The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1887-06-04 00:00:00

th ur fonon etartspettni.

(We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
Identify ourselves with our Correspondent's opinions.]

Now that we have entered the month of June
we may be said to be looking the Jubilee
fairly in the face. Preparation for the various
celebrations is going rapidly forward, not only
in London but in every town—it may almost be
said every village—in the kingdom; and in
another fortnight all will be on the tip-toe of
expectation for the ceremonies which will render
1887 a memorable year in the history of the
Empire. Westminster Abbey for some weeks
has been given over to carpenters and up-
holsterers and the grand old fane will witness
_ eneh a-gathering of notabilities; not only:English
• but foreign, as have seldom been brought
together under a single roof. Along the route
by which the Queen will proceed from Buck-
. • inghtim Palace to the Abbey seats in the
windows are already being let at a high
figure, and stands are projected in some
places for the better accommodation of those
who will desire to witness a pageant which, once
seen can never be forgotten. Contracts, also,
are•lieing- entered into for the decoration and.
. .• illrimination of the principal West-End thorough-
• fares ; and busy committeemen are sketching
on the arrangements for ettertaining five-and-
- twenty thousand London sehool children at tea
in Hyde-park. All this pressure will become
greater as the fortnight between this and the
day officially fixed for the celebration wears
away; and a worthy display of enthusiastic
loyalty will be the result.
. .•"'Diet result, moreover, will be far from merely
• • temporary. The Imperial Institute, which for a
:*- long time lingered in its progress in public sup-
port, is now an assured success; and the Church
House, which will be the Church of England's
- permanent memorial of the interesting event of
this year, promises soon to hairs) the Same said of
it. The Women's Jubilee Gift to the Queen was
long ago known to be a triumph, and her
Majesty's disposal of it will command general
approval. As is well known, a portion—a com-
paratively small portion—of the fund will be do-'
voted to the erection in the park at Windsor of a
replica of the statue of the late Prince Consort,
executed by Baron Marochetti for Glasgow,
which her Majesty is understood to have stated
to be the best in all respects she has seen. By
far the greater portion of the subscriptions will,
however, be used by the Queen to endow some
institution especially designed for the aid or com-
fort of her own sex; and she has invited the
committee to suggest three such institutions to
her in order that she may choose one of them
for this purpose. All will feel that not even the
most querulous could object to such a disposition
of the funds. They were raised for the Queen to
do exactly as she liked with, and no subscriber,
and above all no one who was not a subscriber,
would have had a right, this being the condition
of the gift, to adversely criticise any method
her Majesty might have adopted for using it.
But the method actually resolved upon is so
admirable that adverse criticism is silenced, and
the women's gift will be universally felt to have
been put to admirable use.
Much of the criticisms which is no freely
! lavished upon those in high places comes from
people who do not comprehend the disagreeable
conditions under which the work of the eminent
is often done. Only those in the innermost
circle of all, for instance, can tell what strain of
work falls upon royalty; but a far wider circle
has now been made aware of the strain which
falls upon those who conduct the parliamentary
business of our country. "All-night sittings"
of the House of Commons may be stirring and
even exciting to read of, but what is sport to the
many may prove death to the few. One rather
gloomy medical critic of the present condition
of things in the House of Commons has given
the opinion, that "unless there be an entire
change of tactics shortly there will be a hideous
roll of mental and physical wrecks to chronicle.
The year is already telling very seriously on
many valuable lives, and before long the mischief
in progress will make itself manifest." This is,
perhaps, an unduly despondentview to take of the
situation, but no one who frequents the House
of Commons can doubt that there is something
to justify it. It is a habit of man to think the
evils of the present the most grievous the world
has ever seen; but there cannot be a doubt that
hardly in the history of the House of Commons
has such a continuous and worrying strain been
placed upon members of all shades of opinion
as within the past few months.
These are days in which the com-
memorations of centenaries, and hi - cen-
tenaries, and ter - centenaries flourish, and
hardly any prominent person in history can
encape the process. Among those to be thus
honoured by popular recollection is Mary,
Queen of Scots, and next month will be
opened at Peterborough an historical exhibition
of portraits, rings, missals and other objects of
interest connected with that unhappy Monarch.
It is necessary to remember that Peterborough
Cathedral was the scene of Mary's funeral, in
• order, to see why the Northamptonshire city
