On Tuesday, the French Senate rejected Clause 7 of M.
-Jules Ferry's Education Bill,—the clause reviving reli- gious persecution in France in the form of a proposal to prohibit to non-authorised religions societies the right to teach in French schools. The clause was very ably and hotly debated, M. Buffet attacking it from the point of view of the reactionaries, M. Jules Simon and M. Dnfaure from the point of view of true republicanism— the point of view of the liberty of parental discretion— .and M. Jules Ferry and M. de Freycinet defending the clause, as an assertion of the supremacy of the law neces- sary for the protection of French youth, against the doctrines of societies which the Catholic Church herself has often .combatted. The clause was rejected by a majority of 19,-148 votes against 129. The result has been received with very great .anger by the Radical French papers, some of which do not understand religious or political liberty in any better sense than the right to belabour those who are regarded as the enemies of liberty ; and it is feared that the majority in the Chamber of Deputies will provoke a collision with the Senate, by calling on the Government to put in force the old laws for the expulsion of the Jesuits and other non-authorised Orders from the country. French Radicalism is bitterly propagandist.
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