The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1868-03-28 00:00:00

that the most important subject that would be
debated would be—not Reform, not education, but
, Ireland, which Lord Stanley long ago said was the
qnention of the hour. When Mr. Disraeli became
Premier it was said that great as might be his ditfi.
cultien on other points, his great difficulty would be
Ireland. The present is not the first Prime Minister
who has found the same thing, but Mr. Disraeli com-
plains that he is suddenly called on to settle questions
that have disturbed the country for 200 years. Be that as
it may, it is earnestly to be hoped that some amicable
settlement, as far as any settlement of such a knotty
point can be amicable, may be arrived at with regard
to the Irish Church. When the Irish debate was
finished last week it was thought by many that it had
arrived at a conclusion in which nothing was con-
cluded ; but Mr. Gladstone's words nevertheless were
ominous, and subsequently he has given utterance to
" thoughta that breathe and words that burn.- No
little excitement has ensued, and the result of Mr.
Gladstone's motion—a result which Ishall not attempt
to anticipate—is the topic of the day.
There has been lately a good deal of talk about new
Peerages. Without saying a word against the asserted
claims of the gentlemen whose names have been men-
tioned, the thought naturally occurs, ought not every
man who is called to the Upper House to have been
previously eminent in art, science, literature, or
something else quite independently of wealth or
county influence? The mention of names of the
present day would be invidious, but the poet Moore
so happily hits off the hereditary prejudices of the
Peers, that a few of his lines may serve as a satirical
hint for our own time. George the Fourth, it is said,
wished to confer a peerage on Sir Astley Cooper, but
was deterred by the absence of precedent ; and Sir
Henry Halford's name VIM also urged as a fitting one
to be linked with patrician honours. Alluding to the
proposed peerages for the celebrated surgeon and
physician, Moore wrote :
But bless es Fah dd anew rand blate come;
In his band he upholds a prescription new written ;
Us poiseth a pillbox 'twist finger and thumb,
And he asketh a seat 'nongst the risers of Great Britain!
Forbid it," cried Jeid. ink "ye •iscoutits, ye earls
Ott Rank, how thy sloth s would fall disenchanted,
It coroneta glistened with pills 'stead of pearl..
And the strawberry leaves were by rind a,b supplanted
The creation of such peerages as those to which Moore
alludes would have been popular, and similar creations,
when new peers are thought to be necessary, would be
ropular now. While referring to the House of Lords,
I may notice the recommendation of a select com-
mittee (which is just now attracting attention), that
the right of voting by proxy in that House should be
abolished. This system of voting has always been
objected to by the people, and no wonder, for it
encourages their lordships to vote on subjects which
they have never heard debated, and induces a neglect
of public business. 'Fhere is nothing to prevent a peer
going for a twelvemonth's tour on the Continent, or in
the colonies, and leaving his vote on any question
which may turn up in his absence. Except that a
bishop cannot hold a proxy for a temporal peer, and
vies versa, and that no peer can hold more than two
proxies, there is no restriction in their use, and a third
of the members can actually make "a full House," so
far as voting is concerned, and we all know how much
more important voting is than speaking. In these
days, when popular power is so much increasing, the
House of Lords, perhaps, would do well to abolish this
antiquated privilege, which is not at all in accordance
with the spirit of the times.
Mr. T. Baring, M.P.—name suggestive of enormous
wealth—has resigned the chairmanship of Lloyd's,
and numerous influential City men are exerting them-
selves to place Mr. Goschen, Ml'., in the post of
honour. Perhaps no better man could be found, but
lam not going to discuss his merits. The word
" Lloyd's," however, is suggestive. The reader pos-
sibly may nit have a very clear idea of what the in-
stitution is, for it has become an institution, after an
existence of nearly two centuries. If the said reader
then will accompany me in imagination to the Royal
Exchange, we will enter a door, ascend a large stone
staircase, and we shall be sit and in Lloyd'a. Passing
through a splendid vestibule, we find ourselves in the
Subscription Room, a fine handsome apartment.
Near this is the Merchants' Thom, and the Captains'
Room adjoins it. We will suppose it is three
o'clock p.m., and we are in the first-named
room, which might more appropriately perhaps be
called the underwriters' room. Here a number of
underwriters sit at tables, prepared to entertain
proposals for underwriting policies of maritime as-
surance, or in other words, to take a portion of the
risk for a consideration. The insurance brokers ,
propose ; the underwriters under-write or undertake !
the payment of enormous sums on the -contingency of,
ships and cargoes being lost; and on the whole the
business is a safe and a profitable eine. There are
about 200 of these underwriters awl there are several
Insurance companies who transact maritime business ;
but the great bulk of maritime insurance is effected at
Lloyd's. Time was-- lint that was nearly two centuries
ago—when Lloyd's Coffee House was a coffeehouse
in reality, doubtless started by some one of the name
which is now so familiar, though it is the name of an
institution and not of an individual. In this coffee-
house the merchant found the underwriter sitting
in a bay-window, enjoying his cup of Mocha,
then unadulterated. Now " Lloyd's Coffee House"
exists no longer, though a coffee-nom, or rather
restaurant, exists in connection with it. The system
of under-writing is much the same now as it ever was;
it has rather developed than change-I. Division of
risk is, in fact, becoming an important principle in
mercantile transactions. An example of it occurs in
the Foreign and Colonial Government Trust which is
now exciting a good deal nf attention in financial
circles. This institution applies to foreign investments
the principle of mutual insurance, or, in other words,
the diminution of risks by spreading them over a wide
area. If a peraou, for instance, invests his whole
surplus capital in any one foreign stock, his staking
everything on the continued solvency of any «me State
becomes a hazardous speculation; but if the same
sum be invested in fifteen or twenty different stocks,
the stoppage if two or three of the Governments
would result in only partial loss. This placing of
one's eggs in different banketa, to use the old adage, is
what this institution enables an investor of so little as
£lOO to do, somewhat on the principle of Lloyd's, the
name of which has suggested reference to it.
It is an old grievance in this country, and not an
imaginary one, that, when economy is called for in any
public department it is always the men, the workers,
who suffer, and that we never hear of overpaid officials
being reduced. It seems that we are to have another
illustration of this. Mr. Seely and other financial
reformers having urged economy in the dockyards, the
Secretary of the Admiralty is going to discharge a
number of workmen. At Portenguth there have been
already numerous dismissals of workmen, and now
a reduction of no less than 1,200 men is contemplated
at Woolwich. The War office, too, we are told, are
effecting reductions in the same way, and this working
days in the gun factory are to be reduced to finir in a
week. This serious reduction will come at a very
awkward time, seeing what distress already exists
among the ehiplmilding trades. Cannot our rulers
find any useless offices to abolish, any overpaid and
underworked functionaries to " dock " of their enon
mons salaries? This would he better thin beginning
at the wrong end.
The Free Labour Association is zealously working
away, in spite of considerable opposition, to establish
the principle of workmen being free to make their
own terms with masters, and of masters being free to
engage whom they like and pay what nutaters and men
agree upon, which to people unconnected with trades,
unions appears to be alter all the true principle on which
labour should he founded. The Liverpool trades'
unionists, however, appear to be of a very different
opinion, and, not satisfied with enjoying their own
opinion, will not 11.1101 V their opponents to enjoy theirs.
A night or two ago a meeting was held under the
auspices of the association named, to form a branch
aasociation, but the object was entirely defeated in
consequence of the trades' unionists packing the room
from an early hour of the evening. It Is said that
"before the chairtnan and the speakers came upon
the platform, the hall resounded with hideous