NE WS OF THE WEEK.
IN the Prussian Diet, which was opened on Tuesday, Prince Billow introduced his measure for the expropriation of Polish landholders. This, as the Berlin correspondent of the Times says, was " the climax of the disquieting announcements " which Prince Billow had to make as to the state of the Prussian finances. The Bill for expropriation demands credits to the amount of £17,500,000, which will be' put at the disposal of the Committee of Colonisation in Prussian Poland. The traditional Prussian policy in Poland is to extinguish Polish agitation by artificially settling Germans on the land ; but unfortunately for that policy the Poles have -cotitrived to gain back more land than the Committee have put in the possession of Germans. Prince Billow refuses to abandon the policy, but confesses, first, that Germans of wealth and importance, as well as the holders of mere allotments, must be settled in Prussian Poland; and secondly, that the pioinciple of voluntary sale is insufficient, and that in future sales must be com- pulsory. "The scale of population has at last turned in favour of the German element," and the advantage is to be made secure by artificially making the scale of land-ownership also Ulm in its favour. Of course the Polish Members of the Diet protested loudly against this merciless method of colonisation, and we see that it is also condemned by nearly the whole German Press. England planted out Ulster with loyalists, but that was not recently. Forcibly to uproot land- owners whose families have lived on the same property for generations is surely an astonishing measure in these days.
