THE TABLET

A IVeekly Newspaper and Review.

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

F rom the B r i e f o j H is H o lin e ss to T h e T a b l e t , J u n e 4, 1870.

Vol. 39. No. 1659. L o n d o n , J a n u a r y 27, 1872.

P r ic e sd. By Post 5%d.

[ R e g is t e r e d 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 s p a p e r .

'C h r o n ic l e o f t h e W e e k : The

Crisis at Versailles.—The Offer of the Manufacturers;—M . Thiers's Speech.—Close of the Debate.— The Resignation.—Marshal Mac Mahon. — The Ministry. — The Question o f the Treaties.—M. Brunet's Proposal.—Conclusion of the Roquette Trials.—The New .Programme o f the League.—The Manchester Conference—“ Unsectarian ” Religion.—Irish Education .—Resistance by Misrepresentation.—Commutation of the two Sentences.—The Search for Dr. Livingstone. — “ Packing ” Telegrams.—The Prussian Minister of Public Worship.—Clerical Persecutions in Bavaria.—Mgr. Strossmayer.—The “ P lacet” in Hun

C O N T

gary.—The Dutch Bishops and the Legation to the Holy See.—The New Italian Bishops and the G overnm ent...........................................93 L e a d e r s :

The Crisis in France . 4. - 9 7 The Nationality Question in Aus­

tria and Hungary . . - 9 7 Imperial Grants and Irish Schoolhouses .................................................... 98 C on c i l ia t io n ...........................................99 E nglish A d m in is t r a t io n s a n d

C a th o l ic I n t e r e s t s :

L I . — Disestablishment o f the

Irish Church.—The Land Question.—Mr. Gladstone and Lord Derby on Home Rule . 100 Winter Exhibitions.—“ The Old

Masters” ...................................... 101

ENTS. R e v iew s :

The Directorium Asceticum; or,

Guide to the Spiritual Life. . 103 The Universities and Secondary

Schools of Ireland . . . 103 Mine own Familiar Friend . . 104 Cineas ; or, Rome under Nero . 104 S h o r t N ot ic e s : Holbein and his

Time.—To and from the PassionP lay in the Summer of 1871.— Recollections of Ober-Ammergau in 1871.—Dictionnaire Encyclopédique de la Théologie Catholique. —Laurentia.—Maggie’s Rosary . 105 C orrespondence :

Poems on the Martyrs , . 106 English Administrations and

Catholic Interests . . . 107 The late Mr. Fletcher . . . 107 The Pontifical Zouaves . . . 107

C orrespondence (con t in u ed ) :

Louise Lateau .... 107 S. M ary of the Holy Souls, Kensal

New Town ..... 107 R om e :

Letter from Rome . . . 108 Peter’s Pence. . . . .110 League of S. Sebastian . . . n o D io c e s a n N ew s : W estm in ster......................................n o

Birmingham.—Annual Catholic

Reunion ..... n o Scotland.—Western District . . i n I r e l a n d :

Letter from our Dublin Corre­

spondent . . .

. n r

The Education Meeting at Dublin 1 12 M e m o r a n d a :

