M. Waldeck-Rousseau intimated during the debate of Monday that he
intended to proceed with his "measures of Republican defence," of which the Bill against religious Associations is one. It is said this Bill will be carried, though the Pope has declared against it, and with him a majority o
Clericals and Royalists. The Republicans are all of one mind about it, and it is said that the regular clergy, the Bishops excepted, are by no means hostile to it, they finding that the stream of benefactions is carried under the present system into channels over which they have no control. Their contest with the monks is, in fact, as bitter as with the Protestants. That does not justify either confiscation or persecution, but it makes the revolutionary action of Catholic Governments much easier. We hold the proposal, with the exception of its mortmain clauses, to be a bad one, but we believe it will pass. In our experience we have never known a French Chamber to reject a measure levelled against the Church unless it was a Bill for Disestablishment. That, the majority think, would enfranchise the clergy too completely.
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