THE TABLET

A Weekly Newspaper and Review.

D u m VOBIS GRATULAMUR, ANIMOS ETIAM ADDIMUS UT IN INCCEPTIS VESTRIS CONSTANTER MANEATIS.

From the Brief oj His Holiness to The Tablet, June 4, 1870.

Vol. 40, No. 1705. L ondon, D ecem ber 14, 1872.

P rice sd. By P ost

[R egistered a t the General P ost O ffice as a N ewspaper.

'C hronicle of th e W eek : Elec­

Page tion of the Dufaure Committee.— And of its Bureau.— Its First Meeting. — Courses open to the President.— Resolutions of the Majority.—Meaning of the Ministerial Changes.—Attitude of the Left.— The Petitions for Dissolution.—Action of the Committee.—M. Jules Simon and the Right.- The Persecution in Prussia.—The District Administration Bill.— Dean Stanley and the Select Preachership.—The Agricultural Labourers. — The Priesthood in Irish Politics.—The Persecution in Japan.—The Petitions for Dissolving the French Assembly.—The Austrian Reichsr a t h ............................................ 737

L eaders :

C O N T E N T S .

Page

R eviews (continued) :

Page

The Crisis in France . . . 741 Irish School Teachers . . . 741 Pastoral Staffs . . . 742 The Principles of Communism . 743 O ur Protestant Contemporaries:

Catholic Education and Modern Stateccraft.—The “ Standard” on Roman Education.— The Defenders of the Establishment . . . 744 T he A nglican Movement :

The Athanasian Creed . . 745 R eview s :

Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in

Catholic Teaching . . 746 The Expression of the Emotions in

Man and Animals . . . 747 The History of Sicily to the Athe­

nian War . . . . 748

The Magazines for December . 749 S hort N otices : The Child Jesns.

Lives of the Saints.— The Life of Our Lady.—The Ivy.—Anecdotal Natural History. —Wrecked, not Lost.—Buds and Blossoms.— Wild T im e s ...............................................749 N ew M u s i c .......................................... 75o C orrespondence:

The Priesthood in Irish Politics . 750 De Virga Versibvsqve . . 751 Poverty at the West End . .7 5 1 Arch-Confraternity of Our Lady of the Angels .... 7«ti R ome ....

Peter’s Pence D iocesan N ews :

• 753 • 754

Westminster .

754

D iocesan N ews continued): Pag

Southwark .... • 757 Beverley .... - 757 Clifton .... • 757 Salford . . . • 757 Scotland—Eastern District. • 757 Scotland— Northern District • 753 I reland:

Letter from our Dublin Corre­

spondent ...................................... 758 F oreign N ews :

France ..... 759 M emoranda :

R e l i g i o u s ......................................759 Educational ..... 759 L i t e r a r y ...................................... 760 Scientific ..... 760 Fine Arts and Music . . . 760 General N ews ....760

C H R O N IC L E O F T H E W E E K .

