The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1886-09-25 00:00:00

*4'l r •*l. r 1-11 R
ri I-1 1(1 STIIO Uft 13 k)bt..nii.4_tv) v
. .

COMNITENTS ON CURRENT TOPICS

AT last, after weeks Of desultory discus—
sion and it, ime-wasting, Parliament has got
through th 3 estimates and. the , other acces-
sory legislative work whlch has kept mem-
bers hack -om their autumn holiday mak-ing-
For.all the -wrang,lin,.-; over the estimates
,we have ru.)- economy to show except a paltry
swing of so/no £3OO a year in a Ministerial
salary. The-e is no real legislation accom
thouoi we have preparations for a
good deal in t.t-te appointment of Commis-
sions on highly important questions. Daring
th I.3o,rliarant recess, we trust nothing un-
forseen will occur to engage the snioas
attention of the Cabinet.

Mn. PARNELL'S proposed Tenant Belief
Bill was decisively defeated on Tuesday
night, and judging from its terms can prin-
ciples, and the known views thereou of the
majority of the Commons, no otlier fate
could have been expected for it. "But it fur-
nishes such a definement of the Nationalist
demand in the matter of the laud question
as cannot fail to be of great political ser-
vice. Those most strenuously , opposed to
Mr.Warnell's lead in all things Irish, have
now something less vague to grapple with
and argue against, and the English Radicals
aud Irish Nationalist who are in the main
in agreement have, a. rallying point and
standing ground now for purposes of united
action which they. have never had before.
Next!session will doubtless witness niuch more
Irish discussion. Meantime Government
are
,busy making observations to the end of
compounding their own official remedy for
Irish unquiet.

MR. HOWELL has on the stocks what may
ultimately be a very useful measure. He
desires to consolidate, simplify, and amend
the law relating to Parliamentary elections.
In this respect we are very much better
than oar fathers were, but experience
shows room for a good deal of improvement
still. But whether Parliament will go as
far as Mr. Howell wishes• at once is quite
another matter. He proposes altogether to
abolish the dual vote, establish simple resi-
dential suffrage to the exclusion of the pre-
sent systems of franchise, free candidates
from personal expense at the cost of the
Consolidated Fund, and make returning
officers much more important persons than
they now are. We shall not change from
the system recently established to Mr.
Howell's model state at one bound, doubt-
less; but Parliament, smoothinc, down the
measure, and cutting off its sharper excres-
cences, may evolve therefrom an Act which
should make things simpler than they are.

POOR misguided Mrs. Girling has received
from the remorseless hand of Death a lesson
in belief too hard for her to master, and her
religious vagaries are ended for ever. Pre-
sumably the little band of disciples who ft;.-
lowed the old lady in her singular life in the
Hampshire forest, and who had faith in the
strange tenets which she put forth, will now
break up, and its members embra,ee some
new persuasion. They have often had a
hard existence in their enforced seclusion
from their friends, and when it dawned upon
them that their "Mother" was but a mortal,'
and powerless against Death after all, these
poor "Shakers," if not hopelessly lost in re-
ligions mania, mast have, a rude awakening.
Like Joanna Southeott, Mrs. Girling will
soon now, be nothing more than a memory.
For the sake ,of those weak-minded simple
souls who suffered privation with her and
"believed her report," it is a pity that her
insanity was not sufficiently pronounced to
ensure'her confinement in a retreat "for the
crazy. But the mental calibre of the adhc-
rents of the honest, but grievously mistaken
and now dead cld lady who persuaded her-
self that she was divine and immortal was
akin to her own, and the faith of the follow-
ers could probably have been shaken by no-
thing less than death.
*

MADRID has been once again the scene of
turmoil, but the Republican rising was short-
lived, and the rebellions quickly, subjugated
by authority, The. Spaniards, as a nation,
are true. to the widow and offspring of
Alfonso, and a few insurgents only, who
have been leniently dealt with considering
their action, remain to trouble the peace of
the sunny land. The Queen Regent was
most enthusiastically received on returning
to the capital upon being informed of the
disturbance.

ALL is perplexity still in Bulgaria. Russia
manifests the strong and perhaps , not too
sernpalons hand in' her interferenCes with
the affairs of the little State from the Prince-
dom of which the cousin of the Czar was so
recently driven. The Bulgars do not seem
to reliso. Russia's efforts to set straight their
croaked: paths. Austria is suspicious and so
say the knowing ones, showing her teeth
and sharpening her claws. Prince Bismark
still appears to approve of Russia's action,
though what benefit can come to Gorr-Tiny
from an extension of Magcovite strength in
the Balkans it is hard enough to see. Eng-
lish sympathy is, on the whole, with the ab-
dicated Prince, but his reported coming
visit to/the Queen is" contradicted. An
opinion has been expressed; that all, along,
despite appearances, Alexander has been
playing the Russian game, and feathering
his own nest in the process. This is a bold
reading of the problem, but such is the
depth of Russian diplomancy that one can
credit stranger things of it than could be
believed concerning, any other state. The
whole business is Ward to fathom, and how
it will end none can say, save, perhaps, the
advisers of the Great White Czar. But
whatever else may come to light concerning
Alexander of Battenberg, Englishmen will
always admire him for the soldierly way in
which he bore himself during the war with
Servia, and sympathise with him because
the Bulgarians, poor in sentiment as they
admittedly are, grew enthusiastic concelm.
ing him at a time when the hand of every
man seemed against their Prince.