The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-04-09 00:00:00

TIjMNT LEAGUES OY THE
UNITED STATES.

A telegram from New York says that the Executive
Committee of the Anti-High Rent League of New
York city has adopted resolutions denouncing the 10
to 30 per cent. increase of rent ciemapded by the
landlords after the lit of May next as unjustifi-
able and oppressive to the poor, and as tendiug to
raise the prices of the necessaries of life, drive out in-
dustries from the country, and otherwise injure the in-
terests of the city. The resolutions further declare that
the League will resist the increlise by all available
means, and ask the Legislatpre to instittite 118i1
gatate Valuation Commission to fix the rates of rent
according to the capital invested. The League will
also hold the Legislature and City Government re-
sponsible for the consequences of the boundless oppres-
sion to which the working classes are subjected.
The Executive Committee of the Anti-Rent League
at Brooklyn has issued a manifesto, urging resistancp
to increase of rent, and calling for 010 Prg4ll4-41011 of
clubs witil that Apo,.
A. large meeting or the members of the Working's
Men's Union at Chicago has also protested against the
increase of rents,

The RELATIVE PROGRESS of WEALTHi
POPULATION, and EVENDITURE.
The Times (in a leader on Wednesday) denies the
accuraey of the parallel which Mr. Gladstone drew as
to the relative progress of public wealth, population,
and expenditure in recent years compared with
former periods, and is bound to say that his
statement when analyzed appears to be unsup-
ported by gures. ge has compared the wrong
periods and the wrong things. On nay fair view of
the matter Englapd must be taken to have made the
most wonderful progress during the last forty years, and
whatever the arrest has been during the last two or
three years, it has :All been insufficient to diminish
the fact of progress when we compare any one period,
even during the recent years of depression, with a
similar period ten or twenty years before. In ne way
can it be affirmed that there has been of late years any
decline of the national resources as cmnpared with the
growth of expenditure. The growth of expenditure
itself urgently requires examination, not from any
consideration of the national ability to bear it, but fOr
in entirely different reason. That reason is that the
growth of expenditure threatens to get beyond
the bounds of efficient management under our
system of parliamentary governraentz the want
of efficient management in turn being a main
cause of the growth of useless establishments and
other evils. Efficiency has been too much for-
gotten for many years past in the determination to
save at all hazards, and the result is that saving itself
is prevented. Our national expenditure, therefore,
requires overhauling, thongh not from the point of
view of economy merely, as suggested by Mr. Glad-
stone's statement, however much economy will un-
doubtedly be promoted by a proper investigation.
The growth 'of- natiVnal expencliture will never- be
satisfactorily taken in hand until it is looked at in a
much broader spirit than has hitherto prevailed in
Parliamentary circles and appears in Mr. Qladstone's
speech.
- "

ITINTs c AMINENcg.—The man who said he did
not "feel so well on the whole "was recommended
to try how he would feel on the half—pint of port
after dinner.— Fan.