The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-11-16 00:00:00

@sr Pablo eartspitood.
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Ma pals& nataralli lock 10 tlmi poi annual civis
Inaqual at Glidldhall as an madam wlien Mahan'
will beak tla• dilac• dog bays bog maintained, sod
eat us their views of lee stateici thillaustry and ha
Waken to foreign asthma. W. commot.ozpoot that

they will favour us with • pregramme of What they
intend doing or trying to do during the following see-
ion and if any one of us are sanguine enough to ev
peat such • thing we are deservedly diseppointed.
Gooselosially, however some member of the Govern-
meat, somewhat exhilarated perhaps by good wine
and good company, lets fall a few words which are
regarded an indicative of some contemplated measure
Ile he introduced by Ministers. If anticipation' of
any molt revelations were indulged in previous
So the Guildhall banquet this year, they certainly
have not been realised. lidinieters were discreetly
retkient as to their plans, and chiefly confined them-
selves to • retrospect on • gluon at our present posi-
tion. The most communicative of the ministerial
orators was Mr. Goecheu, and he gave ne just a glimmer
of the future, and not altogether an agreeable one,
when he hinted at a large outlay on our naval defences.
He confiders it necessary for the Government to
"watch and equal the efforts of other nations, however
eostlyit may be to ourselves, and he confidently relies
on • generous country. Perhaps the most thoughtful
ministerial speech was that of Lord Selborne, the
new Lord Chancellor. who paid a graceful and
generous tribute to his predecessor, anckexhibited "the
standard of his most pure and noble cheractar " as a
high example for himself, while his powerful argument'
In favour of the House of Lord" as an institution most
sonsiderably influence public opinion. The absence of
Mr. Gladstone is much to be regretted, but we can
well understand how necessary it we. on the Lord
Mayor amusing as that perfect rest was desirable,
and on Lord Granville's assurance that Ministers
are the moat hard-working set of men he has ever
known. Al to the Foreign Secretary, he was graceful
sad genial of course, and managed to pay compliments
directly and indirectly to the fair sex, while of
more importance to the pubic was his valuable infor-
mation with regard to the new French Treaty—infor-
mation that must have been perfectly fresh to the great
majority of his audience. One little incident of the
banquet, tor a knowledge of which we are indebted to
Lord Granville, will be very agreeable to the public.
When the Lod Chancellor alluded to the facility with
which the country could "pay the bill" arising out of
the Geneva award, the Chancellor of the Exchequer
gave three distinct cheers. In default of any parti.
aular information from Mr. Lowe himself, this little
eplude in the festivities of the evening is of pleasant
augury. And, after thus alluding to some of the dis-
tinguished guests, a word for the host is but fair.
The new Lord Mayor, Sir Sydney Waterlow, acquitted
himself well. He epeaka well and to the purpose,
with complete self-command, and with no unneces-
sary verbiage. He will very appropriately preside
at the next anniversary festival of the Printers
Pension Corporation. He is, or rather was, himself
a practical printer, having gone through all the de-
partments of the trade.
" •