Legal : The Tichborne Case . . 1 1 3 G e n e r a l N ews . . . . 1 16

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

AT VERSAILLES. T

THE CRISIS

H E great incident of the week has been the exciting dead-lock at Versailles. On Saturday M. Thiers resigned, and two hours afterwards consented to withdraw his resignation. The pressure put upon the Assembly by the manufacturing interests concerned became too great to allow of M. Thiers’s tax on raw materials being passed. Fifty-five Chambers of Commerce had already pronounced against it, and on Friday the galleries and boxes were full of delegates from these Chambers sent up to see that their deputies did not flinch. The fact is that, while M. Thiers remains just where he was 20 or 30 years ago, the education of French manufacturers in Free-trade principles has made a great stride since the days when M. Michel Chevalier used to “ preach in the desert.” The whole of the industries in the South, and even those of Roubaix, though quoted by M. Thiers as half ruined by the present tariffs, have discovered that a return to Protection would be the very worst thing which could happen to them. The only stronghold left to Protectionism is Rouen, and M. Pouyer-Quertier, the Minister of Finance, is a Rouen manufacturer, and consequently more in harmony with M. Thiers than with the industry of the country. The faces and gestures o f the delegates who crowded the boxes are described as leaving no doubt of their eagerness for the defeat of the Government proposal. And their influence had made itself •felt. For if a division had been taken after the President’s great speech a week earlier, the Assembly might very probably have yielded to his despotic persistency, but it became apparent in the interval that it could only conciliate M. Thiers at the price of alienating the manufacturers. The fight began on Friday by M. Casimir Perier suggesting a compromise. The Minister of the Interior proposed that the Chamber should adopt the principle of the tax on raw materials as a means of filling up any deficit which might remain if other taxes did not produce enough, and that a special committee should examine the tariffs while the debate on the other taxes went on, so that the actual adoption of the tax on raw material ■ should be left to the last. While M. Grevy was asking M. Casimir Perier to explain his proposal in detail, M. Thiers suddenly' exclaimed : “ The Assembly must vote on the “ question of principle,” and M. Casimir Perier appears to have vanished from the scene, but M. Marcel Barth e appeared with a resolution precisely the same as his. It was to the following effect. “ The National Assembly agrees to “ the principle of duties on raw materials as a complement intended to balance the budget. A Committee of 15 are “ to be appointed in the bureaux to examine the tariff, while ““ the Assembly continues the debate on the other taxes.

N ew S er ie s . V ol. V I I . N o . 168.

“ The report of this Committee is to be drawn up as soon “ as possible, but not to be laid before the Assembly until “ the other taxes have been settled.” It would appear that a Committee on the subject of the tax was one of the principal demands of the provincial Chambers of Commerce, and the Government thought to avert the serious opposition which threatened it by conceding this, while at the same time it accomplished its main object by getting the principle of the tax voted. M. Johnston was quite sharp enough to see this, and produced a great effect on the House by exclaiming : “ I fear that you are being asked to vote the “ principle of the tax on raw material in order that you may “ be told that you have adopted in principle the denuncia“ tion of the treaties.”

At this juncture another turn was given to

T of th™ debate by a declaration which M. Brun, a m a n u FAc- deputy for Lyons, was empowered to make in t u r e r s . the name of the delegates of the various Cham­

bers of Commerce. The declaration was signed by about 50 of the principal firms, and was to the following effect. The Government want to raise a tax of 165 millions of francs on raw materials and textile fabrics. The undersigned manufacturers and merchants, delegated by the chief manufacturing and mercantile communities in France, anxious to discharge their duty to the country but especially solicitous that its industrial activity, so necessary for the restoration of its prosperity, should not be impeded, hereby declare that the manufacturers and merchants of France are prepared to pay the 163 millions by means of a tax on their transactions to be fixed by a commission of the Assembly. M. Brun added that he had just received by telegraph the assent of Marseilles and le Havre, and—after M. Buffet had proposed that the Chamber should pledge itself to find the 250 millions asked for, and should consent to theproposed committee on the distinct understanding that the principle of the tax on raw material should not be voted but remain an open question— M. Thiers made the most petulant of all his petulant orations.

He was evidently exasperated by the inter-

m . T h i e r s s vention of the delegates, spoke of their offer as puerile and not worth discussion, and said that the merchants were no doubt honourable men, but he did not know them. They did not offer to pay the money down —in that case he would have said that they deserved well of their country—but simply proposed a new tax which he had already proved to be odiously inquisitorial, and therefore inadmissible. He had found for the Assembly a way out of the difficulty in which it was floundering, and it ought to have had sufficient confidence in him to adopt this waybefore now. The debate had been going on for 18 days, and he would have insisted on a vote at least three days ago if he had not been overpersuaded by his colleagues— “ he always called them