M. Jules Simon is doing all he can to defeat
the seventh and bad clause of the Ferry Education Bill, while M. Pelletan, who is also on the Bureau of the Senate which is to report on that Bill, is doing all he can to save it. It is said that M. Pelletan cares nothing at all for the Bill, as a whole, unless he can carry its persecuting clause ; and that his tactics are to abstain from voting in the Bureau on all divisions which do not con- cern it. This leaves the Bureau equally divided on most of the issues, and of course delays the progress of the Bureau; but whether this will conduce to the success of M. Felletan's favourite clause is doubtful. M. Julei Simon is, indeed, on the subject of the Ferry Bill, said to be at issue with M. Gambetta, with whom he has had personal, as well as poli- tical, differences, ever since M. Simon's influence cancelled his authority at Tours, in 1871; and it is said that M. Gambetta succeeded in getting M. Martel elected President of the Senate, against the wish of M. Jules Simon. Whether the result of the contest in relation to the present issue,—the persecuting clause of the Education Bill,—will be the triumph of the Moderates or of the Propagandist anti-Catholics, is not yet clear. It is thought that delay may be favourable to the persecuting party, on the ground that the Moderates are never steady,—are waverers by temperament. So they may be, but with petitions signed by over a million persons against the Bill, and petitions signed by only a handful in its favour, even waverers will have some- thing to fall back upon that may probably keep them steady to their purpose.
Previous page