ELECTION OF THE DUFAURE COMMITTEE. T

H E centre o f public in terest is still at

Versailles. T h e latest in telligence o f the crisis which we were able to publish last week concerned the composition o f the Dufaure Committee, or, as it has com e to be called, the Commission o f Thirty. T h e result o f the election in the bureaux was no small surprise to M. Thiers and his friends. O n ly the day before the President had, in a private conversation with a general officer, expressed his confident expectation that he would have at least 16 votes, a majority o f one, w ith which he would be “ able to get on.” I t certainly was not for want o f hard work that he failed, for every conceivable effort was made to detach from the majority as m any members o f the R igh t Centre as possible. A l l these measures were, however, com p letely unsuccessful, and with a very few exceptions the two sections o f the R ight stuck to their deliberate convictions. T h e one or two cases in which personal considerations induced members to vote otherwise than was expected resulted in the reduction o f the majority in the Commission by two or perhaps three votes ; and In two o f these instances the votes on either side in the two bureaux being thus rendered equal, the appointment went by seniority ; and two members o f the minority, M. de Fourtou in stead o f M. de Broglie, and M . Marcel Barthe instead o f M . Depeyre, were returned. T h e actual majority, however, 19 against n , was quite sufficient to throw the President’s party and the Left into complete disarray. T h e majority o f 36 which the Governm ent had obtained on M. Dufaure’s am endment had inspired a confidence which was found to b e quite baseless, and the situation was exactly reversed when the House came to be again asked for its vote on the main issue— 36 being the majority against Governm ent on th e nomination o f the Commission. T h e fact was, that the Dufaure amendment was not really inconsistent with the position taken up by the R ight, and a certain number o f the majority voted for it in consequence ; but when the ■ question was, what k ind o f effect was to be given to the amendment, the fictitious majority was turned inside out. T hus when, immediately after the voting, M. Barthélémy S t. H ila ire met a well-known French journalist and asked how the day had gone, his malicious friend was able to reply with as much truth as point : “ Sir, the majority have — eleven votes, and the “ minority— nineteen.”

AND OF ITS

BUREAU.

T h e next day the new Committee proceeded to e lect its bureau. M . de Larcy was elected President, the D ue d ’Audiffret-Pasquier V ice-

President, and MM. d ’H aussonville and Amédée LefebvrePontalis Secretaries. A n d in the election o f the V ice-P resid ent and one Secretary the majority numbered 20 instead

New Series, Vol, VIII. No. 214.

o f 19 v o te s ; it being thereby proved that one a t least o f the minority was at least half converted. One member o f the minority was also known to have announced a most uncompromising resistance to the project o f partial renewal o f the Assembly, so that the strength o f the majority on the more material points at issue was even greater than at first appeared. T h e nomination o f M. de Larcy does not seem to have been really considered by the President’s friends as the olive branch from the R igh t which M . d ’Audiffret-Pasquier represented it to be ; on the contrary, there is reason to believe that it was peculiarly distasteful, as M. de Larcy was the M in ister who separated h im self from the President on the very ground o f the present q u a r re l ; namely, his refusal to govern through the majority.

When the committee began to map out its field ° f action, the first thing which the m inority did was o f course to use the presumed scope o f the Dufaure amendment to force on a discussion o f the President’s reforms. T h e attempt, however, proved hopeless; for, when M . A rago insisted that the passing o f that amendment compelled the Committee to take up all the constitutional changes recommended in the Message, the majority was able to reply— Not at a l l : our mandat is sim ply to report upon what has to be done to regulate the relations between the A ssem b ly and the Executive, and, in our opinion, the first th ing to be done with that view is to in troduce effective M in isterial responsibility.

In fact, therefore, the Dufaure Committee

C0U1R(^ErsH^.PEN is precisely what the K erdrel Committee was,

president, only stronger. And M. Thiers has not been slow to recognize the fact. H e had two courses open to h im ; to y ie ld and govern through the majority, or else to resign ; for the third course, dissolution by a coup d ’etat, is easier for English newspapers to recom mend than it would be for the President to carry into effect. Is has been asked why he does not send 50 men to shut up the A ssem b ly and arrest the recalcitrant deputies, but it might also be reasonably asked— where is he to find the 50 men ? T h e army is almost to a man with M acM ahon and Ladmirault, and it is utterly out o f the question that those officers should lend them selves to so illegal an act. For it would be an illegal act, and the argument that there is a deadlock which would justify such an act is worth simply nothing. I f two powers in the State are in conflict, how is that conflict to be ended ? Surely not by unconstitutional means when constitutional means are at hand. T h e A ssem b ly is sovereign, and has delegated to the Executive President powers which it might withdraw, or which he could without any shock to the Constitution resign : whereas it is not pretended that he, a delegate o f the Assembly, has any power whatever to dissolve it. H is choice lay, therefore,