THE TABLET,

A W eekly N ew spaper a n d R ev iew .

DOM VOBIS GRATULAMOS, ANIMOS ETIAM ADDIMOS ÜT IN 1NCCEPTIS VESTRIS CONSTANTER MANEAT.S.

From the Brief o] H is Holiness P ius IX . to T h e T a t ,i .e t , June 4, ibfo.

V ol. 94. No. 3087.

L o n d o n , J u l y 8 , 1 8 9 9 .

p*,cE5<l - post 5*d.

[R e g i s t e r e d a t t h e G e n e r a l P o st O f e ic e a s a N ew s pa p e r .

C hronicle o r t h e W e e k :

Page

Imperial Parliament : The Clergy .and their Tithes-The Royal N iger Company—A Quiet Sitting— Help for Irish Agriculture and Technical Education-The Cable Companies and the All-British Cablj — Boating Disaster in Wales — Great Britain and the Transvaal —The Return of Captain Dreyfus —The Race Problem in America —The Growth of the Revenue— Old Age Pensions— The London University and its New Home— The Contest in East Si. Pancras — The Osgoldcross Election : Return of Sir John Austin . . . . 41 L eaders :

T o Make Drunkenness a Crime. . 45 Turbulence on the Continent . . 46 The Ciisis in Belgium . •• 47 “ The Progress of Romanism ” . . 47 A Society o f Labour Chaplains .. 48

CONTENTS.

N o t e s . . M _ _ R e v iew s :

Page - 49

The Religion of Shakespeare Holland and the Hollanders France ......................... Dr. Gihr on the Sacraments The Scientific Congress at Fribourg An Outpost o f the Empire , C o r r e spondence :

Rome :— (From Our Own Corre­

spondent) . . . . «. _ News from Ireland _ News from France.. .. L e t t e r s to t h e E d it o r :

The Tithe Rating Bill .. Unionisis and Irish Education .. A Memorial to Dr. Rivington .. Catholic Missions in East Africa The Catholic Truth Society .,.

L e t t e r s to t h e E d itor (C o n-

tinned): A College Column in the New

Page

Cathedral . . . . . . . . 6a French Pilgrimage to Lourdes . . 6a New Offices.. .. . . . . 62 St. Benedict's, Ealing: An Appeal and a C a u t i o n ..............................62 A Historical F i n d ..............................62 Cardinal Perraud’s Silver Jubilee . . 63 The Late Father Damien . . . . 64 International Congress of Women. . 64 A Catholic Association for Southern

India . . . . . . . . . 65 The Community of English-Speak­

ing Peoples..........................................66 Electoral Reform in Belgium . . 66 Books of the W e e k .............................. 66

Cricket . .

. .

M a r r ia g e . . . . So c ia l a n d P o l it i c a l

Page .. 66 .. 68 .. 68

SU P P L EM EN T . N ews from t h e Schools :

Oscott College .. . . School Boardism and the Board of Education Bill . . . . The Bishop of Elphin on the

Education of Women . . . . Secondary Education in Englan d Our College Associations . . N ews from t h e D io ceses :

Westminster

. .

Birmingham . . * Clifton ... . . <t Portsmouth . . . . . , St. Andrews and Edinburgh Glasgow . . . . The Sacro Monte of Varese..

73 73

74

75 76 76 77 77 78 78

Rejected MS. cannot\be returned unless accompanied with address and postage.

CHRONICLE O F THE WEEN.

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT

THE CLERGY AND THEIR TITHES T

'H E resumed debate on the

Second Reading of the Tithe-Rent Charges Bill was distinguished by some speeches of more than usual importance. After Mr. Balfour had cleared the decks for action by obtaining the assent of the House to the prolongation of the discussion till after midnight if necessary, the member for Bodmin rose to play his accustomed part as the candid friend of the Government. He could not follow Mr. Long’s argument that the justification of the measure lay in its endeavour to establish an equality of burden. The root-error of that argument was a Confusion between the rating of property and the rating of persons. He then denounced the Bill as a new and additional endowment to remedy the poverty of certain parishes, and for the indiscrimination with which it lett the poor in their poverty, and increased the wealth of the rich. I f a Government should take ¿£1,000,000 from the Irish Church Fund to found a University accessible to Irish Catholics, what a row there would be ; yet here was a case m which ¿£3,000,000— ¿£89,000 a year capitalized— was oeing squandered in giving a new endowment to the t^nurch of England in so wasteful a fashion that it did not even meet the cases that most required it. Sir William Harcourt followed with a fighting speech, which opened with the gibe that they seemed to be living under new Parliamentary régime of what might be called legislation upon interim Reports. Emphasizing Mr. Courtney’s distinction, he said : “ The fact is, that the rate is not a rate ou the person ; it is a rate on the property. It cannot be repeated too often or made too clearly understood, because the whole fallacy of this so-called injustice is that you are putting the rate on the person, whereas the rate, being put °n the property, the individual suffers no injustice when he receives that property subject to the conditions attached. I 00 not desire that the clergy should be dealt with unfairly or harshly.” In conclusion he declared that this Bill brought forward by Mr. Long was the dangerous last straw of- the many already placed upon the back of the patient Parliamentary camel by the present Government. Sir Edward Clarke summed up the two speeches by declaring

New Series. V o l . LXII., No. 3,396.

that all the philosophy was in the one, and all the party spirit in the other. Mr. Gladstone’s judgment, supported by all authorities who had gone into the matter, that the clergy had a real grievance in being rated on their gross incomes still held the ground. It was no answer to say that Mr. Gladstone had done nothing to remedy the grievance, for Mr. Gladstone had to work with such instruments as he could command. In the course o f a temperate speech, Sir Henry Fowler asked why the Government did not propose to remedy the injustice under which the lay tithe-owner suffered along with the clerical tithe-owner, and then went on to deal in detail with the grievances of the urban ratepayer. Mr. Balfour wound up the debate in a really brilliant speech which, opening with some genial banter of Mr. Courtney and Sir William Harcourt, proceeded to grapple one by one with the arguments which had been brought forward. The House evidenced its pleasure, and when the division was takeD, Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s threat o f open hostility was answered by a majority o f 134 for the Government.

ROYAL NIGER

COMPANY.

I t ' s the fate o f Chartered Companies to be extinguished whether their work has achieved success or only failure. The Royal Niger Company has been a success, and that is probably the reason why the arrangements for the transfer of its powers and plant to the Government for international reasons were received so quietly in Parliament on Monday afternoon. Sir Michael Hicks-Beach’s statement o f the transaction was singularly lucid. Both parties in the State had recognized the value of the Company’s work, by which the unimportant interests we possessed in 1880 in the Niger region had been rendered o f imperial interest between the years 1886 and 1898. It was to the credit o f the Company that it had been successful without throwing its shares on ’Change. It had paid six per cent, on paid up capital year by year, and had speedily founded a huge empire in the most valuable part of equatorial Africa. T o its energy we owed the preservation to our commerce and interests of the great artery o f the Niger. There was, of course, another side to the shield in the difficulties which must attend the work o f any Company, but its work entitled it to respectful and equitable consideration in the carrying out of the transfer which had now become necessary. The Government, therefore, proposed to relieve the Company of all its administrative rights, powers, and duties, and to take over its treaty, land, and mineral rights, and the plant necessary for their due administration. Sir Michael then went into the various