The Anarchists are said to have resolved some years since
that slander was a justifiable weapon to use against tyrants and capitalists. It is improbable that they ever recorded any formal opinion of the kind, but it is certain that the more violent publicists of the Continent, failing to induce Govern- ments to risk their ships, are pouring oat libels. The French journals, in particular, have for months been slandering Mr. Chamberlain, the usual story being that he owns gold-mines in the Tranevaa,l, and is therefore determined to ruin that Republic ; and Mr. Austen Chamberlain shows in the Times that they are circulating a forged letter from him in which he states it to be the policy of the British Government to paralyse France by inducing her Ministry to introduce anti- Catholic Bills ! We need not say that this libel is obviously Clerical in origin. Other writers are pouring out libels on the Queen and her family so brutal that they have even attracted attention at Windsor, and the Queen will this year seek Southern air in Italy instead of France. The Prince of Wales, too, has signified that while such insults are tolerated his share in the management of the Great Exhibition must be reduced to a mere formality. We do not know that foreign libels signify very much, but they mark how steadily the exasperation of the Continent caused by British com- mercial success is being directed by Clerics against the greatest Protestant State. William II. in part escapes, because his Empire is one-third Catholic, and because he would insist on the punishment of such tibellers.
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