The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1881-02-26 00:00:00

THE TRANSVAAL QUESTION.

The following memorial, signed by 600 workmen of a
representative character has been presented to Mr. Gladstone
by the Workmen's Peace Association
It is with the deepest regret that the undersigned
feel constrained to express adverse opinions in regard
to the determination of the Government to suppress by
force the independence of the people of the Transvaal.
We do not forget the manifold difficulties which you
inherited from your predecessors, but when there issued
from the ballot boxes such an unmistakable condemna-
tion of their colonial and foreign policy, we did hope
that those who succeeded to office would have given
effect to the clearly expressed verdict of the nation.
Your own record tended still further to strengthen
our belief in the realisation of the views which you and
many of your colleagues had led us to expect. So far
as the war in Afghanistan is concerned, notwithstand-
ing the tardiness of the withdrawal from Candahar, we
are fain to believe that a just course is being pursued;
nor are we inclined to hold your Government primarily
responsible for the lamentable and iniquitous war in
Basutoland, which, however, we trust you will use every
effort to bring to an end. But in connection with the
Transvaal, we are bitterly disappointed that the expec-
tations we were led to cherish from the speeches of
Liberal statesmen during the electoral campaign have
not been realised. The annexation of the Transvaal
was accomplished by means which we deeply deplore,
and the course then pursued is now producing the re-
sults which such nefarious practices sooner or later
invariably entail. That there are difficulties sur-
rounding a satisfactory settlement of the question
we do not deny, but these difficulties were well
known before the general election, and were not
then considered of such magnitude as to render
a pacific solution impossible. The conduct of the Boers
towards the native tribes may be unjustifiable, but is
this a plea to be urged by us whose hands are red with
the blood of Afghans and Zulus? To you, sir,
belongs the credit of quickening the national con-
science, of restoring our drooping faith in public men;
and we earnestly entreat you to maintain the con-
fidence with which your love of truth has inspired
us, by allowing no false sentiment of national pride
or prestige, to deter you from acting towards the
people of the Transvaal and their little Republic, in
any other spirit than you would display towards the
greater Republics of America or France; and that
whatever powerful influence may be exercised, you will
in office mete out to the people of the Transvaal that
justice which you, and your colleagues, declared a neces-
sity before you were recalled to power by the mandate
of the people. We are not insensible to national
honour and greatness, but our love of justice is not
blinded by the glamour of extended empire, and we
hope that neither you nor your Government will order
or sanction further wrongs by the shedding of more
blood to satisfy an insane craving for revenge before
daring to do what is right. By restoring to the people
of the Transvaal the independence of which they were
unjustly deprived, you would perform an act of resti-
tution, afford another proof that righteousness is still
your guiding star, and add to your many claims to the
nation's confidence and gratitude.

THE DISAPPFARANCE OF A Rrivs.—The labours of
a number of miners have been successful in filling up
the large chasm caused by the River Bradford break-
ing through the roof of a disused mine at Alport, in
Derbyshire. The stream, however, still flows through
the mass of rock and timber thrown into the opening,
and finds its way to the Derwent underground. It is
impossible to divert the stream by reason of the con-
formation of the ground. A large number of persons
hive visited the spot.
•

uLiJ ;.;orie.

valrm›, —

THE OPENING OF MUSEUMS ON
SUNDAYS.

