The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1872-09-21 00:00:00

SIR J. BOWRING'S ADDRESS AT THE
SCIENCE CONGRESS.

The last of the addresses of the Presidents °I
Departments was deliveaeal on Tuesday morning by
Sir John Bowring, President of the Economy anal
Trade Section, in the Mee:haul.' Institute, Devon-
port. There wag a large assemblage of members, anal
the address of the venerable octogenarian was listened
to with muolt attention. Subjoined are sonic passages
from Sir J. Bewri4e address
"The late enormous inereas in the prices of all the fleece.
series of life, especirOly in food anal turf, cannot be passed I
over unnoticed. It is believed to etc( ed an ave. age of 20
per cent so that a fixed Mc -me of 21.00 a year will
be practically reduced to a value of Lao, mot the heaviest
burden will fall on the ,consuniptlon of coal, the sudden
augmentation of the market price of which in such in 9 lets
never en experienced. It is not ta he txpetotal that
Parliament would a ff.,' the haws of pollticel economy by
prohibiting exportation or Ivy ng ort mi export dirty, and
perhaps the untaxed Importation from foreign markets will
in some respects relieve the British cousurner but-we calillo4
expect a very serious redaction in price, tool must be pre-
pared for the consequences ill all our manufactures. the
pressure will be telt mostveverely by the least opulent of the
middle chases and by the agricultural labourers. W.tionen
ameba) eel in maaufaotories LIVI associate, cu they mostly revile
in cities and towns, anal hi strikes and ...Ml...tier s foroe a rise
in the price ot labour, and wherever a number of persons seek-
ing employ meet is lees than those who are warted for employ-
mete a rise of wages is inevitable, and the goal poasperity of
our mining mad mauti exulting interesrs leas euabled the
employed to Wain be Iter terms front ti-mir employers, both
in the shape of additional wages and as ourtement of the
hours of work. But roasters and workmen are alike too
generally ignorant of the peremptory nod paramount laws
of indite.' eeM.emy; they will finally regulate all contracts :
ano the best advMs to masters la, that they should cede to
the return:labia demands of their servants ; awl to these
latter that they should carefully go ad their savings in the
day of prosperity, as the day of adversity will assuredly
Come.
"The condition of the agricultural labourer is in nanny re.
sprees mat unenviable, and very difficult it Is for him to rale e
himself from Ids low condition. Be Is little disposed. except
'nicer very severe pressure to quilt the soil where he was born,
and which hie father had cultivated before bine find the poorer
be lathe less able is he to emigrate Ile belongs to no or-
gataised societies to which he Can look for relief in time of
need; and the rebores no longer exist, or only ens small scale,
which enabled the farmer to auentent the labour. rs pay by
exacting, through the poor-rides, contributions from the pub-,
Ito Moreover. the farm labourers are, for the most part, very
Ignorant, nods itiely scattered ; they have few or no iuteltignut
retires, ntatives from among themselves ; no press or papers
of their own. hut the better Instructed workmen have ,
not only their special Cuba and Uoions coon. Cti d with
their particular trades, but they form part of an immense
community, banded together by string mt rules. posse:smog
considerable footle, having their recognised leaders, their
newsoale rs, periodicals, pool:ales, aud, ruereover, exercis-
hg, as they must, great and 'itemising p .litical influence,
they are in constant communion with the leaders of public
opinion in the sari AO sections of the State. Whether a
nomemerit, lately indicated by the Speaker of the House
of Commons, to introduce the coe perative principle into
the sphere of agricultural labour will find the Measurer ripe
for its adoption—and here, as everywhere. "Ripeness is
all—is a question which time out, can solve. There ia a
widely-spread feeling tit a something ouglit to be done, and
• desire that effectual nil slimed be giveu. The agricultural
power is of great weight in thts country, and when it is dis-
covered that them Isle a vast extent a reciprocal luterest
Which should hind landlord, tenant, and 'about er in a com-
mon bend the good work will proceed.
" Few matters are term understood among the labouring
dames than the art of cookery ; for c wk. ry Is in itself a
lattice which is closely connected *Mb the economy anal
with the comforts of every family and, as, elsewhere, waste
Is tl.e result of incompetence The Engliati races aresingnlarly
backward lu kitchen koowledge which ought to form a
port of the knowledge of every women. Nor would
it be amass that men should know a little more ab aut kitchen
cc( corny than our p-epic. In visitnig the camps of our
soldiery in foreign countries, 1 was struck with the greater
variety of small enjoyments which the French militaire
provided for Hassell, especially in soma anal sane., un-
known to the English soldier. The French made little
geralens in the neighbourhood of their tents the Etaglish
seldom or never.
