The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-09-11 00:00:00

-LOOKING BACK.

In commenting upon the Parliamentary Session,
The Tintes remarks : . . "In looking back over
this second session of the year the Government may
fairly claim that they have done some good work in it.
The golden hours of the new Parliament have not been
neglected. If it had been otherwise, there would have
been no *excuse for a prorogation delayed till the 7th of
September. Four more weeksmay have been spent, but
there is something to show for them. We do not, indeed,
regard the measures that have been passed as revolu-
tionary in their boldness. Now that all is over, this
could scarcely be said of the measures that have failed.
But take the four chief feats of the session. There
is the Burials Bill. This was the measure of a Lord
Chancellor whose respect for the rights of existing
foundations was such that he could not concur in the
disendowment of the Irish Church; and it is difficult
to believe that what Lord Selborne proposed and the
Archbishop of Canterbury approved could be revolu-
tionary. The principle of the Bill was, in fact,
borrowed from Lord Harrowby; whose Conservatism
will not be doubted, or, to go to an earlier source,
from the Burials Bill of Mr. Balfour, now one
of the rising hopes of the Conservatives and the
honorary member of the Fourth Party. As to the
Employers' Liability Bill, the most damaging criti-
cism upon it was that it was an inconsequent, half-
hearted production, not going the length to which
the judgment of the House of Commons was ready
to proceed. 'When the late Home Secretary avowed
his belief that the doctrine of common employment
must be abandoned as a plea for the exemption of
employers from liability, Mr. Dodson cannot be con-
demned for revolutionary excesses, even if the a 2»iori
probability of his being open to this charge was greater
than it is. The third feat of the session has been the
commutation of the malt-tax into a beer duty, and we
need not spend words over the Conservative character
of this change. Financiers or allfpartis have desired
it for many years, but it was pronounced impossible
until now that Mr. Gladstone has effected it. Lastly,
there is the Ground Game Bill. Lord Elcho honestly
looks upon the principle of this measure as a revolu-
tionary innovation, but he is alone in his passion of
patriotic anxiety. Not even Mr. Chaplin could bear
him company in his prophetic denunciation, though
he tried hard to be faithful to the end to his friend.
Lord Beaconsfield's speech on the second reading of the
Bill is conclusive as to his opinion of the measure;
and we do not think we should be far wrong if we drew
the conclusion that Lord Beaconsfield and Sir Staf-
ford 'Northcote are both now a little sorry that
they did not run the risk of introducing a similar Bill
themselves, although it might have been misliked by
some of their supporters: They should have told
their friends what Lord Beaconsfield did, in fact, tell
the gouge oLLords. that the time was come, when
‘ftllell it Bill was inevitable, and they might thus have
kept some of the county seats they lost at the general
election. They were timid where they ought to have
been bold, being, perhaps, led astray in this as in other
matters by a false appreciation of the feeling of the
country." . . .

A schooner was upset near the Bass Rock on Tuesday
morning, and the crew, five in number, perished.