The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1873-09-27 00:00:00

MAKING LIFE BETTER WORTH LIVING.

I suppose all sanitary improvements must be considered to
come within the range of our mectioa. We have got very
much yet to do In that matter; but I th nk thst our atm is '
higher than It used to be, and I take comfort from that We
are aiming now not simply at preventing death, but at making
life better worth living by 'writing it more healthy. And do
not forget that in fighting bistiles agsh.st dim., it is not
merely the killed that are to he considered, it Is the
wounded. In throe tsrrible b fllctions of proem tibia dis-
eases throughout the c Twirl the loss of We Is very sad, but
to my mind even more sorrowful are the can of nuo.bers
of our fellow countrymen and women who have a miserable
and a weak life, and are doomed to fight the battle of life
under most fevers conditions because of the wounds they
have received from preventible disease. (Cheers.) In •
0141111 Us IhM yo 4 will al owe an Oa advantage' et 60Y

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section. It is most desirable that all those project& for sani-
tary improvement which are proposed by the political thinker,
or by the practical pAltician, should be at once tested by
sclentlfl,l.., and hy men who are accuatomtd to work out
attleottflc experlms uta.

REFORM IN PLACE OF REVOLUTION.
Comparing our social struggles, our political convulsions
in E 'dune with what there have been on the Continent, I
thick that one great reason why we have got through them
In comparative safety --•• hy we have had reform In place of
10 volutiou—haa been that the large body of the peopie have
known that this right to live was acknowledged. (Applause )
Well, going back to that prooreas nitich I .X.,,t,0U it stint-
nig, we incr. bear to min two f sets connected with It. All
yin who Love otodied political eivinomy, and the writinu
of economists •ome tee: ty or thirty, or forty years ago, will
remember that almost all of them supposed that there would
in no great Improvement %UM ut • great decrease In the
Increase—if I may to say—of the population, and that Mr.
Malthus and Mr Mtn, and many other most able and most
excellent political econondato, advised very strongly what
they called the m odential check on population as the
ntily means of m siring progress, or as the most probable
means a making progress, In prosperity, lint the
truth la that our progress has been made without
It lit ar), and to spite of the great increase.
There nas wt only beets • great increase In popu-
lation, hull may say hardly any dllnkutlon of that increase.
(Hear, hear ) I am a had statistician, but I imagine the
Increase in the lut forty years was greater than in the pre-
vious forty years. The Increase in England and Wales alone
has been from sixteen and • half millions In Mal to twenty.
one and a half millions in 1071, and yet the population are
more prosperous mow than they were then. If there has
been an increase in the well-being of labonrers, there has
also been an increue in the wellbeing of capitalist, I am
not going now Into the special pronto of spedal trade', bat I
believe it would be easy to prove that the Increase of the
capital of the country has more than kept pace with the
Increase of the population, or even the increased prosperity
of the labourers. If both classes—both capitalists and
labourers—have upon the whole bettered their condition, I
art not at all surprised to nod out also, what I believe to
he the case, that there is • better feeling between the two
classes