The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-03-27 00:00:00

PUBLIC NOTICES.

To THE ELECTORS

ON TEE
RkSTERN D,VISION OF THE COUNTY OF

WORCES rL R.

Giumitate—
For six years put the Lib!ral Party in Zest Worces-
tershire, comprising a very large proportion of the
property. intelligence, and numbers of the Constituency,
has been without a Repreeentative to Parliament. The
Dissolution which is now imminent will give you an
opportunity of saying whether on (mire that this state
of things shah continue.

I shall soon have opportunities of explaiuing to you
at length my political opinions, but were I to embody
them in a single sentence it would be by expressiug my
cordial adherence in respect both of Foreign and
Domestic Policy to the statesmanlike address of th e
Marquis of Harlington.
The Water Bill of the Ministry will stand as a type
of their Home Legis.ation. It was trained for the
privilege got the few against the welfare of the many,
and would, if passed into law, have plundered the peupie
of millions to enrich some bodies of ehareholders.. I
desire to see adopted a domestic policy of a precisely
opposite nature; a policy which will hold popular free-
dom and popular welfare above all other cousideratione;
a policy which will lighten taxation by a sound fivance,
and relieve local burdens by a wire extension of
government through the country at large.
What has the existing Ministry done in these metters?
They inherited from their predecersure a 'Lib:lend sur-
plus and they have drifted into a deficit which will
entail, sooner or later, heavy additional Lurdeue on the
pie pie. They promised an improved tioverumant in
Counties, and after six years of Office with a powerful
majority they have faileu to pate a tAniuty Board Hill
they have failed to pass a Valu,tiou Bill, and theirsolitary '
Mearure, the Highways Act. hes only resulted
in piling ilicreased burdens on the euffvring hatepaybr.
Iheir egricuitural holuisigs Act, professing to secure
Compensation to Teearat karmers, took away with one
bane what it pretended to gire with the other, and that
important class, now afflicted inv., a proloeged and un-
deserved depression, have still to demand an equitable
Measure of feuant
The Bills relating to real Property, which hae4 lust
been introduced, are utterly inadequate t,) meet the
great and growing question of the irfluence of the pre.
rant Land Laws on the interee's of the nation. These
bills touch only the fringe of the suilect, and are in
themselves a proof that the deliverance of the Land from
&Feudal System which ha. bound it with fetters 01 irou,
to the injury of Landlord and Tenant alike, can never
be hoped for at the hands of a Conservative Adminis-
tration.

From these and other pressing qnestions of Home
Legislation yonr atteniiou is now to be diveried by
phrases, herd to understand, about the ascendency of
England and the decomposition of the Eioptro.

I will yield to none in either desire or determination
to maintain the iute4rity, the kill:Lance, and the pros-
perity of our wide Dominion and historical Monaichy.
But I fail to see how this object is to be attained by
boastful Despatches which are belied by swat Con-
ventions, by petty and needless Wars, by rainoas
Niaaaee, awl Legislative ineolapeteuey.