M. Clemenceau has expressed this view in a powerful speech
delivered in the Senate on the 17th inst. He is a Freethinker bitterly hostile to the Church, which he thinks to be founded on the principles of old Roman Caesarism, and to constitute an enclave of servitude in the midst of a free people, but he will not give up the principle of liberty. He tells the Socialists that with their purely State education they "would only create a nation of automata with mechanical movements of a democratic character," and insists that the solution of the problem must be found in disestablishment and the suppression of all national payments to the clergy. After that every one will do as he pleases, and no Frenchman who wishes to hear Mass will be unable to, do so. As M. Clemen.ceau is the most eminent among French Liberals, and may possibly be the next Premier, this speech is most important; but we fear the French instinct for "regulation" will in the end prevail. The Gauls were very completely Romanised, and great French officials would be dismayed at the idea of leaving a great association like the Church uncontrolled by lay authority.
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