The Times of Wednesday had the following leader on Lord
Dunraven's motion in favour of opening national museums
and galleries on Sundays :
How Sunday should be kept is a question on which
people are likely to differ for many years to come.
Lord Dunraven made last night in the House of
Lords a clever speech in favour of opening museums
on Sundays. Most of us can recollect many other
excellent speeches to the same effect. They were
not effectual in making people think alike in regard
to this delicate question, and the debate of last
night will not be more successful than its predeces-
sors in disturbing deeply-rooted feelinn and con-
victions. Lord Shaftesbury was as unrelenting as ever
in his opposition. Lord Dunraven was met with the
objections which have been used a thousand times
before, and may be used as many times again. No
complete, well-balanced settlement of the question
is to be looked or at an early date; and a hasty,
ill-considered one is not to be desired. The weight of
argument is by no means all on one side. Lord Dun-
raven expressed himself stronzly about the folly and
stupidity, the blankness, weariness, and monotony of
an English Sunday, and contrasted its misery with the
cheerful character of a Sunday abroad. There is, how-
ever, another side to this. If the working people of
Paris or Berlin may visit a picture gallery on Sunday,
they mky, and in fact must, often work on that
day. If they are allowed what is called rational
recreation, they are also expected to toil not a little;
and if an English Sunday is apt to be dull to men
whose home is comfortless, the same day often affords
to the French or German working man no great relief
or break from the round of ordinary duties and toil.
A change is observable in many towns abroad. The
tradesman in France now shuts his shop on Sunday
with a regularity and frequency which were once un-
known, and it would be very strange, and altogether
a retrograde step to do anything which would
make the Sunday less a day of real rest and re-
creation to mind and body. Lord Dunraven tells us
that the danger of "a working Sunday." is chimerical.
His assurance will not blind many to the fact that
there are multitudes of persons so poor, to whom mere
life is so terrible a struggle, that they would be per-
fectly ready to work, and, in fact, could not help
doing so, seven days in the week, if employment were
offered tnem. It is too often forgotten that many of
those who hang about street corners or wait weariedly
until the publichouse doors are opened would be toil-
ing if work were to be had.

But the advisability of supplying innocent means of
recreation need not rest on any extreme theories about
Sunday. It draws it strength from facts familiar to
every one. The working men's best friends may tell
them that they ought to go to church or chapel. But
they do not all take this advice ; and even if they did,
there are twelve hours in the day, and the most austere
moralist would scarcely insist that they should all be
spent at home or in some place of worship. To be
sure, there are the country and the fields to visit, in
search of fresh air and pleasant sights and sounds;
and it is astonishing what multitudes of the poor
find their way from the heart of London into the
country every Sunday afternoon in summer. But
men will not go to range over commons or woods in
all weathers. What is the good of the open spaces to
which the Archbishop of Canterbury referred when
snow lies on the ground or when every field is a Quag-
mire? The loftiest ideals with respect to the observ-
ance of Sunday must to some degree be controlled by
facts ; and no one who took part in the
debate of yesterday would deny that an Eng-
lish Sunday, as it is spent by many of the in-
habitants of London and other large towns, is a
somewhat melancholy time; that the tedium and
idleness which are its concomitants encourage
drunkenness; and that philanthropists and statesmen
alike have hitherto failed to solve a problem which
once in se len days presents itself as urgent in every
London street. The advocates of some change are
unanswerable when they ask their opponents, "Are
you content with things as They are? Do you say the
Londoner's dreary Sunday satisfies you or that it is
as a rule well spent?" Of course, it satisfies no one.
The problem is to show how, without doing violence
to the conscience of the great majority of English-
men, matters are to be improved. Perhaps the
first thing to be done is to clear the question from
a great deal of cant which tends to obscure it,
This element was not wholly absent last night; it,
in fact, never is absent when this question is dis-
cussed. Unfortunately, it has become the fashion to
discuss the matter in a somewhat unreal, though
plausible, way. Into every debate is introduced a
fictitious working man—typical, it is affirmed, of a
class—who now drinks more than is good for him,
but who would become a sober and meritorious
member of society if only he might go every Sunday
to South Kensington or the British Museum, see
plenty of stuffed birds and minerals, and gaze at
the great masterpieces of art. It is assumed that
the persons whose ennui, and misery excite the
compassion of Lord Dunraven and Lord Rosebery,
and who go to a tavern or a Hyde-park meet-
ing because there is nothing better to do, are
at once eager and competent to enjoy the varied in-
tellectual pleasures which our great national museums
offer in abundance. This is a pretty fiction; it is a
fiction, all the same, and one which must be got rid of
if the real difficulty is to be faced and surmounted.
This hypothetical working man, undone by reason of
lack of opportunities, is a very rare being. The person
whose fate on Sunday justly creates anxiety and com-
miseration is often far from fit, owing to his lack of
training or to his acquired tastes, to take delight in a
natural history collection or in studying the best
pictures in a gallery. He, very naturally, does not
derive much enjoyment from the sight of things which
are unintelligible and which may end by being
wearisome to him. He does not wish to be instructed;
he is fatigued with the toil of the week; hE, has no
consuming intellectual curiosity or the necessary
training of eye and mind to gratify it even if it
existed. He is bored already, and he will not thank
you if he be offered a new form of ennui, even if he
be told that it is of a lofty character. He is weary
and wants repose, and you offer him a species of
pleasure which cannot be enjoyed without mental
exertion on his part. This is not so much philan-
throphy as a mockery of his wants. Probably many
artisans and mechanics and members of the middle
classes would avail themselves of the opportunity of
visiting our museums more frequently than they do if
such institutions were open on Sunday; and the experi-
ment is for this reason commendable. But the notion
that the tavern-hunter will forthwith frequent South
Kensington or the National Gallery; that the sight of
objects of art must elevate even the most ignorant;
and that intellectual taste will show themselves at
once in London back streets, is somewhat remote
from robust good sense. The gravity of the question
is that London has in its midst people to whom any-
thing of the nature of intellectual toil—and prolonged
sight-seeing is of that character—is essentially irk-
some.

