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Colonist, Volume LVII, Issue 14143, 21 July 1916, Page 2

Prince George of Battenberg, older son of Prince and Princess Louis, is engaged to be married to Countess Nadejda Torby, younger daughter of the Grand Duke Michael Michailovitch and the Countess Torby, The Grand Duke Michael is the eldest son of the Grand Duke Michael Mkhclaievitch, and-a.brother of the Grand Duchess Anastasia of Mecklenburg-Schwerin. Countess Torby is the daughter of Prince Nicholas of Nassau, who contracted a morganatic marriage ' with Mine. Natalie Pouchkine, a>nd who was created Countess de Merenberg by her husband's brother-in-law, the.late Prince1 of Waldeck and Permont, Prince "George of fßattenberg wok a. sub-lieutenant on H.M.S. New Zealand during her world cruise, and was subsequently promoted lieutenant. .

The Ettrick (Otago) Fruitgrowers' Association's delegates to the recent Fruitgrowers Federation Conference in Wellington, have reported thereon, and outlined the objects and aims of the federation. With the passing of the orchard legislation now before Parliament all fruitgrowers would require to pay an orchard tax of Is per acre, the proceeds of which would be handed to tho federation to be expended for the benefit and development of the fruitgrowing industry of New Zealand as a whole. To ensure the equitable expenditure of this sum, which would total something in the region of £2200 to £2500 per annum, every fruitgrower, large and small, should joir. the association most ■oonveniert to his district, by which moans only he could be represented at the Fruitgrowers' Federation Conferences.

Unanimous endorsement has been given to the proposals by the Mayor of] Auckland for the tr;u- ij; of returned soldiers in agriculture h. '.he committee to which-his.'report was referred from tho executive of the Auckland Patriotic Association. The principal feature of Mr Gunson's proposals is that special farms should be established for the training of soldiers before they undertake tho cultivation of individual sections. He suggested: (1) An area of 60,000 acres in the North Island in a district like the Urewera Country for instruction in stock and pastoral farming; (2) an area of 10,000 acres in the South Island for instruction m scientific modern close system agriculture ; and {3) an. area of 5000 acres in the North Island for fruit, bee and poultry farming. Mr Gunson also proposed that contiguous areas should be reserved for subsequent settlement.

An enthusiastic echo has been groused in Petrograd by the reception of the Russian Parliamentary Delegation in England, and especially by the speeches of Kino; George and the Prime Minister. All the papers which count for anything are unanimous in pronouncing the.se events to have a first-class historical significance, and o be the sealing of a iriendship destined;to- play a dominant part in the politics of Europe i'or many years to come.* With similar unanimity they infer from Ma* Asquith's words about the complete harmony of tho policy of the two countries in the Near East that a satisfactory solution has-been, found for the one question vbir-h it was feared might cause the cooling of their relations at the closi? of the war. The "Novoye Vremya" writes: '"We'venture to assert that in London yesterday, it-was annourced for the first time, and officially,'that ■there has been completely realised a categorical Anglo Russian agreement, not only on the question of Persia, but also on that of Constantinople. Thus is removed from international relationships that poison which envenomed the whole of European -policy for three-parts of the nineteenth century, and which brought^ a!bout not- only the Treaty of Paris but also that of Berlin." Two Liberal papers, tho "Bourse Gazette" and the "Retch," write in a very similar strain, and are equally jubilant over their inferences.