THE TABLET.
A Weekly Newspaper and Review.
DUM VOBIS GRATÜLAMÜR, ANIMOS ETIAM ADDIMUS UT IN INCCEPTIS VESTRIS CONSTANTER MANEATIS.
From the B r ie f o j H is Holiness P iu s IX . to T h e T a b l e t , June 4, 1870.
V ol. 90. No. 2994.
L ondon, S e p t e m b e r 25, 1897.
P r ice sd ., by P o st sJ^d.
[R eg iste r ed a t t h e G en e r a l P ost O f f ic e a s a N ew spaper.
C hrontclb o r t h e W e e k !
The Franco - Russian Alliance—
Page
The Foreign Pol ance— Silver Jubilee o f the King of Sweden—The Outlook for Canadian Trade— Excommunication of a Spanish Minister— The United States, Spain, and Cuba— Signature of the Peace Preliminaries — Th« Question o f Crete— Better News from India — England, France, and Tunis— An Astronomical Discovery — The Engineering Dispute—The Report of the Lunacy Commissioners — Arbitration with the United States 477 L ea d e r s : L Our O tlook __......................... 481
The Locomotive in the Desert .. 482 A Generation of Secular Educa
tion........................._ . . .. 483 The Principle o f Nationalities on
Its Trial . . . . . . . . 484
CONTENTS.
Notes .. Two Men in a Tent at Ebbs F leet.. 487 Reviews :
Page
— . . 485 Letters to the Editor :
Page
St. Gregory’s Mass Book and
Antiphonary . . . . . . 498 The Rosary Confraternity . . 498 The Child Jesus Asleep on the
I sabella the Catholic The Making of England The Holy Eucharist “ The Month” Priest’s Census Book The Road to Calvary Prayer The Chevalier d’Auriac St. Augustine’s, Ramsgate . . . . 490 The New Superior-General o f the
, 488 • 489 489 >49° 400
400 490 490
Paulists .................................... 491 Correspondence :
Rome :—(From Our Own Corre
Cross .. . ; . . . . 499 That “ Teaching Voice” . . . . 499 A Plea For a Dead Priest _ . . 499 Another Remarkable Omission . . 499 Post Office Vagaries .. . . 499 The Anglican Church and Foreign
“ Reformation" Movements . . 499 Some Particulars of a Conversion . . 499 The St. Augustine Celebrations . . 500 A Pilgrimage to Whithorn . . . . 502 An Appeal from Crete . . . . 50a The Eucharistic Congress at Venice
spondent) . . ». — — 493 1 News from Ireland _ _ 495
and St. Augustine Centenary . . 503
Page
O b it u a r y ......................... « 503 M arriages . . * . . 503 Social a n d P o l it i c a l . . ... 504
SUPPLEMENT. News from thf. Schools:
The Religious Question . . . . 5®$ Catholic Efficiency......................... 509 School Children as Wage-Earners 510 Commercial Education . . . . 510 St. Clare’s Abbey, Darlington _ . . 510 St. Wilfi id’s and Parker’s Society 510 N ew s from t h e D io ceses :
Westminster S o u th w a rk ......................... Hexham and Newcastle . . Leeds
Nottingham .. .. . . . . 5_ Salford .............................. 5i2 Glasgow .........................................
Sir 512 512 51*
Rejected MS. cannot be returned unless accompanied with address
and postage.
CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.
ALLIANCE, T
THE FRANCO-RUSSI AN
'H E foreign policy of France, now that
she has broken from her isolation and achieved her long-coveted alliance with so powerful a potentate as theTsarof All
the Russias, becomes so important a factor in the future of Europe that the long review of the situation given by the Paris correspondent of The Times comes with peculiar interest. Though the knowledge of it has only become public property a few weeks ago, M. de Blowitz considers that the entente, the alliance, or by whatever name people may prefer to call it, was a f a i t accompli from the day when Alexander III. went on board a French man-of-war and listened bareheaded to the “ Marseillaise.” The proclamation of it was only deferred out of regard for certain special traits in the national character. Widely separated as the two nations are in so many ways, in religion and by their traditions, social customs, national character and race, it was necessary that what few common interests they might have should be strengthened, and others created and adopted. This was not the work of a day, and so for six years we have a series of scenes at Kronstadt, Toulon, Cherbourg, Paris, Peterhof, and at St. Petersburg, an unceasing interchange of messages, gifts, and visits, which, though they have been criticized as theatrical,'were in the nature of things necessary and even indispensable. The imagination of two pomp-loving people had to be fired before their co-operation with those responsible for the denodment could be regarded as secure. Thus the alliance is not the work of any one particular hand— it is the work of everybody and yet nobody. The Times correspondent quotes a telegram from the Tsar who 25 years ago was at Berlin attending a meeting of the three Emperors, to M. de Gontant Biron at Paris, instructing him to tell M. Thiers that “ if anything were going to be hatched against France he would not have been there,” a communication which serves to show that the alliance now declared had its beginning a quarter of a century ago. Since then it has been persistently worked for by France, who has unceasingly endeavoured to make her friendship worth the having by improving her army and her financial position, in order, when the time came to be able to show herself as a desirable and powerful ally. The bases of an alliance
were first submitted to positive and serious discussion by M. de Laboulaye,and have at lastbornetheirfruit in the toast of the Pothuau, a happy culmination in which M. Faure and M. Hanotaux have played a prominent and at the same time a necessary part. How much that toast has done can scarcely be estimated. The French were getting impatient for some tangible result of their sacrifices. It was indispensable for M. Faure, if he was to retain his position, and equally indispensable for every succeeding Ministry, while the Opposition was continually seeking to utilize the situation by throwing doubt upon the existence of any definite agreement. It has thus restored the French people to their former good humour, and lulled their distrust of the world by a consciousness of their new power. It has likewise, we trust, done something to secure the peace of Europe by linking the destinies of two nations whose present interests are peace, and who under given circumstance may be reckoned upon to steady each other.
— THE FOREIGN
POLICY OF FRANCE.
Everything in fact points to a period of peace. France needs lime to work at the consolidation of the colonial conquests she has made, and doubtless intends to seize
the present for that purpose. In less than 20 years she has acquired Tunis, Dahomey, a portion of the Soudan, Anam, Cambodia, Tonkin, and Madagascar. So much “ undigested empire ” cannot be assimilated in a moment, or in the clamour of war’s alarms, and so the few questions of real perplexity and difficulty are doubtless postponed to give time for the much needed labour of internal reconstruction and colonial consolidation. The long protracted and still pending negotiations in the dispute between Greece and Turkey have shown plainly enough that no Bower desires any immediate re-opening of the large and complex problem conveniently known as the Eastern Question. Of course, there remain the questions of Egypt and AlsaceLorraine. This latter is not pleasing, for it is naturally bound up with the question of Schleswig-Holstein, anc may be allowed, with some equaminity on the part of France, to remain as an abiding disquietude under the structure of German unity. Neither does the Times correspondent think that France can count any active help from Russia in the matter o f Egypt, for the simple reason that our presence in Egypt is due to Russian advice. It is now nearly half-acentury since the Tsar Nicholas proposed to France to take Tunis, at the same time suggesting that we should take Egypt. And so the new alliance has strengthened the prospects of peace by relegating to the future the solution of certain questions for which the time is not yet ripe.
New Series. Voi. LVIII., No. 2.303.
