There is a lull in the negotiations between Spain and
the Vatican which is likely to last fill the holidays are over and King Alfonso is back in Spain. In a conversation with the Times ccr:Tespondent on Wednesday, Sefior auialejas said that be was doing what he could to soothe the excitement of the clergy, who in their exaggerated estimate of what was at stake were defending principles which the Government had not attacked. He did not think there was any risk of a revolution. He admitted, however, that the Government was preoccupied by certain movements, which he dimly described as "independent of labour and economic causes," but which "conformed to a plan," and were perhaps a consequence of the recent strange union of Republicans and Socialists. We have written elsewhere of the dispute with the Vatican, and will only say here that an Anti-Clerical movement is very plainly forming itself in Spain, although it is, curiously enough, due to economic rather than to religious caieses, and that the question whether it is to develop rapidly and dangerously or slowly and harmlessly depends entirely on the power for reasonableness of the Vatican.
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