It seems not impossible that the French Senate, instead of
deferring the consideration of M. Jules Ferry's Education Bill till next Session, may strike out its most objectionable clause, Clause 7, and pass it at once, In the Bureau on the Bill five of the nine committee-men are hostile to the clause, so that the Bureau will certainly report against it. In the voting for the Bureaux, it appeared that there were 136 against the clause, 123 for it, and six neutral. Thirty Members were absent, who, if they all voted one way, would be numerous enough to carry the clause, in spite of the apparent majority against it; but it is, of course, by no means probable that these thirty Members would all be favourable to the clause, or even divided in a proportion more favourable to the clause than the remainder of the Senate. Yet it would take twenty-two of the absent thirty to be favourable to the clause, and allow only eight of them to be opposed to it, if the clause is to be carried ; and this is, of course, an entirely unlikely proportion. M. Jules Simon will probably be the reporter of the Committee, and he 15 strongly opposed to the clause, and spoke against it with great effect. M. Dafaure is also against it. In fact the pru- dent Republicans,—the Republicans who wish to see the Republic sheltering Catholics and non-Catholics alike,—are naturally and necessarily opposed to a propagandist anti- Catholic attack on parental discretion.
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