The French Ultras have made another attempt to annoy without
crushing the Catholic Church. M. Madier de Monjau on Monday proposed that the -expenses of the Mission to the Vatican should be disallowed, and a fierce altercation was expected. M. Gambetta, however, -who tas always recognised the power, though not the right of the Catholic Church in France, in a strong speech repudiatalthe vote, declaring that it -would offend many millions of Frenchmen, that the Concordat was a subsisting and effective treaty, anclthat France had need of all the influence she could exercise over the next election. The Liberal majority recognised the force of these arguments, and with the good-sense Frenchmen very-often-dis- play declined to treat a strong power as non-existent merely because they disliked it. The motion was therefore defeated by 373 to 99. The British Parliament might for once take a lesson from the French one. There is no sense whatever in ignoring any great power whatever, and a power which millions of people within the Empire regard as semi-divine is a great power. If India were Lamaist, we should have a Mission at Lhassa, or we should be very stupid. As things stand, we have a Minister to the Vatican, but decline, on theological principles, to allow him his due wages.
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