the exaggeration of epi-
gram, but as far as matters have gone up to this morning it
is certainly within the mark."

HOPE FOR THE FUTURE

The Times of Tuesday had the following leader on the
hitherto seasonable weather of the present year, and its en.
couraging effect on the prospects of industry, commerce, and
agriculture :
The weather during the 'present year has been
seasonable thus far. It has conformed to rule during
just the months in which rules are most liable to be
set aside. The year began with a real winter; a winter
in something more than namt; a winter that brought
with it a full allowance of genuine winter sports. A
season of this kind is always welcome to the young and
to the strong, to those whose limbs are active and
whose circulation is still brisk. The less-favoured
members of the human family—that is to say, some
three-fourths of the male sex, and well-nigh the whole
female sex—are glad to have got through it with safety
and to have been spared for less distressing times.
They have had their•turn now with the rest. The
winter has been sharp, but it has not been as long as
it was last year, and it has been duly followed by
genuine spring weather. A reaction from this has
come next. March has been a fine month, but it has
not been a warm month. Its east winds have served
to check the too rapid advance of vegetation, and
they have given us something more than their stipu-
lated bushel of dust. The past month has preserved
its character unchanged almost to the close. Not
until the very last day—a day which, but for Leap
Year, would not have belonged to March at
all—aid the rain begin to come down. From
that day to this there has been an alternation
of wet and dry, of sunshine and shower. Everything,
in fact, has happened just as it ought to have hap-
pened in this best of all possible years. The grass is
beginning to look well; the harvest promises favour-
ably; the fruit buds have not yet reached the stage at
which a night's frost would prove fatal to them. The
year has only to go on as it has begun, to observe its
own laws, and to be careful in every way to be as un-
like its predecessor as it can. Another summer like
that of 1879 would be too unkind an infliction.