The Attorney-General by his recent speeches has in-
creased the interest which is now pretty generally felt
In the coming session. There can be no reasonable
doubt that that session will be at least of average im.
portance, and probably it will be more than usually
Important, not only for the characters of the legiela-
lion that will be attempted but as being perhaps the
last mission of the present Parliament. The question
of Irish education will inevitably come on for present
consideration, and how exciting that subject will
sieossearily be I need not point out. And then Sir
J. D. Coleridge indicates a whole cluster of questions
connected with the land—including tenure, transfer,
entail and primogeniture, mortmain and the game
laws—and another cluster of questions connected with
taxation, full of complications and difficulties ; besides
which there is a law reform, to be undertaken by the
Lord Chancellor and the Attorney-GeneraL That all
these questions will be grappled with next session no
one can fairly anticipate, but at any rate there is
every prospect et the Parliamentary campaign of 1873
being an active and exciting one.
The mission to Eastern Africa, with Sir Bartle Frere
at its head, commends itself to the whole country, and
• nation that will pay twenty millions sterling to put
down slavery in the West Indialidands will not grudge
• mere fleabite of an indemnity to the Sultan of Zan-
zibar if it is necessary to pay anything—which is by
no means oertain—to that small potentate. The horrors
of the East African traffic in our fellow creatures have
been vividly painted by Dr. Livingstone and Mr.
Stanley, and when we read, as most of us must have
read, the earnest appeal of the distinguished explorer,
calling on Great Britain to put down this trade, the
response must have been confidently relied on. The
good willies of his countrymen go with Sir Bertle
Frere, and a debt of gratitude is also owing to Mr.
Stanley fer his powerful denunciations of this accursed
trade— an epithet, by the way, which the Bishop of
Winchester appropriately employed.
There must have been some very important reasons
for the Bank directors meeting on Saturday last, when
the Stock Exchange was shut and there was literally
nothing doing in the City, and raising the rate of dis-
count to 7 per cent. The rate has now been raised
six times since last July, and it is remarkable that it
has never stood so high as it now does since 1866, a
year remarkable for the great financial crisis. The
action of the Bank is, however, generally approved of,
and there is no doubt that it will exercise a beneficial
Influence on the cause of business.
England is the staunchest supporter of the principle
of international arbitration, and in this character she
best studies the interests of humanity, and speeds the
time when nations shall learn war no more; but it
Is to be hoped that she will not always lose by her
benificence. John Bull has been already called on to
eat Geneva humble-pie and Berlin humble pie
and it will be very annoying if ere long he be called on
to eat, with what appetite he may, humble-pie made in
Paris. It is announced that M. Thiers has been
chosen arbitrator between Great Britain and Portugal
for the settlement of the long-pending "colonial ques-
tion " disputed by these countries. I venture to say
that not one person in a thousand could give a very
definite idea of what this colonial question is, but most
of us hope that England will be found to be in the
right; otherwise the decisions with regard to the
American indirect claims, the San Juan boundary, and
the Anglo-Portuguese difficulty will moue.) doubts and
misgivings, however unfounded they may be, as to the
principle of international arbitration. Is it not rather
strange, by-the-way, that M. Thiers should be chosen
arbitrator! One would have thought that he had quite
enough on lila hands in regulating the stormy affairs of
his own country.
All who have studied the new Commercial Treaty
with France, if such it may be called, for nearly" all the
reciprocity is on one side," most rise from that study
with sorrow that K Thiers and his colleagues should
have felt it necessary to take such a retrograde step.
France wants money badly, we all know, and she is
now trying to obtain it by imposing duties on foreign
products that were formerly free, and by miming duties
that previously existed. It is to be feared that this Is
a suicidal policy, and that France ere long will discover
it to be so—in which case, however, we may hope for
reform, even before the four years have passed away
during which it is supposed to be in operation. But
that British commerce will suffer to a greater or lees
extent, so long as this treaty lasts, is pretty certain.
This is clear from the fact that innumerable articles—
in the metal, hardware, pottery, cotton, and chemical.
product trades, for example—are now subjected either
to • new or an increased duty.
It Is a long time yet to Saturday. April 5, 1873, but
still the University Boat Race on the Thames is looked
forward to with such universal interest that it is
pleasant to know that Oxford has just challenged
Cambridge, and that this world renowned contest will
probably take place on that day. sine times succes-
sively, from 1843.0 to 1869, dark blue gained the victory,
and carried away figuratively the blue riband of the
Thames; and three times successively, during the last
Verse years, light blue have been the victors. This
manly contest appears each succeeding year to excite
more and more interest, mainly owing to the well.
known fact that it is a thoroughly honourable affair.
If the crowds who assemble in the streets an Lord'
Mayor's day were exclusively composed of Londoners,
the crushing and crowding would not be very compli-
mentary to the great metropolis, but we console our-
selves with the thought that a great many people who
go out to see the sight are provincial visitors who
happen to find themselves here on that day, for no
one in his senses would come up to London to see the
procession, even with the added attractions of illumi-
nation in the evening, it being the Prince of Wald
birthday. There really is nothing to see. The
"glories" of the Lord Mayor's Show, if there ever
were any glories connected with it, have departed, and
now it is a mere common-sense and ordinary affair. It
however keeps up its attrsctiveness, as the immense
throngs on the present occasion attest. For my own
part I would abolish the affair altogether as a useless
and idle ceremony, impeding traffic and injuring trade.
But others woula make it forsooth a Bank holiday,
and oven The Tuna, in its City article, %deemss with
this clew. Certainly when the day falls on a Saturday
it is oranmendally • din nOrt•
The London grocers, Italian warehousemen, ko., are
endeavouring to stem the tide, not of disawery, but of
co-operation. They have had • preliminary meeting
to protest against co-operative stores generally, and
especially the oceasetion of Civil Servants of the

Mews erith thew ; and an destwlfl be amdetoe.
Isla Paellemeitaey eoennition to %oinks how be
geethisen esamied Goverezneat depeetnenteese
also engaged In the no-opsnitive gems. sad what
WM*, they reeds% No weals be surprtald at We
movement Any oins who las raid
unbind met be swage that theme alone
tend enatadallY to endone 4he rut
bak.we liiil4lllllpsatlt,
If tradesmen suffer, the public on the whole proit by
the reduction of prices. And lamat • low to see how
Parliament or Government can interfere with the way
In which the Civil Servants spend their own time and
their own stoney.
Some of the wholesale tobacco-neerebants have raised
the price of the seductive weed. Almost everything
else is going up, and why not tobacco The demand
for it is continually on the increase in spite of all the
counter-blasts against its use, and as it is certainly not
• necessary, even supposing that it Ii • luxury, a
small increase of price cannot reasonably be grumbled
at. Beer ie also being raised in price, and the same
remarks will apply to it. It is somewhat alarming,
however, to find the pricee of necessaries continue so
high in many cases, and even advance in others. There
is very little doubt that the approw-hing winter will
be a trying and nevem one, and all the prudence of
economy of the working class will be urgently needed.

What enormous sums and what splendid compli-
ments are paid to the Marquise de Caux, better known
as bidlle. Adeline Patti! It appears that when she
appeared in MOS7OW, as the heroine of "Travis*"
she was called before the curtain no less than thirty
times; that bouquets to the value of £lOO were thrown
at her feet, and that one bouquet was so large that
"it took two men to carry it acmes the stage." (I
wonder how this wee thrown—by machinery perhaps!)
I have also just read • statement relative to the lady's
evenings on the operatic stage,—• statement dealing
with such large figures that I will not quote them;
and it may well be added that this transcends any
former remuneration. Well, the lady deserves It, I
suppose. "The worth of a thing is what it will
bring," and if the fair songstress's notes can be changed
for gold of • greater amount than ever known to be
brought before, why not?