One German paper says that if croakings like those of the Paris Teps are heeded "all hope of peace must fall to the ground,' and the Vossische Zeitung (Berlin) remarks reassuringly that "it would be a good thing if people in France would not let themselves be hoodwinked about the attitude of the German people on the Morocco question." To read some of the German editorial pages, one would hardly suspect a Morocco question existed.Translations made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

PROGRESS OF DISESTABLISHMENT IN

FRANCE.

THE HE French press take calmly the passage of the bill for separation of Church and State in France by the Chamber of Deputies by the decisive vote of 341 to 233, perhaps because they have been clearly anticipating it for some time. Many friends of the Church, in France and Italy, are hoping that the Senate will throw the measure out. M. Briand, a Socialist Deputy and a supporter of the bill, who was secretary of the commission which formulated it, explains its object thus in his work on "The Separation of the Churches and the State":

"We are not asking the complete separation of the churches from the State in order to satisfy political rancor, or from hatred of Catholicism. We ask it in order to establish the one form of government under which peace may reign between the supporters of different faiths."

Anatole France, in his work, "The Church and the Republic," says that the separation of Church and State has been largely brought about by the intolerance of churchmen and their constant intriguing interference in politics. In 1891 the French Government was deeply offended when a number of French pilgrims at Rome hailed the successor of Peter as "the pope-king," and M. Freycinet on that occasion made this half-threat, which has since become fulfilled:

"This cabinet does not believe it has a mandate, either from the chambers or from the country, to accomplish the separation of the churches from the State, or even to prepare for it. But we have received a mandate to make the State respected, and, if separation comes as a result of the agitation I have referred to,

'What will be the result of disestablishment and disendowment? The answer is, that whatever is true and real in the religion of the country will survive and flourish. In so far as religion is dead, the mimicry of life will be at an end, and well that it should be at an end."

The most pressing inconvenience of the moment will be the failure of all government aid by the suppression of the budget for the support of religion in France. This budget provided for Jews, Protestants, and Roman Catholics 250,000 francs, 1,625,000 francs, and 41,125,000 francs, severally, a year. Since the Revolution things financial seem to have gone from bad to worse with religious bodies in France. To quote The British Weekly

further:

"Disestablishment has come, as it always will come, at a time when it was not looked for. It is somewhat as it was in the years before the Revolution. In 1778 there were in France 130,000 ecclesiastics. They possessed among them one-third of the entire fortune of the country. Their total yearly revenue was 200,000,000 francs, which is estimated by M. Briand at present day values as 400,000,000. The material power of the Church was at its highest when that power and the moral authority of Catholicism itself were put to proof and overthrown. During the period preceding the Concordat of 18or that immense power was sapped, destroyed, and annihilated.'

Under these circumstances it is not astonishing that Anatole France looks forward with foreboding to the future. The Roman Catholic Church in France, he tells us, needs at least 50,000,000 francs for the support of its ministrations. He asks:

How will the budget of 50,000,000 francs be made up? At first people will give. But afterward? The peasants are economical, the bourgeois are already burdened with poor rates, etc. The association founded in the diocese of Quimper already furnishes 50,000 francs to clergy deprived of salary, and how painful it will be for the clergy to go begging to the country squires and dowagers."

The Journal des Débats (Paris) speaks of the narrow and grudging manner in which the bill provides for permanent endowment funds in the Church. There are to be certain lay associations

(Associations Cultuelles) appointed to be trustees of church property, and authorized by law to accept gifts and legacies-but only to apply them specifically to the expenses of "ceremonies and religious services." The Journal des Débats says:

"If the dwelling-place of the curé can not be assured in a manner fixed by a foundation, it runs the risk of being merely a precarious and provisional home, maintained by

a small number of persons or by an individual, so that the curé is placed in a position of painful dependence. . . . And who will suffer the most in this contingency? The poor congregations. The rich can look out for themselves, but in our small rural districts, which form the majority of our communities, the faithful will be condemned to efforts which they must constantly keep up, and from which the generosity of some individual might have released them. So the chamber has decided; but it has done wrong."