should concern itself in this particular matter;
• and as the exhibition has the patronage of the
Queen,. and has the Dean of Peterborough as the
president of an influential committee, there
should be little doubt of the success of
what can scarcely help being an interesting
historical collection. Whatever may have
been the faults of the Scottish Queen,
her unhappy fate has secured eloquent defenders
for her in every age since the tragedy at
Fotheringhay ; and although historical judg-
ments will differ concerning her until the end of
time, there is no second opinion that she will
always be an interesting figure in the chronicles
of Britain.
Our Antipodean Colonies have some peculiar
troubles, the cause of which was apparently
small, but the effects astoundingly great. Portions
• of New Zealand, for example' are overrun with a
species of dock, the original seeds of which were
- sold by some swindling speculator to the settlers
nnder the pretence that they were the seeds of the
tobacco plant; and now the weed basso far spread
as to be practically ineradicable. The rabbit pest of
Australia is more generally- known, but as each
year's _figures concerning it come to hand,
astonishment deepens at the widespread nature
of its ravages. From a statement recently made
before the Legislative Council of New South
Wales, it appears that from the passing of the
• Rabbit Nuisance Act in 1883 to end of last year
over £360,000 was paid for the extermination of
rabbits in that colony, while a number of claims
• ' for subsidy for rabbits killed during the last
quarter of 1886 were still undealt with. During
the same- period nearly 8,000,000 rabbits had
been destroyed, besides vast numbers slain
1-,2? by natural enemies, poisons' and other means, of
• which no estimate could be made. It must be
almost disheartening to the people of New South
Wales to learn that, despite all this, the area of
• infested country was increasing, and the ad-
iisability of further legislation was being con-
sidered by, the Geyernment. The rabbit is
evidentl7a very innocent animal in its place in
England, but when taken to the Colonies it is a
nuisance' the destructive powers of which can
scarcely be calculated. •
Some hope may be entertained that there will
speedily be a large demand for English iron and
steel, consequent upon the decision by the
Chinese authorities to commence the construc-
tion of a railway system. For China is a country
of magnificent distances, and if once the railway
• system begins to spread, an enormous amount of
• iron and steel will be required. It is true that
severaL years ago the Woosung Railway was
laid, and that, so strongly were the Chinese
prejudiced against it, for superstitious and
.soci4 reasons that the rails had speedily all to
be taken up again; but a brighter fate is
anticipated for the lines which are about to hi
▪ commenced. The Empress, who from all
accounts of her, is one of the most statesman-
., •
tr; like women who ever sat on a throne, has
• , •
approved a memorial advising that a railway
•-• shall at once be constructed from Kaiping
to .Takoo, the port •of Tienkin to be fol.-
/ lowed by aline from Takoo to Tienkin itself. The
, • r lb t.. 11
main object, according to the Emperor's
*roe= = advisers, is to provide' for the easy conveyance
• of troops and artillery, but a secondary is to
benefit trade, and, probably, in the long run the
latter will be found to have been the most
profitable result. ' The matter is important to
England not only, as promising a probable
extension of trade, but as in no small degree
affecting us in our capacity as country-owners in
the East. For when China definitely emerges
from her long sleep of centuries no one can place
bounds to her power.
. . A keener, interest is displayed in England in a
. •. . French ministerial crisis, such as that we have
recently seen, than in a similar political detail in
any other country. And yet such crisis recur so
frequently that one might have imagined that
any but those immediately concerned would ere
this have grown tired of reading about them.
The new Ministry is the twenty-second since the
fall of the Empire, and as it is not seventeen
.• years since that event occurred, the average life
clach has been but small. We may fairly con-
graculate ourselves that in this matter, at least

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they do not manage things better in France;
and though the two last Ministries, the first of
Lord Salisbury and the second of Mr. Glad-
stone each lasted less than a year, there is no
immediate prospect of England following the
French example.- _ But it is interesting to
note that in our own history, an un-
usually long-lived Administration has been
followed by a series of short ones. The
three most prolonged Premierships in Eng-
land have been those of Walpole, twenty-one
years, the younger Pitt eighteen years, and Lord
Liverpool fifteen years. After the first had fallen,
there were eight Administrations in fifteen
years; after the second, six in thirteen years;
and after the third, seven in eight years. It is,
therefore, evident that, as in England so in
France—when once a system dependent upon
•-Onemitii is broken up, along time is required
for its various elements to re-crystalise.
A. F. R