•
In whatever direction we turn our eyes, the present
season offers an agreeable contrast with the corre-
sponding season of last year. We must not indeed,
expect too much from an English spring, even at its
best. Its praises have been .sung by the poets, but
they:.are a more proper theme for poetry than for un-
imaginative prose. The best that can be said for it
with any truth is that its coming brings us so much
nearer to the summer, just as the finest prospect a
Scotchman ever sees is the high road to the south. We
are well satisfied to have got thus far on into the
year with an improvement at each stage. The
revival of trade is a pleasant adjunct to all
else that the spring has brought with it. In
this department of human affairs the winter has been
indeed long. There has been one season after another
with discouraging returns and low profits and poor
remuneration for labour. The turn has at last come,
and it has come none too soon. The capitalist has
not been the only or the chief sufferer from the de-
pression the country has been going through. Its in-
fluence has reached quarters where it has been much
more sensibly felt. The real trial has been for the
wage-earning classes, and though we may now trust
that they have passed safely through it, and out of
it, yet they have not passed unscathed. The lesson -
has been a sharp one, too sharp to be soon for-
gotten. The working man has learned that trade
has its seasons, and that its period of sunshine is
not to be depended upon as if it would last for
ever. A good time is certain to be succeeded by a bad
time, and, indeed, leads naturally to it. It is the part
of prudence to take advantage of the good time and to
remember during the years of plenty to make provision
against the lean years that are to follow. The cycle
that has now begun will run its due course. There is
a prospect, and more than a prospect, of advanced
wages as the natural consequence of a more remunera-
tive employment of capital. The working man has
thus a chance offered him which it will be in his power
to use as he pleases. He may waste the golden hours,
and, so to say, take the spring out of the year,
by striking. There will always be plenty of ad-
visers to urge him to this course, but it is one which
has perhaps done him more harm than good even
where it has been followed successfully, and which
has simply involved a dead loss where it has failed.
The man who has good sense enough to keep clear of
this danger will have more to do before- he can con-
sider himself safe. To earn high wages by work is a
good beginning, but it is no more than a beginning.
The harder task remains—to save something from w at
has been earned, and not to live up to the full measure
of expenditure which a good year permits. We must
give credit to the working classes for the degree in
which they have learned this rule. Its observance,
though partial and incomplete, has carried them
safely on -the whole through two very trying seasons.
Many of them will now have to make a fresh start.
They have been thrown back from the point they had
once reached. Their reserves have been trenched upon
and their slender stores diminished or wholly con-
sumed. Some of them have a load of debt which must
be cleared away before positive saving can begin.
i
With the more improvident of them debt s the normal
state. They get through each winter by pledging in
advance the earnings of the next year, and they shake
themselves free only to subject themselves in regular
course to the next winter's load. Our concern is not
for men who thus persistently display themselves as
incapable of self-help. The really hard case is that of
the careful working man who has given way under
the unexpected strain which prolonged hard times
have brought with them, who has done his best, and
who seems to have nothing left him as the reward of
his self-denying efforts. But one real possession he
has, and that is himself, the skilful hand, the stout
heart, and the trained habits and ideas of which no
stroke of adverse fortune can deprive him. A season
of encouragement and of promise is now opening upoi.
him. He has only to be true to himself, and all tilt
rest will follow. Independence is before him, and lie
will reach it in the end, though he has had to traverse
the dark valleys and to win his upward way by many
a steep hill that has stood between him and the goal
to which he is struggling forward.
It is proverbially difficult to square all interests.
The year 1880 will be an annus 7nirabilis indeed if it
succeeds in accomplishing this. A revival of trade,
with its brisk demand and improved values, means
higher prices for consumers.
.The working bees
in our great industrial hive'may gain more
than they will lose from these. The drones will
be the certain sufferers. Elastic incomes may rise
to the occasion and beyond the occasion. The
prospect for fixed incomes is one of diminished
purchasing power. For the owners of these in-
comes it would be well if the world around them
could be persuaded to go on for ever working at
a loss, or, at all events, at the minimum of profits.
The past seasons of depression have suited
their case exactly. They wish for no change and•will
hardly be persuaded to welcome a change which will
make them poorer than they were before it. It is for
a change of this kind that they must now hold themselves
prepared. It is the result of a law which works by
turns well and ill for them, but which they of all men
have least reason to wish to see abrogated. If there
were no such good seasons as the one we are now
entering upon, if trade were always depressed, and
if the employment of capital were always unremu-
nerative, the whole vast, machine of our national
industry would never have been called into exist-
ence. Its profits may vary to almost any extent.
They may be sometimes high and sometimes low,
but if the production is to go on they must be good
enough on an average of years to stimulate and to
reward it. The case of the farmers is not even to this
extent to be met. The farmers want two things which
are scarcely to be found together—an abundant season
and a high price for the increased agricultural produce
which an abundant season bestows. They have, Mr.
Mechi tells us, good ground this year for hoping that
the former of their wishes will be granted them. It
is early to speculate about results, but we are at
least assured that things look well thus far. But
how will prices stand under the double influence
from home and from abroad which will be thus
brought to bear upon them? They have been low in
bad seasons. In good seasons we must expect that
they will be lower still. In neither case does the
farmer seem likely to obtain a proper return for the
labour and capital he has been laying out. We can
see no immediate escape for him from the one or from
the other of the evils which are now threatening him.
The cure must be the work of time. It will come
surely, but it will come slowly. Land which cannot
be made to yield a remunerative corn crop will either
go out of cultivation or, more probably still, will be
turned to some other use. The farnaer, mean-
while, may have many sympathisers in I).is * trou-
bles, but he will find, we fear, no effectual help
from any of them. The great matter is that
the food of the people should be assured be-
yond all risk from the uncertain climate of these
islands. If the farmer cannot quite rejoice in the
general well-being, or echo very heartily the wish for
cheap bread, he can at least learn to conform to the
new exigencies of his position. He has contrived
somehow to worry through a course of bad seasons.
With some loss and with plenty of most excusable
grumbling, he has survived into the new cycle. We
lia,ve a prospect now of seeing what an abundant year
will do for him.