THE TABLET

A IVeekly Newspaper and Review

D um vobis gratulamur, animos etiam addimus ut in incceptis vestris constanter maneatis.

From the Brief of H is Holiness to T h e T a b l e t , June 4, 1870.

V o i . 5 0 . N o . 1 9 6 5 .

L o n d o n , D e c e m b e r 8 , 1 8 7 7 .

price s

[R e g is t e r ed a t t h e G e n e r a l P o s t O f f ic e a s a N ew spaper

C h ro n ic le o f t h e We e k :—

Page

Health of the Pope.— The M arshal and the Presidents of the Chambers. — The Marshal and (the Left Centre.— The Widening o f the Breach — Refusal of the budget. — A Possible Minister and a «of Impossible President. — Elections to the French Senate. The War in Bulgaria.— Capture o f Elena by the Turks. -The Relapse of Servia. — Mediation and Conditions of Peace. — Sir Stafford Northcote on Conservative Policy.— The Hatcham Riots.— The Proposed Scottish Hierarchy. — Obstruction at Washington. — The Chilian Liberals and the Church . . :

CONTENTS.

Page

The Future Peace and the Neutrality o f England

The Life of the Prince Consort.. 709

Dr. Falk and the Prussian Ca

S hort N otices (continued):

Breccia

709 Fred Markham in Russia and

Mark Seaworth . .

Page

716

716

A Romance of Repentance 716 710 C hurch M usic ............................ 716 711 C o r r e s p o n d e n c e :

Parker's Roman Tombs and

The Problem of Catholic Liberal

Education..

712 Mr. Petre and Liberal Education 718

The Battle of Connemara

The Reunion Magazine ..

S hort N o t i c e s :

714 Pro-Cathedral, Kensington, Trust

714 Fund

St. Mary’s Orphanage, Black

The Christian Reformed in Mind and Manners

Industry and Laziness

71S

heath

715 Church of the English Martyrs,

Great Prescot-street, E

P e r i ls ................................................ 715 “ The Popes and the HieroFalse or True ......................... 716 glyphics.” .. 718 The Snowdrop Papers 716 The Indian Famine 718

716

718

7.8

718

C orrespondence (continued) :

Page

Turkish Compassionate Fund . . 7x9 R ome :— Letter from our own Cor­

respondent . . . . . . 721 D io c e sa n N ew s :—

Westminster.. . . . . . . 723 Southwark .. . . . . . . 723 Clifton . . . . . . . . 723 Newport and Menevia . . . . 723 Plymouth .. . . . . . . 724 Scotland—Western District . . 724 I r e lan d : . .

Letter from our own Corre­

spondent . . . . . . ». 725 F oreign N ews

Germany . . .. . . 726 M em oranda :—

Educational.. . . . . ». 726 G e n e r a l N ews . . . . . . 727

CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.

HEALTH OF THE POPE. F

1OR the last fortnight the Pope has been confined by indisposition to his bedroom, and the correspondents of some

English papers announce that there is no hope of his Holiness’s recovery. There can, unfortunately, be little doubt that the health of Pius IX. is failing : but our Roman Correspondent, telegraphing on Thursday, states that his Holiness was then better and cheerful, and had on that morning received many persons, though he was still weak. Even should the hope expressed in our Correspondent’s letter of the Pope’s speedy resumption of his usual duties be disappointed, we have ourselves no certain ground for apprehending any immediate danger.

THE MARSHAL AND THE PRESIDENTS

OF THE CHAMBERS.

In the absolute dearth of certain information respecting the turn which the French crisis is about to take conjecture and invention have been very busy throughout the week. Marshal MacMahon had been brought to a sounder sense of Constitutional requirements, and was going to give in. He had sent for the Presidents of the Senate and the Chamber to advise him, and it was impossible to suppose that he would not profit by their counsels, and so forth. But, unfortunately for this theory, a curt note was forthwith inserted in the Journal Officiel, by which the public was informed that the Presidents of the two Houses had been sent for merely to assure them that the Marshal had no intention whatever of Interfering with the freedom of the Legislature. And the interview, as it appears, was thus brought about. The Due d ’Audiffret Pasquier, President of the Senate, had told the Prefect of the Police, and authorised him to tell the President, that in the event of a prorogation he and the President of the Chamber would consider it their duty to remain at Versailles and concert measures for the protection of the Legislature against any encroachment on its freedom or its prerogatives. The Marshal, hearing this, and much hurt at the supposition that he was going to do anything illegal, immediately sent for the Duke and M. Grevy, and assured them that nothing was further from his intentions than a resort to acts of violence. But the Duke d’Audifiret Pasquier and M. Grdvy availed themselves of the opportunity to read the Marshal a lecture ; couched, no doubt, in very respectful terms, but still a lecture. They told him that the only way to put an end to the crisis was to resort to the Parliamentary system of governing according to the will of the majority, and the D ik e reminded him that he was not a mere Senator who might remain a party man, but that he was bound, as the representative of the whole nation, to rise above all personal predilections, and hold himself as independent of political ties as any Constitutional Monarch.

N ew S e r i e s , V o l . X V I I I . No, 474

This, of course, was unacceptable, and we have before now commented upon the theory which prevents Marshal MacMahon from accepting this view of his position. Even a Constitutional King has sometimes found himself in a similar difficulty— as, for instance, George III. in the matter of Catholic Emancipation— and the conscientious scruples of a President, elected by a party to maintain for a term of years a particular policy, are, not unnaturally, still more difficult to get rid of. The example of the American Constitution, which allows a President to maintain in office, for the whole term of his Presidency, Ministers opposed to the majority in either House, helps to confirm the views of those who hold the theory alluded to. But there is just one inconsistency in the present Constitution of France which produces the whole deadlock. Whereas in the United States the Ministers are not responsible to the Legislature, by the French Constitution they are expressly declared to be so responsible. The party of the Marshal, indeed, maintains that they are only responsible for offences committed by them against the laws during their tenure of office ; the Opposition that they are responsible for their whole policy — a most weighty distinction, upon which the Constitution is altogether silent. The first view certainly gets rid of the inconsistency in question, but it is not likely, we believe, to obtain from the majority of the nation much more approval than it gets from the majority in the Chamber.

THE MARSHAL AND

THE LEFT CENTRE.

The next inference that there was going to be a surrender was founded on communications between the Marshal and M. Duclerc and M. Dufaure. The details of these communications are still involved in considerable obscurity, but the facts, as far as they can be said to be ascertained, are these. Marshal MacMahon, finding that it was at least very doubtful whether he would be supported by the Constitutional Orleanists in the Senate if he tried for a second dissolution, inquired of M. Duclerc, through certain intermediaries, what would betheconditions of peace upon which the Left would insist. According to the Français M. Duclerc had not given his answer by Monday, that is, forty-eight hours after the question was put to him— a fact which that Conservative organ accounts for by the supposition that there is great difference of opinion in the ranks of the majority as,to the terms which ought to be exacted. But it was clear that, if the Correspondent of the Times was not altogether wrong in his facts, M. Duclerc did give some kind of provisional answer, for the Correspondent asserts that it was “ the informal note received from M. Duclerc which caused the Marshal to send for M. Dufaure. And it was not, as some people hoped, to sound that veteran statesman as to the possibility of his founding a Ministry that Marshal MacMahoa sent for him, but to show him the extent and point out to him the unreasonableness of the conditions likely to be im