Saturday, July 6, 1872.]
TH E TABLET.
country. The scene then became anything but edifying, for the Left is ready to support the most retrograde commercial principles when by so doing it can damage an enemy, and it howled at M. Rouher, and applauded M. Thiers when he said that every country had a right to tax unmanufactured materials ; that for a long period cotton and wool were taxed and nobody thought that foreign nations were injured; that the treaties of i860 did not absolutely prohibit the imposition of this tax ; and that M. Rouher had “ not done the “ country all the harm he imagined.” M. Rouher then attempted to reply, but the row became so scandalous that M. Grévy declared the freedom of the Tribune violated, and insisted on M. Rouher being heard. He protested in moderate language against the remarks of M. Thiers, who had certainly lost his temper, and the debate was adjourned. On Tuesday M. Thiers again spoke for two hours, insisting that the tax on raw materials would bring in immediately 42 millions— the reporter of the Committee maintained that it would produce only five— and 18 millions more at the termination of the treaties with England and Belgium ; 33 millions more would depend on'negotiations with other Powers, and of this the President is confident of getting 15 or 20 millions, when the Assembly has by its vote declared its right to impose the tax. On Wednesday another violent scene occurred, M. Thiers declaring that the Government met with greater justice in the British Parliament than in the Assembly, a M. de Gavardie shaking his fist at M. Thiers, and the sitting being interrupted for some time by the uproar which ensued. M. Laurent, a deputy for the linen manufacturing department of the Nord, the Due Decazes, and, according to the Telegraph's correspondent, M. Buffet, all attacked M. Thiers’s economic fallacies. The Right, and those southern deputies of the Left who are interested in the silk trade, will all vote against the tax on raw materials, while the Left generally gives its whole support to M. Thiers. M. Gambetta defended the new treaty in a speech in the committee on Tuesday, and a deputation from the party had an interview with M. Thiers on Wednesday, at which he assured them that he did not mean to resign, “ as he could not make a Cabinet question of the taxation “ of raw material.” He knows in fact that the majority is no longer to be intimidated by this threat.
The letter of the Duc dc Broglie sufficiently ™ E explained the idea which actuated the majority c o “ in its recent appeal to M. Thiers. It was not
the desire of any change in the present regime, but the fear that the President was playing the game o f the Radicals in his desire to perpetuate the Republic, that induced^them to call on him to govern by the majority. It is not disputed that he will throw the whole influence of the Government into the Republican scale at future elections, and the result will be— as the Reds will work for themselves, and he will be obliged to work with them— the return of partizans o f M. Gambetta rather than of himself. The majority is, therefore, assuming the character of a distinct opposition. A t the next conflict three things may happen— either M. Thiers may offer to resign, in which case it is agreed that Marshal MacMahon is to succeed him ; or he may yield to the majority, and change his ministers and policy ; or he may make a coup d’etat and dissolve the Assembly. Now that he knows that his resignation will be accepted, and that his successor is provided, he will perhaps be less inclined to resign than heretofore ; and he has committed himself too strongly to a personal policy to be likely to change it. The coup d’état would be utterly unconstitutional, jmd the Assembly would have quite as much right to impeach mm, if he attempted it, as the Assembly of December, 1851, had to impeach Louis Napoleon. The Left, however, as it ls violently protectionist because the Right and M. Rouher me free-traders, is also quite prepared to applaud a coup
ptot in its own interest, and its organs already announce a dissolution of the Assembly as probable immediately after me ratification of the Treaty. The Assembly will scarcely dissolve itself with the lesson of the recent elections and the Knowledge of the President’s intentions before its eyes
SEr„
Three important writers, M Saint Marc Girardin, M. Auguste Leo, and M. Dufemlle, " nr.BATs ” have seceded from the Journal des Débats m « consequence of the line taken by that paper in 2 * controversy between M. Thiers and the majority. They ^,>Plain that the Débats, while continually finding fault S “» the President, opposes any attempt to correct his
which can only be done by the majority asserting Uself. They have joined the staff of the Journal dr. Pans.