The same journal, speaking of the attempts of the liberals to strike a blow at the authority of the Pope in France, thus denying to those who acknowledge that authority the liberty of choice claimed by the representatives of liberalism, declares:

"Thus it is that bad laws are voted for, laws full of obscurities, of incoherences, and contradictions. We must not blind ourselves to the fact that in such legislation a choice has to be made between giving liberty to the Church when separated from the State, and maintaining the State's control of the Church's temporal administration. The latter can only be accomplished with the Concordat, which is abolished. As for the bastard and disloyal system which consists in separating Church and State, and yet allowing the latter to interfere in the domestic affairs of the former it is worthy of the petty jacobins who slavishly follow M. Buisson [a liberal politician and deputy who favors separation "].

It is not surprising that this revolutionary. measure has called forth a protest addressed to the President of the Republic by the five cardinal archbishops, and all the other bishops of France. The position taken by the protesting prelates is based upon the provisions of the Concordat of 1801 by which the Church secured an income, and its bishops were to be jointly chosen by the French Government and the Pope, while the acceptance of foundation legacies and the use of church buildings were permitted. They say:

"We ask that the Concordat, that is to say the agreement between civil and religious bodies, be maintained, and if there is any reason to modify it, this should be done with the joint consent of both authorities."

This Concordat contained a clause by which "the Church relin-. quished absolutely all rights to recover its former property. In return the State agreed to pay an income to the ministers of religion." The Constitution of 1791 acknowledged that " the support of the ministers of the Catholic Church is part of the national debt." The repudiation of this debt, by the suppression of the Budget of Public Worship is "a refusal to perform an act of strict obligation guaranteed by a contract," i.e., is an outrage on justice. The second point made by the prelates is that the appointment of lay trustees of church property, the "Associations of Public Worship" "organized independently of the authority of the bishops and rectors," implies "a denial of the constitution of the Church," and is, practically, "an attempt at schism," for lay institutions are thus founded to govern the. Catholic Church.-Translation made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

and versatile Henri Rochefort, has some pointed and pertinent remarks to make on the subject. The writer, however, is evidently laboring under the delusion that Dowie is a representative American and leads a religious delegation of the population who dwell between the Atlantic and the Pacific, south of the St. Lawrence. Hence he says:

66

'America contains some virtuous people, and these are so very virtuous that they desire to impart their virtue to our dear fellow citizens. To the eyes of certain Americans, Paris is a dissolute city. We are all depraved -creatures of pleasure. In order to make us good, an American has resolved to come and preach morality at Paris."

The writer goes on to say that he believes such a crusade in honor of virtue to be useless, for virtue exists in Paris as in America, and the French city does not need her supply of it to be increased, adding:

"If we become too virtuous the blonde American ladies will not come any more to seek husbands in France, and this will be a loss to our country."

There are two reasons especially why the Dowie expedition is in vain, he says. The first is that in all probability many of the professors of American virtue will find themselves converted to French virtue. To quote his words:

"Perhaps the meeting of American virtue and that of our country may produce results the reverse of those expected, and we would like to know how many Americans will take passage home on the steamer by which they arrived. They will number 3,000 on their arrival, but all will not go back. The conversion they will have undergone here will prevent some of them from regaining their homes."

Possibly the Americans are trying to form a Virtue Trust, he says, and to rope in new capital. But perhaps they are coming to purify French politics. He exclaims:

"If only they would undertake to render virtuous the present members of the French Ministry, and all the members of the Masonic lodges, and Deputies of the Chamber, we should certainly felicitate them on their good offices. It is true that President Roosevelt has proved to the world his personal virtue by preaching reconciliation to the belligerents who are shooting each other in Manchuria. If these newcomers have peace and concord up their sleeve, let them show it! In short, these modest virtues are the most important, and they include many ancient virtues which people in America neglect because of their small attractiveness. And yet we anticipate seeing the faces of these virtuous men, with the reflection that our most indulgent sculptors will find no models for Adonis or Apollo among them."

