The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1875-12-04 00:00:00

Out foubon 6orrtspoulat.

[We deem it right to state that we do not at all times
identify ourselves with our Correspondent's Opinions.]

The purchase by the British Government of the in-
terest of the Khedive of Exypt in the Suez Canal has
been the great topic of conversation in monetary
circles. The importance of this step is seen at a glance,
by all who know how essential it is that this highwa3
to our splendid. Indian possessions should be kept open
by Great Britain. The critical condition of Turkey,
and the impossibility of saying from day to day whether
the Ottoman Empire might not be dismembered as
Poland was juet a century ago, rendered it imperative
upon cur rulers to see that the control of this short
cut to India did not fall into the hands of a Power
whose interests might not exactly accord with our own.
Many a time and oft have longing eyes been cast upon
Egypt. The First Napoleon did not conceal his
designs for the reduction of that country to French
sway and the ultimate occupation of Ilindostan ; but
Lord Nelson's great naval victory of the Nile on the
first of August 1798, frustrated Bonaparte's schemes
in Egypt, j‘ist as the greater triumph at Trafalgar seven
years later put an end to the idea 01 invading England. '
Russia, whether rightly or wrongly, has often been
credited with casting a jealous eye upon India, that
"star in the cast," which is in tl:e posseseion of thie
country. Therefore, the action of our Gov6rnment
in purcbasiug so large a share in the Suez Canal,
which secures to our ships a safe and speedy passage
instead of Reeding them ronnd to face the perils of
the stormy Cape, has tnet with the general concurrence
of. the people. No undertaking has ever so falsified
the predictions of failure as the Suez Canal. • Even
so keen-sighted a statesman as Lord Palmerston always
denounced the execution of the plan as inpracticable ;
and some of our most eminent engineers declared
either that the Canal would require a constant
dredging in order to keep a sufficient depth of water,
that it would be filled up by the sands of the desert, that
the entrances would be silted up with mud, and that
the working expenses must be so enormous as to make
the speculation an nnremtmerative one. Not one of
these prophecies has been verified. Throughout the
entire length of the Canal, nearly a hundred miles,
the water is always deep enough to allow of the
passage of ships, the entrances have not be en blocked with
mud, and the Canal has paid a very fair rate of interest.
This great water communication between the Red Sea
and the Mediterranean still remains open, a triumph
to the engineering skill of M. de Lesseps, and a monu-
ment of perseverance in the face of difficulties which
many a less determined man might well have held to
be insurmountable. The excavations for the Canal
were commenced in 1856, and the huge work itself was
opened by the Empress Eugenie in December, 1869.
All the world may be said to have been there, for the
undertaking was a truly cosmopolitan one, and there
- was such an assembly to partake of the Viceroy's
hospitality as has rarely been witnessed. Few who then
followed the incidents of her Imperial Majesty's
triumphal progress through the East could have had
an idea that within seven months she would be an
exile and her throne tumbled into the dust.

Various metropolitan improvements are included in
the list of Parliamentary notices, plans of which hay
at once to be deposited at the Board of Trade. One o
the schemes is the removal of the Mint from Tower.
bill to a spot upon the Thames Embankment, near the
Chapel Royal of the Savoy. Another is the demolition
of a number of houses in Parliament-street and King-
street, for the erection of some new Government offices.
It cannot, however, escape notice what a long time the
construction of public buildings in this country take.
This is because no Ministry likes to face the House of
Commons with large estimates. The Law Courts
would have been in full use long before nove but for
the arrangement of spreading the work over a number
of years. The Metropolitan Free Bridges Association
will introduce a Bill for the abolition of tolls on the
structures which have not yet been liberated. At pre-
sent the natural communication between the Strand
and Waterloo Railway Station is blocked by a toll-bar,
which looks hire a wilderness dividing two immense
populations. Such a spectacle is presented in no other
capital in Eerope. There is also to be another railway
tunnel wider the Thames at Gravesend, where the
, river is about a mile in width.
A Royal Commissioa is to be issued shortly, inquir-
ing into the revenue of the City Companies, and the
expenditure there r with a view of ascertaining
• whether the incomes 4 of these rich guilds can be applied
more advantageously than they are at present. It is
also understood that the Education Department has
been investigating the condition of the Dames' Schools,
as they are called, and has obtained such indifferent
reports with regard to their efficiency that in future
they will not be allowed to take children over seven
years of age. Private adventure schools generally will
have to be registered, and be subject to Government
inspection. It is argued that by this means good
, schools will be benefited, had schools will be extin-
guished, and great gain to the country must be the
result. While upon the question of education I may
refer to the School Board contests in L-4161'64 new
members having to be aed for Finsbury: or raVest.
minster, one through the death of Mr. Talertilfis and
the other through the resignation of Mr. W. H. Smith,
M.P. Each of these bye elections costs the ratepayers
£7OO or £BOO, and as the tenure of office of the present
Board will expire in another twelve months, an opinion
is beginning to prevail that instead of putting into
force all this expensive machinery, a vacancy thus
arising should be filled by the other members of the
Board without an appeal to the ratepayers at all.
Aldermen are chosen by Town Councils, and there are
many supporters of an application of the same prin-
ciple to the supplying of bye vacancies in Schoo
, }loards.

