sentatives returned in their places in was the preparation with those employed several instances by electoral districts in by the Imperial Chancellor. He declared which their names had not before been it was impossible "to live" without these known, under orders from Berlin. The laws. The life of the State was exposed programme of the Bishop of Mayence to the gravest perils if the Government was openly proclaimed, and the organiza- did not receive weapons with which to tion which had won such influence adoped protect it against assailants. The Prime it as its own. This programme meant Minister pointed to the case of Count nothing less than the introduction of Ledochowski as demonstrating the need dualism in Prussia through the creation of protection, and that protection could of a State within the State. The Cath- only be afforded if the Government obolics were henceforth in all matters relat- tained from the Legislature the arms they ing to political and private life to receive needed in order to discharge their duty. orders and guidance from the Centre These weapons are the power to reguparty. This involved the erection of two late the education of the clergy and their religious States which would be mutually appointment to and tenure of clerical hostile. The Sovereign of one of them offices, and authority over the bishops in was a foreign ecclesiastical prince who the exercise of ecclesiastical discipline. has his seat in Rome, a prince who (said Prince Bismarck has convinced the ConPrince Bismarck) by recent changes in servative members of the Herrenhaus the constitution of the Catholic Church that the political supremacy of Ultramonhas become mightier than ever he was tanism is only to be obviated by such before. 66 Thus, instead of the Prussian stringent and drastic means. It is sinState as hitherto organized, instead of gular that at the very time the Imperial the German Empire which was to be Chancellor was explaining the political realized, were to be formed, if the pro- dangers to which the State in Prussia is gramme were carried out, two State or-exposed at the hands of the Ultramonganizations running parallel with each other, the one with its general staff in the Centre party, and the other with its general staff in the principle of temporal authority and the Government and person of the King." It was impossible for the Government to tolerate such a situation, and it became its duty to defend the State against the danger to which it was exposed. It would have failed in this duty if it had stood quietly looking on while the principle of State authority was assailed. The modus vivendi provided in the Constitution must therefore be revised and a new one arranged. If the limits of the temporal and priestly powers were not more clearly defined, the State would be exposed to internal conflicts of the most dangerous kind. The Government could not continue to govern and to guarantee the safety of the State with the fifteenth and eighteenth articles of the Constitution unrepealed; and they therefore asked the Herrenhaus to help them to new powers, with which they might be able to protect the State's authority in the future.

The Herrenhaus, as might have been expected, has responded to this appeal by doing what was required of it. It is interesting to observe the similarity, almost the identity, of the terms in which the Prussian Premier Von Roon defined the necessity for the ecclesiastical measures for which the Constitutional Bill

tanes, the British House of Commons should have been discussing a measure for granting exceptional privileges to the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland.

From The Spectator.

THE LIBERATION OF FRANCE. THE German Government is to receive its last instalment of tribute by the end of August, and to evacuate France on the 5th September. The news of the Treaty under which this is arranged has been received in Paris with a sort of exultation, and though we cannot join in all the gratulations, we can thoroughly understand them. It is true that the German Government has made no concessions, has given back no territory, has exacted the last penny of the most frightful tribute ever exacted from any people, that war has henceforward a new motive, and the human race a new capacity of misery. The industry of generations has been pawned because a victor, already satiated with territorial conquest, willed that method of punishing and weakening a conceivable future foe. But nevertheless the treaty indicates that a great European cataclysm draws to a close, and that the State most affected by it still exists, and will continue existing, and we would ask our readers just to consider for a moment

to the world a feeble embodiment of their worst faults.

what that means. There is a party among us who not only like Germany and hate France, but who entirely disbelieve in The truth is, we suspect, that France France, who talk of her degeneracy, and has leaders, as North Germany also has, in their hearts imagine that her rôle is who are little seen by the public. The played out. Let them just consider what immensely numerous bureaucracy which she has done. After the most frightful covers the country has, ever since the defeat of modern times, with a third of Revolution at all events, played in France her territory in invader's hands, with her the part of a great and popular aristoccapital in insurrection, and her available racy. We are accustomed in this counarmy all required to restore order, she try to think of Préfets and Sous-Préfets, has paid a fine equal to one fourth the and all the rest of the French officials, as British National Debt, has elected a bour- mere oppressors, agents of a bad system, geois of genius to her head, has obeyed weighing heavily on the resources of the him on points on which she disagreed Treasury; but the people subject to them with him, has suffered her already severe regard them in a very different light, as taxation to be increased one fourth, and the arbiters between them and the rich. has endured a foreign occupation without Not only is tradition in their favouronce giving a pretext for real severity. and tradition tells among every populaWe all here in England admire M. Thiers, tion except the urban English-but their and think he has shown tact and firmness, functions tell. They act to a degree and above all courage, in his administra- which we English, with our free system tion, but what would his efforts have pro- of life, scarcely comprehend as protectors duced without the assistance of France of the people, as the unpaid lawyers to herself? It is the people, not M. Thiers, whom under all circumstances they can who have remained so quiet, and sub-appeal for advice, and assistance, and scribed such loans, and borne such taxa- guidance in the affairs of life. We think tion; who have suppressed discontents of them by instinct as oppressors, but of the most bitter kind, and have had the they are not bad people at all, but persons instinct to see that in a little chirrupy superior to the mass, efficient, kindly, bourgeois of genius they had found the and in short very like the good sort of best available ad interim chief. We do lawyers among ourselves. They are quite not know a more remarkable instance of capable of forming an opinion, and they that quality which makes up for so many have formed one "that her Majesty's deficiencies, the political sense which Government must go or," that the mighty seems to be given, like the capacity for and on the whole successful machine resisting malaria, to some races, and not called French Administration must go to others. The people had no visible forward, that it must have a head, who chiefs. The most striking fact in the had better be M. Thiers, and that the history of France since 1870 is that she people must just endure till better times has not produced men; that nobody can come round. There never was a case in point to any local leader; that there is history in which the officials adhered no one except M. Gambetta either to suc- so honestly to a man and a scheme of ceed or to oppose M. Thiers; that the government which most of them must Head of the State and the masses always hate, or so honestly used their influence seem to be standing face to face. The among the population. Very few are M. people seem to have done it all them- Thiers' nominees, and those few are not selves, to have developed for themselves exactly devotees of his, but all have acthe capacity for obedience which was cepted his ordre du jour to get rid of the the one thing required by the situation. Germans quietly, and then see. Most of They have submitted of their own heads them, of course, are placemen, anxious to for, except in Paris and Lyons, there get on. Many of them are mere placehas been little coercion - to do precisely men, careful mainly to get on. Some of the things needful to be done, but which them, we dare say, are mere rascals, wilthey were expected to resist doing. No ling to sell their country, if only they may leader, whatever his genius, unless in- get on. But the immense majority are deed he had a genius for war, could civilians, exactly like the civilians of any have guided them better than they have other country, rather exceptionally able guided themselves, while none could have as compared with the population, and been obeyed more implicitly than they with what is unusual, hearty and honest have obeyed an Assembly which seems confidence from the people about them,

