The French Government seems to be winning all along the
line. The strikers are yielding at Marseilles under the pressure of positive want, and the Unions which promised aid to the dockers have gone back to work. The great Bill on Associations advances slowly, but it does advance, as it is evidently, approved by the electors. The clauses which take education out , of the hands of the Associations, and deprive them of their property unless licensed, have been passed, and the Government has only given way upon the question of applying part of the money to a small provision for destitute societaires. M. Bourgeois, who, though Radical, is moderate, and has been head of an Administration, has bitterly con. demned the religious schools, which, he says, teach false history and persecution, and his speech, which, though illu- minating, is most bitter, is placarded by order of the Chamber all over France. The Pope is evidently alarmed, and threatens to deprive France of her position as protector of Catholic Christians abroad, a deprivation which would really affect French influence in the Eastern Mediterranean, but the Government goes on steadily, and will only allow the Associations six months' law.
