The Birkenhead News and Wirral General Advertiser. — 1887-09-03 (Birkenhead, Merseyside, England)

PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SATURDAY.  SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1887.  MR. GLADSTONE was in a happy vein when he spoke to the 250 poor and aged persons whom he and Mrs. Gladstone entertained in the park at Hawarden, in celebration of her Majesty's Jubilee. His cheerful address was an agreeable and effective antidote to the pessimism which our modern Cassandras are so fond of parading. It indicated that, though the present times may be trying to many persons, and the burden of life is falling very grievously upon the too heavily-rented agriculturists of the country in particular, the lot of the ordinary Englishman is much better than it was at the beginning of the present century. It is unnecessary to dwell on the political changes to which Mr. Gladstone referred, for they are fresh in the recollection of all and particularly in that of those who have been raised to the full dignity of citizenship by the extension of the county franchise. But many a man and many a woman has forgotten that at the time Mr. Gladstone was born the list of offences for which men, women, and children could be hanged was an awful one. The right honourable gentleman says that he is not quite sure whether there were not between 200 and 300 offences of that kind, and this is most certainly the fact—that there were some of them which were offences that people would now, in the case of a boy or girl, hardly think of punishing with a sharp corporeal chastisement. But now there is nothing, or next to nothing, besides treason and deliberate murder, for which any man can lose his life, and there is not one man hanged for twenty that used to be hanged; and the hanging of children, which occasionally happened, and which then did not shock the public conscience, is a thing that, under no circumstances or conditions, would now be possible, because people know that the responsibility of a child is not a responsibility that ought to be enforced by that terrible and awful infliction. Yet, as Mr. Gladstone happily pointed out, crime is not nearly so rife as it used to be. Now, as to another phase of ad t. Prior to the repeal of the corn laws the price of wheat was 120 s. to 140 s. a quarter; it is to-day very little over 30s. Yet Mr. Gladstone truly tells us that the exorbitant price was not a price due to the inflictions of Divine Providence ; itwas a price mainly due to the follies of man. It was due to bad legislation; it was due to dictating whence corn might come into the country, and to treating the coming of corn into the country as if it were a thing that might produce the most evil and most inconvenient consequences. And so in the same way, everything that the people wanted everything that could be considered a comfort of life, was, without exception, subjected to heavy taxation. What was the result  Sixty or seventy years ago you could get no decent tea under Bs. a pound. Sugar was four times the price that it  is now. These facts ought to be taken to heart in times when certain politicians are clamouring for a return to the vile system of protection, in order that the downwardmovement of rent for agricultural land, which is a good thing for the people generally, may be averted. Of course, some things are dearer. For instance, meat is dearer. Why? Mr. Gladstone thus answers the query "Not because bad laws have made it dearer. You are drawing meat froth every quarter of the world, and there is no barrier interposed by law. Your ports are open; your Custom Houses don't levy one farthing upon it. Whatever meat mankind can grow is at your disposal; and if meat is dearer now than it was it is not because there is less of it—it is because, thank God, there are ten times more mouths open to eat it, ten times more people capable of buying it and of competing for it, of course with that consequence which always follows—that when a greater number of people compete for a tbmg their competition raises the price." Meat, however, be it noted, is one of the  , very articles that a section of the  Conservative party are most anxious to "protect." When it ceased to be very remnnerative for the British farmer to grow wheat, the value of cattle went up so enormously that not