The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1880-06-26 00:00:00

THE STOURBRIDGE OBSERVER.

reckon on finding everywhere, in 'town or in village, from
one end of this island to the other? It must be
something constituted in such happy conformity to
our nature and requirements that law shall rather he
said to have accepted what it found than made anything new.
Nothing else will stand for a day. Unless there be some sort
of organization and some recognized authority, the better
part of the world will everywhere be at tile mercy of the
worse. But the question is what that authority shall be.
Sir Wilfrid Lawson does not pretend to answer this question,
except by a crude generality which it would take Par-
liament after Parliament, and the sad experience of many
failures, to bring to a working forra. His Resolution is at pre-
sent a thing without form, and void. Society is to be
regenerated, and the mischiefs arising from the excessive use
of strong drink are to be effectually checked, by substituting
the inhabitants for the bench of magistrates. The area, the
class, the election or the selection, the extent of the autho-
rity to be given, and over what matter, are all questions
for time to solve. The dream, for it is no more, is
that upon entering the town, or the village, we are
to find, on some scale great or small, a senate, or
council, sufficiently qualified to protect the locality
from a great moral danger. So far has England been from
approaching this golden cosummation, and finding the in-
habitants generally fit to be trusted with the management
of their common interests, that the work of tke century
has been to take public business out of their hands,
and to commit either to departments of the State or
to bodies representing large areas. For a long period
the inhabitant has been a declining personage. The
parochial vestry, once a name of power and dignity, is
now a shadow of greatness. The mere occupier or house-
holder has to content himself with offices so humble and
troublesome, and they have to be forced upon him. He may,
indeed he must, collect rates and transmit them, but that is
all he has to do with them. If he has a complaint to make
about a road, or a nuisance at his very gate, he has
to make journeys, write letters, wait for answers,
and go through a purgatory of red tape before he can
even gain attention. All this, it must be assumed, has
been found necessary. If that be granted, the reason
must be found in the incurable incompetency of the ' in-
habitants ' and of the 'persons most deeply interested
and affected.' If the people on the spot would do
their duty, look after their own interests, and follow
up their own instincts of justice and propriety, there
would be no occasion to go elsewhere. We should
only go further to fare worse. The people on the spot must
have a much better knowledge of the persons and things
in question than any representatives, or comparative
strangres. Yet the most remarkable feature of our social
evolution for all this century has been the gradual and now
almost complete disqualification of the people on the spot.
As it cannot be denied that upon the whole the change has
been for the better, it follows that small and almost isolated
communities do not work so well as the larger and more
comprehensive organizations." . . . .

A letter is published from Sir Wilfrid Lawson, M.P., ad-
dressed to Mr. Burt, M.P., in which the writer expresses the
opinion that the Government cannot long delay dealing with
the liquor question, and that if they deal with it in the
manner which Mr. Gladstone indicated, we shall secure
legislation of the kind which Sir Wilfrid Lawson and his
friends have long advocated. "It appears to me," the
writer continues, "that any immediate action of mine in
Parliament at the present moment could hardly improve
the prospects of sound and early legislation, but might, on
the other hand, tend to embarrass the Government in deal-
ing satisfactorily with this vital question. Let us, then,
give them time, and for our part let us, between now and
the opening of the next session, do all that is in our power
to show the Government that there is a real, thorough, and
earnest demand on the part of the public for that popular
veto on the issue or renewal of licences, which is the sum
and substance of our present demand, and which will per-
fectly harmonize with any measure of licensing reform
which the Government may introduce next session."