He concludes with the serious hope that Alexander Dowie and his American "virtuists" will not import into Paris the fashion of flaunting virtue in the eyes of all, and he says:

L

THE POPE AND ITALIAN POLITICS. IBERTY to vote and take part in the political life of their native land has at last been granted by Pius X. both to the clergy and laity of the Italian church. Such is the subject of his recent encyclical. According to the language of this document the object of the Pope is "to unite all the living forces of the Catholic Church in order to contend, by every just means, against anti-Christian elements in public life; to repair as far as possible all the frightful disorders which spring from the presence of such elements, and to bring Jesus Christ back to the family, to the school, and to society; to reestablish the principle that human authority represents the authority of God; to take new interest in the claims of the people, particularly those of the industrial and agricultural classes; to see that public legislation is guided by justice."

This leads the pontiff to state that such activity as he prescribes must not be confined to private or isolated social efforts. To quote his words:

Inasmuch as Catholic activities are in every respect efficacious, it is not sufficient that they be confined to every-day intercourse with our fellows, they must also find a field in the promotion of all those practical measures which are dictated by the study of social and economic science, by experience, by the conditions of civil affairs, by the political life of the State."

He proceeds to pronounce all Italian Catholics free to exercise their political rights as citizens of the State, and remarks:

"These political rights are of various kinds, and include that of taking part in the political life of the country, and acting as representatives of the people in the halls of legislature. God forbid that I should lightly swerve from the rule maintained by my pre

decessor, Pius IX., and his successor, Leo XIII., through a long pontificate, in accordance with which participation in legislative activity is in general forbidden to Catholics in Italy. Other reasons, equally binding, based on that welfare of society which must be safeguarded at any cost, may demand, in particular cases, a dispensation from the obligation of existing laws."

The words of the Encyclical are very guarded, and something has to be read between the lines. Pius IX. and Leo XIII. had declared of Catholic participation in Italian public life, non expedit; it is "not expedient "-thus removing the question, as St. Paul removed many such questions, out of the sphere of morals. Pius X. has simply seen the hour arrive when he could say expedit -it is convenient and proper.

L'Osservatore Romano, which must be taken as the organ of the Curia, remarks in this connection:

"There is no break of continuity, no spirit of innovation in this papal pronunciamento. The utterance of Pius X. knits and unites itself in a wonderful way with those of his venerated predecessors, and without the introduction of any new principles, such as it would be folly to suspect, he wisely applies in changed circumstances of the time that prudent capacity for adaptation which is inherent in the church, and is one of the finest of her prerogatives."

The Spectator (London) says of the effect of this new ruling: "The political effect of this recession from the sterner policy will not be of great direct importance, because a very small section of Italians have attended to the inhibition; but so far as it is operative, it will increase the strength of the King's Government, and of conservatism generally. The families which, in North Italy especially, are sincerely papal belong for the most part to those classes whose interests as well as their convictions induce them to dread as well as despise extreme liberalism of any kind. They want above all things order, and if they enter the political arena at all, must, to be of the smallest weight, rally round the throne. The house of Savoy, which is neither Protestant nor skeptical, tho it has never admitted the absolute right of the papacy to territorial sovereignty, will feel that; and the total effect of the encyclical, tho it is not reconciliation, will tend toward the long-desired modus vivendi between the papacy and the intruding Power.

The Pope "has been wisely advised" in his promulgation of this encyclical, adds the same journal. Some of the priests, it says,

-Westminister Review (London).

break out again!