where, and by the clergy in some Catholic countries, and in one Protestant country Scotland, to this hour.

to whom they "give the word," just as aristocrats and journalists do in England, to the injury, it may be, of independent thought, but to the indefinite gain of the Will the early liberation of the French people in the way of political coherence. territory affect Europe? Not much. We English know that in a severe politi- After the most careful watching of all cal crisis, we mean a real crisis, and not that has been revealed in the past three the comparatively trivial trouble we are years, the conclusion at which we arrive accustomed to call such, we should act is definitely this. The majority of Frenchon the opinion of a few hundred men; men are willing to run an immense risk and so do the French, and the reason in to revindicate their territory and as they each case is the same. We leave to a think to re-establish their honour or their Parliament outside Westminster the gen- prestige, which for them is the same eral decision upon details, and so do the thing. But the official class, which acts French, though their outside Parliament as their fugleman, though honourably and ours happens to be different in origin bitter with the circumstances, is neverand ways. We have the advantage that theless accustomed to politics, able to enours is independent, honestly thinks for dure adversity, and doubtful about exitself in its own unideaed way. They have treme courses. It will advise the people, the advantage that their outside Parlia- that is the Assembly, that is the Presiment knows and feels difficulties of the dent, be it whom it may, to fight, if there practical kind, is unusually moderate, and is a chance. If a Russian alliance seemed comprehends the necessity of sacrifice, certain, there would be war. If a British which, indeed, it is a little too ready to alliance were certain - we beg Mr. Gladpress on those it guides. The intellect- stone's pardon for suggesting such an ual electorate, in fact, the electorate which idea there would be war. But failing directs the actual electors is efficient, can aid of those kinds, the French official in a rough way comprehend the political idea, which is the French governing idea, necessities of the hour, and can induce is to wait, to see this wonderful group of the mass of the people to accede to neces- Germans disappear, as it shortly must, for sary but disagreeable sacrifices. That there is not a young man in it, and to this ultimate electorate should be official make the quarrel historic, merely settling is, of course, to Englishmen a strange in their own minds as a fixed and immovfact, but we are not certain that it is an able idea that France must have Metz, unique one. The same thing is true of Lorraine, and compensation for Alsace. Prussia, where, if official etiquette al- If she has to wait twenty years, twenty lowed, the people would constantly re- years do not matter much in the history turn officials as representatives; of North of a nation. The hour will come, and the Italy, where officials are distinctly popu- genius will come, and when they come, lar; and we are told, though we do not so that is the work first of all to be carried well know, of Spain, where society, which out. That seems to us the temper not so always seems to be dissolving, is held to- much of France, or of her rulers, as of gether by the influence of Committees or the persons who permanently lead Juntas, whose centre is always on inquiry Frenchmen, who are almost unknown, found to be an official. In short, in mod- and who, as the history of three years has ern Europe officials play the part played shown, are neither the idiots nor the opby aristocrats in the olden times every-pressors Englishmen are apt to suppose.

HALF truths are very attractive to some minds. They admit of forcible statement, from the absence of all attempt at modification, and they appear to possess simplicity and unity. They can be overcome not by the other half-truth, but by the presentation of the whole.

Truth consists not so much in the elimina

tion of error- that is, in contraction—as in comprehension; in the taking of what is true in error into our truth.

Another way of stating this is, that error is always more or less superficial, and the only effectual way of supplanting it is to go deeper. The mine, as in military matters, is best met by the countermine. Thoughts by the Way.

VI. A PETRIFIED FOREST IN THE LIBYAN DESERT, Nature,

VII. ST. CHRYSOSTOM,

VIIL THE JOURNAL OF LOUIS XVI.,

Spectator,

Pall Mall Gazette,

240

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