The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-09-27 00:00:00

FOREIGNERS IN JAPAN.

The outer barbarian is looked on with more favour
in Japan than in China. From a statement in the
Ref chi Chimoune, a native newspaper, it appears that
there are one hundred and eighty-one foreigners in
the servioe of the Mikado. Of these eighty are English,
and but one Russian so that there need be no appre-
hension of a preponderance of Muscovite influence in
that quarter. The Americans, of whom there are
thirty-one, and the French, of whom there are thirty,
come after the English. The presence of the Americans
accounted for by the proximity of Japan to the Pacific
vast, and the growing commercial intercourse between
okohama, Nagasaki, Hioga Osaka, and Hakodate, and
rnerican ports since the Treaty of 1854. The French are
m Japan principally as instructors to the army; but
some, it is to be presumed, are engaged at the arsenal
Y okos aka, the superintendent of which, M. Chibou-
quer, is a native of France. Eight commissioned and
twenty-three non-commissioned officers of the British
navy went to Japan in 1873 to train the personnel of
the fleet which the Government of the Mikado was
then creating. Most of the remaining English, it may
reasonably be supposed, are engaged on the railways,
which are in course of rapid construction. The other
nationalities represented under the Japanese flag are
thus
Italians,
divided :—Germans, eighteen; Dutch, seven;
four; Swiss and Chinese, three each; and
Austrians and Portuguese, two each. Singularly
enough there are neither Spaniards, Greeks, nor
Scandinavians in the Government serrlce.—Evcning
Standard.

MR. BRIGHT ON AGRICULTURAL
DISTRESS.
Mr. John Bright, M.P., has written as follows to the pro-
tlioters of a conference of the National Agricultural
"bourers' Union which is to be held at Aylesbury on the
29th inst. :
" I cannot write you anything that would be of use
to You. I fear that you will not get much useful in.
formation from farm labourers or farmers. They feel
and see what is before them and upon them, but few of
tlaeln are so far informed on economical questions as to
be able to form an intelligent opinion on the causes
of the present condition of what is termed the
aZrieultural interest. The crisis of the time comes
Clearly from bad harvests, short crops, and low prices,
but that these should create ruin and panic comes
from causes not apparent to the multitude, and which
hsve their source in the unwisdom and injustice of our
laws affecting the ownership, the tenure, and the
transfer of land. I fear it will require much pressure
and suffering to convince the landed and farming in-
terest of the origin of the malady which now affects it.
I have discussed the question so often in public that I
feel as if I did not wish to say much further upon it.
In the year 1846 famine came to our help, and we sun.
needed. Perhaps now a growing distress among land.
owners and farmers may help to destroy the legal
fetters which keep the land in bonds, and so many of
Our people in distress,"

, Mr. Gladstone has written that, while not doubting
' the utility of having information from a variety 91
sources, he did not intend personally to take par,t in
theinitiation of any separate agricultural inquiry. '

The Ecclesiastical Commissioners, who are the
owners of several farms in Sussex, have allowed their
teuants an abatement of 20 per cent, in their rents.
4,444 forthcoming meetinz of Russian scientists
b4it, question of abandoning the old method of reckoning
time, which occasions more and more inconvenience to
Russians in their increasing intercourse with Western
Europe, will be considered.
Tuesday night's London Gazette contains the follow.
lug :—The Board of Trade have received from the Secretary
of State for Foreign Affairs a copy of a decree of the French
Government permitting the temporary free admission of
tissues Of silk mixed with cotton or other materials intended
to be printed, dyed, or dressed in France, and subsequently
, tplYgPrtred.

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