-Fischietto (Turin).

have been forming "secret alliances " with the Socialists for political reasons. Now there will be no more necessity for such alliances, and the church can regain its old conservative position. To quote: "Some of the oversubtle leaders of the Roman Catholic Church, who feel greatly the want of physical forces at their disposal, will seriously regret this encyclical; but we fancy it will be found that, on the whole, Pius X. has been wisely advised to issue it. Roman Catholicism, considered as a political force, will probably do better for itself by regaining its old conservative position, and announcing itself in sympathy with that individualism which is the guarantee of property, and with which in the popular mind for many generations it has been more or less habitually associated. No doubt its leaders proclaim with great wisdom, and, of course, entire truth, that they can accept any form of government so long as it is sanctified by obedience to the Church, and allows perfect freedom to the successors of St. Peter. But it can hardly be wise as yet to throw over the kings, or to arouse in the well-to-do a suspicion that at heart monks must always be in favor of collectivism. The papacy will certainly not regain temporal power by means of a popular rush, and it is hard to see how a party which in France may almost be considered anti-Christian, which in Italy is simply irreligious, and which in Spain is clamoring for the secularization of all church property, can be an available instrument for that triumph of the faith which the leaders of the Church, even when most absorbed in temporal matters, never entirely forget to be the raison d'être of their organization."Translations made for THE Literary Digest.

TH

PROSPERITY OF SPAIN.

HE present increased and increasing prosperity of Spain is one of the most interesting subjects of economic study. She has lost what was once, the principal source of her wealth-her colonies in Asia and America, territories transcending in area and productivity any dominion ever included in a single kingdom. But she learned what it was to be "land poor" and to be overweighted with responsibilities which she could not carry. She has now turned to the exploitation of her own soil and her native industries; she is cultivating a mercantile marine, and the result is a rapid rise to prosperity, so that by J. Hogge Fort and F. V. Dwelshauvers, in España Moderna (Madrid), she is hailed as "New Spain."

These authors describe, under various heads, the rise of Spanish prosperity, and support their assertions by the citation of figures of the revenue and the value abroad of Spanish Government bonds. To quote their own words:

46

An examination of these figures shows that in 1893 the revenue had sunk to its minimum. At that time the country had encountered a crisis. Spanish bonds were quoted at 65, and there seemed to be no prospects of a rise. At the end of the following year, however, business took a turn for the better and they were rated at 73, but the following year fluctuated between 60 and 65."

Undoubtedly the expenses of the Cuban War disconcerted the mother country, so that it was some time before it awoke to an economic life entirely new. The sudden fall of Spanish bonds to 34 was the final result of the war and the fears which were aroused by the defeat of the country. Since then the revenue has undergone a progressive increase, and little by little public confidence in Spain's financial stability has been restored. Since 1901 the public revenue has exceeded 1,000,000,000 pesetas ($200,000,000), while before the close of the Cuban War it had fluctuated between 600,000,000, 700,000,000, and 800,000,000 pesetas. By 1898 Spanish bonds had sunk to 34. In 1903 they were slated at 90. For the financial depression of Spain was the ery cause of her rise to a condition of solvency. To quote further:

The country was compelled to develop its own natural resources. The high rate of exchange made imported goods most costly, so that a demand for native products and manufactures at once arose; importations diminished just in proportion as home industries took advantage of the situation to operate with renewed activity. On the other hand, native products, marketable in foreign countries, were in high demand by exporters who shipped them in considerable quantities. It was amid these circumstances that "New Spain was born-strong, courageous, and resolute. . . . Happy is the people whose energy and national sentiment is so great, that of itself it is enabled to pass with such rapidity through so many economic vicissitudes. Happy is the monarch whose presence in the dawn of his reign is coincident with the industrial transformation of his country, its entrance upon the life of progress, and the inauguration of a New Spain."