"The Post Olin Statistics arc among the moat instructive,
U illustration the development of trade grow gig from the
facilities of iut rcouree. We h.ve a pan tty accurate know-
ledge of the number of letters received and despatcheo in
the Coded Kingdom. It would be Interesting. were it
possible, to ascertsin the a ',antra of correspoodenco through
the china.' world. In China there fs no national taint
office. When I was Ilinister there it required nix months to
receive an answer to a letter tent from Canton to "Orin.
'Thirty years ago, when my official duties took me to
Upper Egypt, a messen. er followed me for chive weeks,
In order to deliver a drapat .1i from the Government. It
would uow require leas thau three days.
The electric teleeraph must not be Virg lien. It was my
fortune to he present at the first exhibition of this wire
power to the manilatits in Coin. 'their curiosity was eV wen.,
but neven became mho:teat with woudertneut awl elarm. Toe
messages were 1, 01 from one extremity of the line to the
other. "We understand It,' they said, 'You have a tnbe
through which you have seer the ma,. ace in a cannonball
but the promptitude with which an ansAr was returned, and
the deceits given of what was doing at the farther end, which
they had previously settled am nag themselves, and of
which we could have no knowledge, utterly perplexel them,
and they exclaimed, as the sole solution, "1 ou and he
devil nederstand coo another, anti th .re's an end of it.'
11,70,000 telegraph uiaia..gen were Wit in 1071 by the Post
tehre, of which the average chatoe, inclusive of porterage,
wants. 'ItI, Under the companies the avenge charge was
ea. 21.
"The savior-ha- las, now so much al-led by their assocla-
, Cm with the Pint 0:1100, mindivii to mare than 4,0(.0, and
had more than £l7 000,00 J; and the facilitin given to
depaei tors is one el the rooked int proverents of the age.
and an evilcitcq that !arid.", of the labouring elms treg.n
to uuderstand Inc value of ecomomy 0.011 the atesirahlity of
making soma iirOviciiiii Tor what they call the rainy
day.' It Is to be hope.% as they lictior troderstand their
tcce intere to they will, restos I of beeiefit cluer, in which
tewy ore tio often robleol arbe a. Aided, tao neon arid Lair,
p ecd to oval thems.lias of the simple otliclel ma hinery
L.A. mole so acceptable Rennet wroisties held at public-
houses In quantay le hag with then the evi's of rutoWleation,
Waite of money, and destruction of Wail) happioess.
" There can he no doulit that on the oto Is public morals
are iroproving. The Secretary of State declared emphatically
at the lot' matt. al P. ism Congress that, whether from
tile progress of educatiou, the temente at national pros-
perity, or the greater demised and better reward for labour,
there has beau a considerable diminution of crimes, not-
withstamiln4 a progressive increase is thy population. it is
truo that tile statistics fail uvula a very large portion of the
social field Take the case of Intemperance. We can follow
some of the mischief it producv. It might be possible to form
an approximative estimate of the number of those who fre-
quent publichomes, an.l the proportion anions{ them who
indelge in drinking to excess ; hat who can penetrate hat
private homes' and state how much Vlore i 5 of social and
how much of solitary ineinkty Who can p iurtray the
mlschiels end miseries which the abstracti it of mmey for
the purposes of drink has calmed in the diminution ad the
supplies of the condone and 'worries, to say nothing el
the necessaries of life ; what Innocent pleasures might
not have been enjoyed ; what instruotive hooks might oeit
have been read ; what, beaming garments, Instead of dis-
gracer( .11 rage, nileht not have bees won,; what whole It/1110
food and driek iostea.l of pe,tilent poison ; what h tote
welborde red nernes, instead of offensive hovels, bode,
niture, foul beds, and all the attendants of wretchedness wed
woe
After referring to the statistics of lunacy, education, awl
bankruptcy, Sir J. Mitering went on to ask—Lay not the
study of statistics have 5, moralizing effect upon politic
opinion Slay US not logoouce sovereigns and legis-
lators when the cost of great national evils, and some.