But they are human beings, and not lost to all
salutary influences. It would be folly to despair
of making the Sunday more tolerable than it is to
them. Our climate does not often admit of men
and women sitting out of doors talking or listen-
ing to elevating music. Some substitute must be
found to put us on equality with the people of
more sunny lands. It is the task of true friends
of the working classes to suggest means by which,
without any revolution in national ideas as to the
sacredness of Sunday, they may be enabled to
taste those simple and primitive pleasures—for ex-
ample, the pleasure of pure repose of mind and body,
or that of hearing music—which all, even the un-
tutored, can enjoy. Lord Dunraven's motion was
negatived by 41 to 34 votes; and Lord Cairns was
able to show by statistics of divisions in the House of
Commons that the movement for opening museums
had not grown in public favour. But it is directed
towards the cure of a real social evil, and those who
oppose it are bound to suggest a more effectual remedy.

The Daily News says :—" The result of the debate
in the House of Lords last night upon the subject of
opening national museums and galleries on Sundays
is of very little value as an indication of public
opinion. It is quite as irrational for Parliament to
close institutions on Sunday because some people
think it wrong to go to them, as it would be to recur
to Elizabethan precedents, and fine all those who
failed to attend divine service with proper regularity.
We trust that it will soon be found possible to remove
a burdensome restriction upon individual liberty with-
out offending any scruples which really deserve
respect."

The Standard remarks that such a defeat as that
sustained by Lord Dunraven's motion, when the
opposing forces are estimated, amounts in effect, too,
triumph. The peers, although essentially Conser-
vative in their instincts are yet in many ways the
best friends and advocates of all essentially popular
movements. The really dangerous opponents whom
Lord Dunraven had to meet yesterday are those who
believe that any relaxation of the existing rules would
add to the labour at present iropobed upon them.

The Daily Chronicle holds that there can be no doLbt
that harm cannot come to working men from visiting
museums and galleries; but the questim is whether
working men would frequent these places if they were
opened on Sunday. There
.can be no question, how-
ever, that it would be a national benefit if the moral
tone of the masses could be elevated; and such a
result would abundantly justify the adoption of the
policy which Lord Dunraven and his coadjutors re-
commend.