:

Spain's industrial transformation has manifested itself in many ways. From the tables furnished by this article we find that the tonnage of the Spanish mercantile marine in 1897 reached the figure of 656,000-of sailing ships 164,000, of steamers 492,000. In 1901 the sum of tonnage was 744,000-of which 689,000 were of steamers. This improvement in the merchant marine was the direct result of improved trade, the sum of tons of imported and exThe ported goods in 1897 being 2,419,000; in 1901, 4,467,245. expansion of trade necessitated also the extension of the railroad systems, which in 1903 show an aggregate mileage of 14,000 kilometers and upward, with a total invested capital of 2,343,000,259 pesetas; as against a mileage in 1897 of 12,916, rising in 1900 to 13,281. The earnings of these lines in 1898 were 202,000,000 pesetas; in 1902 they rose to 235,500,000. On this subject the authors of the article before us say:

Madrid occupies the center of the railroad system, which spreads like a spider's web through the whole national territory, representing a very large part of the country's wealth. We know all the vicissitudes and financial difficulties through which Spanish railroading has had to pass and from which it is not even yet entirely free. The establishment of this means of transportation has been very costly, partly owing to the nature of the country and the hard rock of the Sierras, which has demanded many feats of engineering. The introduction of the narrow gage has diminished the expense of building a line. In all of these lines the capital involved has been considerable, and the development of the Spanish railroad industry will always be an interesting subject as an index of the economic and financial progrcss of the country."-Translation made for THE LITERARY DIGEST.

NOTABLE BOOKS OF THE DAY.

A FRANCO-AMERICAN ENTREMET.

THE BEAUTIFUL LADY. By Booth Tarkington. Illustrated by Blendon Campbell, and decorated by William Jordan. Cloth, 12mo, 144 pp. Price, $1.25. McClure, Phillips & Co.

R. BOOTH TARKINGTON is the cordon bleu of literary cui

of catering to the public palate. He does not cloy the taste for fiction by a succession of pretentious novels, but whets the appetite for his principal works by serving little tasty novelette-entrées between. Accompanying "The Gentleman from Indiana" appeared "Monsieur Beaucaire," a hors-d'œuvre that many consider the authors' chef-d'œuvre, and now preceding "The Conquest of Canaan" we have set before us an exquisite "made dish" so piquant in flavor that we await the piece de resistance with impatience.

In "The Beautiful Lady" the author has interfused with simple yet supreme art, French esprit and American morals-for Mr. Tarkington has clearly shown that in this country we, or at least our womenkind, have as specially developed and as refined a code of ethics as the Japanese possess in their "bushido." The story is told in a quaint FrancoAmerican English (that fortunately escapes being classified as dialect) by the central character, who, except as he came to view his degrading situation in the illumination of the divine pity of the American girl, is unconscious of his heroism. Of his wit, being a Frenchman, the hero is not so unconscious. In fact, he uses it as a cloak to hide, both to himself and the world, the nobility of his actions. The curtain rises upon him seated at the table of a corner café, with a theatrical notice painted on his shaved head, "confused with blushes, at the center of the whole world as a living advertisement of the least amusing ballet in Paris." He prefers to consider the shame of his position from the standpoint of the artist rather than that of the man! He continues in the same vein, tho in English idiom, "I [had] asked [at the theater] for bread, and they offered me not a role, but a sandwich!" How to his abased eyes came the "apparition" of "a divine skirt," whose wearer saw no humor in his degrading situation, but with angelic prescience pierced to its secret, and how he afterward repaid this kindness by a courage which in her interest braved further humiliation amounting to the outrage of his most sacred sensibilities, may not here be given in réchauffé. None but the chef himself can supply the sauce of blended idiom, and the garnish of savory humor which are essential factors in the success of the "creation."

7

BOOTH TARKINGTON.

