GENERAL NEWS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume V, Issue 218, 29 June 1877, Page 17

GENERAL NEWS.

The Empire of Germany is falling daily into deeper misery notwithstanding its military glory, or rather perhaps in consequence of it. The enormous army kept up is a terrible drain on the agricultural population, and the taxes press so heavily on the small farmers that many of them who are proprietors of their own farms have lately sold them out and emigrated. Notwithstanding the bad state of affairs in America at present, they prefer going there to remaining at home. The successful pursuit of agriculture requires quiet and security. The continual confiscations of land in Ireland and the class privileges of the landlords have kept it back in this country. In Germany the calling away to the army of a farmer's eons just as they are becoming useful, and the heavy taxes, are making it an unprofitable and disagreeable pursuit. The German farmers are steady and industrious. They have naturally no love, for a military life. However, as steady as they are, the three or four years passed in the army often unsettles them for farming pursuits afterwards, and they do not return home improved in conduct or morals. The general effect of this military service is a deterioration in the physique of the agricultural population, who are no longer so tall or strong as they were forty years ago. The drilling, spirit of discipline, &c, are all very well in their way, but they are far more than counterbalanced by great disadvantages. The emigration from Germany is for the past two years enormous, and is a sure sign of misery in that country. Lord Beaconsfield has offered a gift of 45300 to the widow of Walter Thornbury, with expressions of regret that he is unable to coufer a pension out of the Civil List, in accordance with the re«j made to him. The demands upon that little annual shower cj^nsions are indeed always far beyond the Minister's power to sat^S^i? There is at this moment a movement on foot for obtaining a Cft il List pension for Dr. Westland Marston, who deserves all respect, for he cultivated the poetical drama when dramatic literature had fallen on evil days; and the memorial in support of his claim is already signed by the most distinguished of living poets, historians, biographers, and men of science. As there is a little confusion abroad on the subject of these pensions, it may be as well to note that the limits of the Ministerial list is not £1,200 a year in all, as is often assumed ; and the arrangement made on the accession of the Queen in 1837 was, that the Crown should be at liberty to create every year new pensions for life to the extent of £1,200 per annum. As it is a common thing to grant them to comparatively young people, on the ground of services of deceased members of their families, there must be payable on this account 30 times £1,200, or £36,000 per annum, less the annuities that have fallen in during that period by death of the recipients. The proper objects of this bounty are defined in the report on which the arrangement was based as " servants of the Crown and the public, and those who, by their useful discoveries in science and attainments in literature and the arts, have merited the gracious consideration of their Sovereign and the gratitude of their country." The poet Close's pension was withdrawn, it will be remembered,

because it was discovered that he did not answer to any one of the classes described. I hope all the more fortunate pensioners are properly qualified, for otherwise not eTen the grant of the Crown could make them legal. — World. One of the first astronomers of the age, the renowned Father Seccbi, of Borne, lias just published a very noteworthy letter in the Voce della Verita, in which he complains that he is persecuted by three sorts of assailants. Some tell him coarsely that, being: an astronomer, he is consequently an atheist. Others accuse him of making the true science of Nature serviceable to the cause of superstition. Others blame him for departing from the traditional physical science of St. Thomas Aquinas. The Father replies to all these : "In the realm of faith, I hold fast to the teaching which proceeds from the Vicar of Christ; in the realm of physics, I hold fast to the teachings of Nature and experiment." A land case, which goes to show the inadequacy of the protection afforded to tenants by the Irish Land Act, has just been decided at Trim, Co. Meath. The tenant is a Mr. Battersby, bis landlord, the Eari of Darnley. Battersby, it appears, in the year 1855, got 21 years' lease of the farm in question. At the time when the lease was made the greater portion of the farm was in a barren state, with large portions of it waste, and loughs of water. On the Ist of November, 1875, when the lease expired, the farm was in a perfect state of cultivation, judiciously divided into nine wellproportioned and well-fenced .fields, the ditches all quicked, many of them backed with stones, the hedges clipped, and seven iron gates with stone piers. At this period the agent offered a yearly tenancy at an advance of 50s. per acre, provided the tenant Bigned an agreement " to give up to Lord Darnley at any six months' notice the peaceable and quiet possession of his farm, and not to make any demand for compensation, and if he should become ill or die, not to hand over or assign to any relative or friend whatever any portion of his farm." This specious agreement, which, was really designed to enable the landlord to eject his tenant at the end of a year without compensation, Mr. Battersby refused to accept. An ejectment notice was the immediate result. After a trial and appeal, Mr. Battersby, for his twenty-one years' improvements, has been awarded £500 compensation, scarcely one year's rent of the farm in its present condition. So much for the protection afforded by the Land Act.