The increasing importance of Italy as a European
Poweris shown by the fact that our Government and
that of Germany are about to raise their present
Ministers at Rome to the rank of ambassadors. At
present we have only five, viz., at Paris, Berlin
'Vienna, Constantinople, and St. Petersburg. All
ot'aers, including even our representative at Washing-
ton, are envoys extraordinary or 'Ministers plenipoten-
tiary. Ambassadors, as standing in the front rank,
have great privileges, and in this.country, they and
their servants are secured against arrest. The
residence of this high functionary is, indeed, held by
law to be the soil of his native land. The protection
thus accorded came about in this way: in the year
1706 the Russian ambassador to this court was im-
prisoned for debt at the suit of a lace merchant, and
an Act was then passed granting the immunity of
which I have just spoken. On the 12th May, 1780,
two men convicted of arresting the servant of an
ambassador were condemned to be conducted to the
house of the foreign representative with a label on
Their breasts, to ask his pardon. One of them was
likewise imprisoned for three months, and the other
, fined. One privilege possessed by an ambassador, over
an envoy or. a minister is that he has the power to
demand a personal audience of the Sovereign to whose
oc tut he is accredited. Thus we often hear of General
Ignatieff, the Russian ambassador at Constantinople,
having lengthened interviews with the Sultan. And
an incident which preceded the outbreak of the war
between France and Germany strongly illustrates this
point The Frerch Ambassador. ineting the King of
Prussia on the promenade at Les, presented to him
the demand which led to the war. An envoy or a
• plenipotentiary would have had no right to do this.
He could appreach the Sovereign only through his
responsible advisers.
The recent appointment of new law officers of the
Crown has directed attention to the position occupied
by these important functionaries, and to the emolu-
ments which they receive. The dignity of Attorney-General is one of some antiquity, the first
having been appointed by Edward I. in 1278.
He has to exhibit informations and prosecute for the
Crown in matters criminal, and to file bills in Ex-
chequer for any claims concerning the Treasury. The
post has from time to time been filled by the most dis-
tinguished of our judges, including, the Earl of Mans-
field, Lord Thnrlow, Lord KeLl37Oll, the Earl of Ellen-
borough, the Earl of Eldon, Lord Lyndhurst, Lord
limn:an, Lord Campbell, and the present Lord Chief
Justice of England. The Solicitor-General, as the
second law officer of the Crown, assists his superior
and generally succeeds him on his elevation to the
Judicial Bench. Formerly, the law officers were re-
munerated by the patent fees, which more particularly
in the year of the International Exhibition amounted
to an enormous sum. The late Administration, how-
ever, deeming this principle of payment a vicious one,
decided that the salary of the Attorney-General should
be £l.OOO a-year, and that of the Solicitor GeneraL
£6,000, with extra fees when they appeared in what
are called "contentious cases." But a Queen's Coun-
sel in anything like good practice makes twice or
three times either of these figures. Men like the late
Lord Westbury or Sir John Bolt made their £25,000
a-year easily enough, so that the acceptance of the
Chancellorship with its £lO,OOO is frequently a serious
loss. Of course, by the time this dignity is reached
its possessor has made enough at the bar to counter-
balance such a sacrifice; but we can understand the
refusal by eminent Queen's Counsel of the office of
Puisne Judge, with a salary of £5,000 per annum—a
sum which was fixed at a time when money was worth
far more than it is to-day.

The Prince Consort Memorial in Hyde Park has long
been the wonder and the admiration of thousands not
only of Londoners, but of visitors who came up to see
us from the provinces. Directly opposite the Royal
Albert Hall, the gilding, the enamelling, and the carv-
ing; have stood out a veritable thing of beauty on a
fine summer day. Up to within the past few days
the memorial was incomplete without the gigantic
statue of the Prince, for which apace had been left