IN

By

N this compendium of the facts which have contributed to the establishment of our present Governmental laws, Dr. Thorpe has made a text-book which must prove of value to all who are interested in the study of United States History. For so small a volume its scope is remarkable; and, notwithstanding the heaviness of his theme, and an occasional involved sentence which detains the reader, the author presents his matter in a manner to hold the interest of even the layman in politics. Dr. Thorpe's book represents many interesting phases of the early struggles over the Constitution and the evolution of our Governmental affairs, and attains a peculiar. worth in its concise recital of these and correlating facts and conditions. which early disturbed the peace of the American Confederacy and culminated in the secession of the Southern States in 1861. His résumé of the negro question is admirably compact and clear, and especially valuable because of its strictly judicial telling. The negro was a problem in American politics in 1776. He puzzled the framers of the Constitution and compelled them to an elaborate attempt to establish the new government on a representative basis composed partly of freemen and partly of slaves. The resulting basis, of the "three-fifths representation," conferred upon the slaveholding. South an unequal political power which gave it a long-sustained and confident predominance in governmental affairs.

The phenomenal altruism won by the American people through the Civil War was a phase of an inevitable racial adjustment, and Dr. Thorpe regards the abolition of slavery, tho forced by a growing necessity, the

most notable political and civil adjustment thus far made in America. Of the mistakes made by our legislators of that time in connection with the lately freed and enfranchised negroes, the author remarks that "Critics living in these later days claim to understand the question better than did Congress in 1865," and he points out the danger of a return to slavery by way of peonism, that lay in a policy of gradual citizenship as proposed by critics of the Government. Dr. Thorpe concludes that there was "no other course for Congress than at once to treat the negro as a man and take the consequences." The author weighs with respect the criticisms made by Southern statesmen, but himself believes that the era of Reconstruction was as distinct as was the era of the Revolution; that the questions then at issue were national, not local, and that the stupendous problem of adjusting the popular government to the moral order which faced the Congress of that period was such as to give to the statesmen of that day a rank with the Fathers. By adjusting the theory of free government to the facts which so long had confronted them they destroyed a bickering confederacy and established a nation. Dr. Thorpe believes that the solution of the negro problem rests with the negro himself, and with the whites in those States in which the black race is a civil, political, or industrial factor; but, he adds, the negro himself must bear his share of the burden which his race imposes upon society.

FRANCIS NEWTON THORPE.

The book is indexed with commendable care and is provided with an appendix containing the Constitution and its Amendments, together with dates and references which suggest a large working bibliography for the student.

stage continuously-it is a novel without a hero and without a heroine, altho in the attractive person of Hester Marvin we have a near approach to the latter figure. But it is to John Rosewarne we are introduced, as the head of the family, the owner of the ancestral estate and Hall, and the "big man" of the towns of Hall and Troy, between which old Nicky Vro plies his shining ferry. His life has contained one great romance, its scenes enacted in the wild days of his youth, when his love for Mary Marvin did not save them from the shame of a late marriage and a son born out of wedlock. But this happened in the South Atlantic, long before the story opens, and is a secret which in Rosewarne's old age is known to himself alone. It is the aged Rosewarne's knowledge of the wrong he is doing these two children, his legal heirs, in keeping to himself the secret of the birth of his son, Sam, that gives a clue to the remorse that now enthralls him. This Sam is a mean, cowardly creature, unfit for the inheritance his father intends for him, but with a smooth, oily exterior that covers up each fresh meanness with a Bible text, its meaning twisted to suit his motives. The pas

sage in which the elder Rosewarne discloses the truth to Sam gives the key to the character of both father and

son:

"The old man jabbed viciously at the gravel with his staff. 'And your religion?' he broke forth again. 'What is it? In some secret way it satisfies you-but how? I look into the Bible, and I find that the whole of religion rests on a man's giving himself away to help others. I don't believe in it myself; I believe in the exact contrary. Still there the thing is, set out in black and white. It upsets law and soldiering and ninetenths of men's doing in trade: to me it's folly; but so it stands, honest as daylight. When did you help a man down on his luck? or forgive your debtor? You'll get my money because you never did aught of the kind. Yet somehow you're a Christian, and prate of your mean life as an acceptable sacrifice. In my belief you're a Christian precisely because Christianity-how you work it out I don't know-will give you a sanction

A. T. QUILLER-COUCH.