2 DECEMBER 1871, Page 2

The Prussian Diet was opened on the 27th, in a

speech the most important paragraphs of which refer to ecclesiastical affairs. Pressiii is to have more railways, more railway plant, and so on, but her political work is done in the superior Parlia- ment. The Emperor, however, "is determined to preserve perfect independence for the State in the administration of justice and the Civil law," to maintain the legal independence of the churches and their followers, to protect all creeds—Old Catholicism included—and therefore to pass Bills regulating marriage, the registration system, and the effect of schism on the legal status of achismatics, all in the Liberal sense.