THE TABLET
A Weekly Newspaper a n d R ev iew
WITH SUPPLEMENT.
D U M VO B IS G R A T U L AM U R , A N IM O S ET IA M ADD IM U S U T IN IN CCEPTIS V E S TR IS CON S TAN TER M A N E A T IS .
From the Brief of H is Holiness to T h e T a b l e t , 'June 4, 1870.
Vol. 49. No. 1941. L o n d o n , J u n e 23, 1877.
P rick 5a. By P ost s%d
[R e g is tered a t th e G en e r a l P o st O f f ic e a s a N ew spaper
Page
C h ro n ic le _ o f t h e W e e k :—
The Crisis in France.— The Message to the Senate.— The Battle in the Chamber.— The Interpellation.— M. de Fourtou’s Speech. — M. Gambetta.— Monday’s Debate.— The Vote of Want of Confidence.— Action of the Senate.— Crusade of the Liberal Press.— The Municipal Elections inRome. —The Burials Question.—Visits o f Foreign Officers to the Dockyards, &c.—The War.— The Due de Broglie on Radicalism.— The New Russian Loan.— “ Boarding Out.”— The Persecution o f the Uniats in P o l a n d .........................769
C O N T
Page
L e a d e r s :
The Crisis in France . . . . 773 Progress of Socialism in Ger
many .................................... 773 The Irish Borough Franchise . .7 7 4
A r t :
The Royal Academy . . .*775 Round the Galleries . . . . 776 R e v iew s :
N o r a ......................... •• . . 777 The Contemporary Review . . 777 The Nineteenth Century.. . . 779 S hort N otices :
Paley’s Gothic Moldings.. . . 780 Xenophon’s Anabasis . . . . 780
E N T S .
S hort N otices (continued)
Page
Mrs. Somerville’s Physical Geography and Connexion of the Physical Sciences . . .. 780 Antar and Zara, and other Poems 780 The Episcopal Jubilee of the
Pope .................................... 780 C o r r e s p o n d e n c e :
A Hint to Piedmont . . . . 7 8 1 The Freedom of Education as
Understood in Germany . . 781 Catholic Benefit Society . . .. 782 A Day in the Country . . . . 782 Lord Bacon's “ Philosophy ” E x
amined . . . . . . . . 782 Catholic Young Men’s Society . . 782
C orrespondence (continued) :
Presbytery for the Church o f the
Page
English Martyrs........................... 782 P a r l ia m en t a r y Summary . . 783 R ome :— Letter from our own Cor
respondent . . . . . . 785 D tocesan N ews
Westminster.. . . . . . . 7,90 Birmingham.......................................790 Northampton . . . . 790 I r elan d
Letter from our Dublin Corre
spondent ........................ 791 F oreign N ews
G e r m a n y ....................................... 791 Austria . . . , . , . . 792 M em oranda :—
R e l i g i o u s ....................... . . . 792 G en er a l N ews ............................... 792
IN FRANCE. A
THE CRISIS
C H R O N I C L E O F T H E W E E K .
LARGE large share of public atten
tion is naturally absorbed by the momentous crisis in French politics. The Marshal-President has adopted the second and bolder of the two courses of which we spoke last week. He does not wait to ask the deputies to consider the budget, but calls for the consent of the Senate to the immediate dissolution of the hostile Chamber. He thus deprives his enemies of the satisfaction of refusing him supplies, but, it must be admitted, weakens at the same time his chances at the coming elections, by shortening the period in which the new administrative officials can bring their influence to bear on the constituencies. The proceedings of Saturday in the Chamber were sufficiently disgraceful, but it is unfair to hold the Ministers or the Moderate Conservative party which they represent responsible for the excesses of M. Paul de Cassagnac and a violent group of Bonapartists. Equally unjust is it to cast the whole blame even on the latter, for the extreme Left was almost equally furious and uncontrollable, though the President, M. Grevy, who showed signs of evident partisanship, appeared to ignore its disorderly conduct. Some idea of the confusion may be gathered from the fact that the official report of the sitting records 105 interruptions. O f these 97 proceeded from the irrepressible M. de Cassagnac.
THE •MESSAGE
TO THE SENATE.
In the Senate the message from the Marshal, read by the Due de Broglie, was received with distinct approval by the majority. In asking the consent of the Senate to the dissolution, the President briefly states the reasons which have led him to take this step. “ No Ministry,” he says, “ could maintain itself in the present Chamber withJ‘ out seeking the alliance and undergoing the conditions of “ the Radical party. A Government bound to such a “ necessity is no longer master of its own actions. What“ ever its personal intentions, it is reduced to serving the “ ends of those whose support it has accepted, and to pre“ pare the way for their accession to power.” To this state of things the Marshal will no longer lend himself. He would have preferred, however, to postpone the dissolution— the remedy provided by the Constitution— until the budget of 1878 had been voted. The month’s prorogation was intended to calm down men’s minds sufficiently for this purpose, but the agitation carried on by the deputies of the Left and the organs o f their party have defeated this hope. The Marshal therefore asks for the dissolution at once, and confines himself “ to calling on the Chamber of Deputies to vote some
N ew S e r i e s , V o l . X V I I . No. 450.
“ urgent Bills which the patriotism of all parties will surely “ not allow to be challenged.” Then the hastening Of the dissolution will give the new Chamber time to vote the rest of the supplies for next year. Lastly, the President puts the issue plainly as one between the Radicals and himself, not between Monarchy and the Republic. He is resolved to maintain the existing form of Government. “ France,” he says, “ like me, desires to maintain intact the institutions “ which govern us. She desires as much as I do that these “ institutions should not be disfigured by the action of Radi“ calism. She does not desire that in 1880— the day when “ the Constitutional laws may be revised— everything should “ be prepared beforehand for the disorganisation of all the “ moral and material forces of the country.” This sentence receives no little light from M. de Fourtou’s speech in the other House, though M. Arago interrupted with the words “ it is you who disorganise everything,” and was called to order. The interest of the session in the Senate was then over, after the President’s Message had been referred to the bureaux for Report, in spite of some straggling shots from M. Jules Simon and others. The Committee was elected on Monday, six favourable to the dissolution and three against it, and on Wednesday the Report was brought in.
In the Chamber of Deputies, as we have th e b a t t l e saic] scene Was far more exciting. First M.
chamber de Fourtou read a declaration in which the substance of the Message to the Senate was reproduced. Then, after urgency had been voted for some pressing public and local credits, M. Bourgeois called for an examination before the Chamber broke up of a deficit of 200 millions in the accounts of the Government of Sept. 4th. M. Gambetta rested his defence on the report of the Cour des Comptes, which was quite enough, he said, for the justification of his administration, if the other party had “ still “ anyremainsof goodfaith.’’ M. deCassagnacheredemanded a call to order, the President said that M. Gambetta’s explanation was natural, M. Mitchell said something disrespectful to the President which was not heard and was called to order, the Bonapartists shouted “ call us all to order,” M. Grevy said he was sorry that the regulations did not give him still more effectual powers of repression, and, finishing his sentence, said that M. Gambetta had been provoked, but that the expression used by him was to be blamed. “ Let him withdraw it,” said M. de Cassagnac. “ When you have withdrawn yours,” said the President; and so the unseemly wrangle went on. Then M. de Caillaux, the Minister of Finance, enumerated the measures which the Government meant to ask the Chamber to pass— a provisional credit of 209 millions for the Ministry of War, for which M. Gambetta himself had already demanded urgency ; another provisional credit of 16,722,000 francs for the
