THE TABLET

A Weekly Newspaper and Review.

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

From the Brief o) His Holiness to T h e T a b l e t , June 4, 1870.

V o l . 4-0 - N o . 1 7 0 4 . L o n d o n , D e c e m b e r y , 1 8 7 2 .

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[R egistered a t th e General P ost O ffice a s a N ew spaper.

C hronicle of t h e W e e k : The

Page

French Crisis.— M.Thiers’s Speech. His Bargain with the Radicals.— The Vote of Censure.—The Decisive Vote.— Its Possible Results.— Troubles in Spain. — Herr Malîinckrodt’s Motion. — The New Prussian Peers.— The Belgian Liberals.—The Fall of Count Lonyay. Mortmain and the Land Question. The County Franchise and County Administration. — The Strike of Gas-stokers.— The Story of the Strike.—The Prospects of the Men on Strike. — London in Shade.— President Grant’s Message.—The United States and Cuba. - American Juries and American Crime.— Mr. Horace Greeley, &c., &c. . . 705

CONTENTS

L eaders :

The Priesthood in Irish Politics Church and State O ur P rotestant Contemporaries:

Page . 709 . 710

Diffident Journalism.— The Abbe Michaud on Jesuits.— Mr. Newdegate on the Same.—The German P e rsecu tio n ................................. 713 R eview s :

The Life of Monseigneur Bemeux 7x4 Gareth and Lynette . . -715 A Search after Sunshine ; or, Al­

geria in 1 8 7 1 ........................716 S hort N otices : Thomas Ex

Charmes Theologia Universa, &c. The Bases of the Temperance Reform.— Swift and Sure.—Geof

Page frey’s Great Fault.— The Modern Sphinx 718 C orrespondence :

The Priesthood in Irish Politics . 7x8 The Oakeley Testimonial . .7 19 The Disestablishment of the Ca­

tholic Church . . . . 719 “ Branches” and “ Sects” . . 719 Catholic Loyalty . . . .7 19 The Maguire Fund . . ‘ . 7x9 “ The S. Cuthbert’s Society Prizes” 719 An Apology . . . .7 19 R o m e ............................................... 721

Peter’s Pence . . . . 721 R ecord of German P ersecution,

&c. . . . . . . 721

D io cesan N ews : Westminster .

Clifton Newport and Menevia . Salford I r e land:

Letter from our Dublin spondent F oreign N ews :

Russia . , . France M em o r anda:

Catholic Union Literary Scientific General N ews

Page . . 722

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• 723

Corre. . 723

• 723 . . 724

• 725 • 725 • 725 . 728

CH R O N IC L E O F TH E W E E K .

THE FRENCH „

CRISIS.

r I "'HE finally decisive vote— or what is at

' present expected to be the finally decisive vote— in the French crisis has been fixed for Thursday. We left M. Thiers last week apparently victorious, though the majority for the Government amendment— 36 in a House of 704— was less than one which he had already declared insufficient to render his position permanently secure. Nor did the Right take a different view of the position. “ Even if we are beaten,” said the Due d’AudiffretPasquier, “ we shall not be conquered.” And on the following day, Saturday, the Government received another and a most serious blow, which proved the unreality of its own victory and the power which remained to its opponents. It is perhaps worth recording that in the division on Friday the Orleans princes did not vote.

M. tiiiers’s

SPEECH.

Nobody will feel inclined to deny that M. Thiers’s speech on Friday was a very remarkable effort. His object was to vindicate his adherence to the present policy of the Left and at the same time to make it plain that he disagreed with their general theories. He recounted all that he had done in opposition to Socialism and the Commune, and even went so far as to make a profession of religious belief. It is asserted, he said, that these men also deny God. It is true, and it is a great misfortune for the country, though it is not here that these doctrines have been preached with the greatest audacity. As for one I have studied nature for the 15 best years of my life, and am convinced that nature properly studied proclaims the author of the universal order, and that it is only when it is weakly and imperfectly studied that atheism is the result. God, by leaving man free, suffers every kind of error, even the denial of Himself, but this denial is only momentary, and modern society will not end in these detestable doctrines; above all French society will not allow itself to be so seduced and deceived. “ I have gone,” he continued, “ even further. “ Without making any display of false zeal I may say that some “ years ago when I saw the ImperialGovernmentledastray by “ political ideas which have proved fatal to this country, and “ attacking the seat of the Catholic religion, neglecting my “ popularity, and separating myself from political friends, I “ argued thus: You have no right to oppress the Catholics, “ and you do oppress them by interfering with the domain “ of conscience. Protestants are not affected, for their reli“ gion does not acknowledge a general visible communion “ with a Sovereign Head. But the Catholic religion, which “ is the national one, does believe in such a Head, whose “ seat is in Rome. It is not for you as legislators to ex“ amine whether it is right or wrong, but you are attacking “ the human conscience in its most sacred rights.” Again and again he took care to disavow the doctrines of the E x -

N ew S e r ie s . Y o l , V III. N o . 213.

treme Left, and declared that he did not agree with them even as to the mode of organizing the Republic. The more, however, he repudiated their doctrines, the more they cheered him, their sole object for the moment being to use him to crush the Conservatives. And the aim of tfye President himself was evidently to represent the question as one between himself and a Monarchical restoration, while the Right endeavoured to bring the debate back to the real issue, which concerns Government by a Parliamentary majority. M. Ernoul, in his reply to the President on Friday, stated emphatically that the Right would not allow the matter to be treated as a personal question, or as one between the Republic and Monarchy, when M. Thiers interrupted, “ This, however, “ is the true question.” Eventually perhaps it is, but the question for the moment is this : Shall the President be reduced to a Constitutional Head of the Executive, “ a mere “ clerk ” as he put it, as he has not the counterbalancing power of dissolution, or shall he, accepting the Constitutional position, have the additional freedom which would be secured by a periodical, though partial, renewal of the Assembly ? With the help of this latter change, M. Thiers would look forward confidently to being supported by the country in his task of consolidating the Republic, a task to which he professes his personal dislike, but to which he considers himself bound.

And here comes a very curious revelation

HwiTifRTHEN made by M. Thiers himself in his speech on radicals. Friday. When he was engaged in putting down the Commune, the Radicals from the great provincial cities came to him and asked him whether he was working for the Monarchy or the Republic ? He answered “ for the Republic,” and on this understanding they agreed to keep their towns quiet. If they had not done so, the President would have had to detach 20,000, or 30,000 men from the army of Paris to maintain tranquillity in the provinces, and would probably have failed in suppressing the Paris insurrection. The Radicals in fact forced him to pledge himself to the Republic lest “ agitation” should be “ created” in the other towns. The disclosure does not place M. Gambetta’s friends in a very enviable light, and is not likely to make the Right more yielding.

On Saturday, as we have said, a second

TIcensure°F struSSle t0°k place- The victory of the previous day does not seem to have given great confidence to the financial world, for there was an immediate fall of 40 centimes in the funds, and the impression at the Bourse was the correct one. After a passage of arms between M. Batbie and M. Casimir Perier as to who were the real Conservatives, M. Prax-Paris, a Bonapartist deputy for the Calvados, brought on his motion calling the attention of the House to the political addresses sent by the Muni­