The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-01-03 00:00:00

NEW YEAR PROSPECTS.

It has been remarked that the retrospect
of men and nations are seldom attended
with unalloyed pleasure or unrelieved pain;
Many who took leave of the old year saw in
it a time of wars and rumours of wars; of
troubles abroad and of distress at home;
a year of failing harvests and gloomy skies ;.
of stagnant trade and stationary revenue; a
twelvemonth of anxiety from many causes
and many kinds ; a year of the last hours of
, which were marked by great disasters on
land and sea. Even had the world beyond
the encircling waveswhich ever wash the
shores of our islands been enjoying a period
of tranquillity and prosperity, we ourselves
should have been affected by a succession of
seasons of an inclemency almost unprece-
dented; but while wehave had an immunity
from domestic political disturbance, there
was scarcely a month, in the adverse forces
of material nature, in which we were entirely
free from suspense. However, having bid-
den farewell to the Old Year, the unknown
vista of the future is outstreched before us;
and while standing upon its verge, a glance
,at the prospects which it opens up will be
I not without its interest just now. _ _

On the Continent of Europe the political
horizon, although clouded, is not so hope-
lessly overcast as to lead to fears, like those
at the beginning. of 1877, of inevitable Wars
and convulsion. There is, for instance, no
occasion for a feeling of grave apprehension
and despondency over the relations between
Russia and Turkey. The Prime Minister of
I England has expressed his belief that the
Treaty of Berlin would be faithfully carried
out by the contractino- parties. By that in-
strument the Great Pnowers endeavoured to
give repose to Europe, and laid the found-
ation of a work which the assembled diplo-
matists looked forward soon to produce sta-
bility and permanency on a long-unsettled
portion of the continent. The liberated pro-
vinces are trying the experiment of self-
government; and if the results are of slow
growth, it should be remembered that we,
who have been long accustomed to that pri-
vilege, view those results from our own stand-
point, and in a light very different from that
of most European nations. It is true that
the year opens with no prospect of those vast
armaments which weigh down the industry
a the peoples, and turn the continent into
one great and perpetual encampment. At
the same time the fearful costliness of the
modern system of warfare may well have
its effects in restraining the ambition of
rulers and the thirst on the part of peoples
for military glory.
The century is getting old now, and we
are ent3ring upon the last year of the eighth
decade. Casting the memory back only ten
years, what changes have been witnessed!
•, the beginning ot 1870, the Empuivi
Napoleon was upon the throne of France,
one of the most powerful sovereigns in
Europe. The kingdom of Prussia had n-_st
developed into that great German Empire
which is now, without exception, the most
mighty State upon the continent. The cap-
ital of Italy was still at Florence, and Rome
was yet in the occupation of the French
troops. At the beginning of 1870 there was
no portent of that devastating war which, in
the summer of the same year, burst upon
Europe, crippling France, pushing her bound-
aries back from the Rhine to the Moselle,
and elevating her great rival to the highest
position amongst the nations. A decade has
rolled away since that time, one in which
Great Britain in the midst of many anxieties,
has witnessed also much sunshine. It has
included several prosperous years; we have
been engaged in no great foreign war ; and
the troubles which have arisen have been in
distant and savage lands, where barbarism
has come into collision with our advancing
civilization. If troubles have arisen at home
they have been bravely and patiently borne.
The Englishman's natural right of grumb-
ling has been freely exercised; but when dis-
content has been expressed, it has been re-
strained within the bounds of moderation
and justice. We have faced no popular dis-
turbances, and some even of the ordinary
political consequences of hard times have had
no existence. Altogether, then, we can look
forward with good hope to the future, doubt-
ful as that in some cases may be. So far as
the foreign interests of the empire are con-
cerned, and also at home, the prospect has
brightened sensibly already, and the light is
so sensibly grow 1g that no one doubts the
_ _ - better day. The revival of
trade is _ and in itself has every promise
of continuance; and as the shadows of the
night disappear before the rising dawn, so
let us look forward to the dispersing of the
clouds of commercial gloom before the rays
of the sunlight of prosperity.