M. John Lemoinne, however, who remains, is evidently willing to accept the rule of a strong majority. “ Every “ time,” he writes, “ that these Cabinet questions— o f which “ we think M. Thiers makes abuse— are raised, the country “ is unsettled and agitated. It is still more uneasy when it “ sees the Conservatives spontaneously provoke a crisis which “ they themselves are not prepared to solve. But it would be “ tranquillized if it could see a united and compact majority, “ inspired by the same principles, marching under the same “ flag, and could perceive in such a majority the men who “ were ready to take the place of the present Government.”
On Monday M. de Rdmusat announced the
GERMAN TREATY.
th e franco- particulars of the Treaty. Whenever the three
milliards are paid the occupation is to cease, but in the meantime the army of occupation will not be reduced, though the area which it occupies will be diminished in proportion to the payments. On the payment of the first half-milliard, the Marne and the Haute Marne will be evacuated ; on the payment of the next milliard and a-half— it is hoped by next spring— the Ardennes and the Vosges will be freed, and on the payment of the third milliard, all the rest. The final term fixed is the ist March, 1875, but the French Government hope not to have to wait so long. Meanwhile the French are precluded from repairing or raising fortifications in the liberated departments, though the Germans are re-strengthening Metz and erecting an enormous entrenched camp at Strasbourg. Altogether the terms can scarcely be described as a good bargain for France, though the desire and necessity of liberating the territory is so great that the Assembly cannot afford to reject them.
On Monday week, the Pope received, with
rome and nrany other deputations, one from the two Ger-
man Catholic associations established in Rome. After alluding to the expressions of sympathy which he had just received from Ratisbon, Münster, Freiburg, Cologne, Munich and other dioceses, he spoke of the persecution inaugurated in Germany, and of the remonstrances which he had addressed to its author. “ I have told him,” said his Holiness, “ and you may repeat it, that without moderation, “ victory is not lasting, and that the victory which is used in a “ spirit of persecution against the Church is the greatest “ madness.” “ I have,” he added, “ caused this First “ Minister to be told that Catholics have up to this day been “ favourable to the German Empire. I have intimated to “ him that I have continually received from Bishops, priests “ and lay Catholics frequent communications in which they “ have expressed themselves satisfied with the cordial manner “ in which they were treated by the Government, and with the “ liberty which was left to the Church; and the Government “ itself showed that it was content with the Catholics. How “ then, after these declarations, and these avowals of the “ German Government, can the Catholics be suddenly changed “ into men who are disobedient and who conspire ? This is
the question I have asked, and I have had no answer— and “ shall have none, for it is impossible to make any answer to “ the truth.” We note these words of his Holiness with the greater satisfaction that we have always persistently repudiated the false assumption of the majority of the English press that the arbitrary measures of the German Government were the consequence of Catholic hostility to the empire. There was no such hostility; whether there will be, after 15,000,000 of the population have been irritated by tyrannical privilegia aimed at all they hold most dear, is quite another question.
Letters from the Rhine provinces show that
fe^mngTn tlle feeing caused by the Bill is one of the Germany, greatest exasperation. The Jesuit Fathers are
for the most part members of the best families in Westphalia, Bavaria, and other Catholic parts of Germany, and both secular clergy and laity feel that the blow is aimed through the Order at themselves. Three eminent priests of the diocese of Munich— two of them canons— have addressed a courageous letter to “ the makers of laws at Berlin,” in which they point out that the whole priesthood is “ kindred” to the Society of Jesus. The unreserved obedience— in all which is not sinful— which Jesuits promise to their superior, and through him to the Pope, is equally due from secular priests in all that concerns the faith and the works o f their calling to the Bishops, and through them to the supreme head o f the Church. Secular priests no longer obey a Bishop separated from the Holy See. The mission of priests, whether Jesuits or not, proceed from the same source— both are sent by Christ, both are united by the bonds of “ relationship,” both owe submission to the Successor of Peter. If,
