Will France Go Anti-Clerical Again?

Extract

The result of the French general elections has been to overthrow not only M. Poincare, who had the goodwill of the great Catholic soldiers like Foch and Castelnau and Gouraud and Mangin, but also M. Millerand, who has been particularly connected with the restoration of diplomatic relations with the Vatican. They are now replaced by a group of politicians who have been regarded by those Catholic generals, and by most French nationalists, as their determined and dangerous enemies. These new leaders of France have, moreover, stated quite clearly in their public manifestoes that the immediate rupture of diplomatic relations with the Catholic Church is one of the principal planks in their programme. Their attitude in this respect is all the more disquieting because a rupture with the Vatican is almost the only part of their policy which they can bring into operation at once without fresh legislation. Their record in regard to the Vatican is, moreover, consistent and logical, and they have demanded so often in recent years that diplomatic relations with the Pope should be broken off that they cannot be expected to forget their previous declarations on the subject. It is, unfortunately, a question upon which they also feel very strongly, just as the Labour Party here felt strongly on the question of recognising the Bolsheviks; so that the rupture with the Vatican would seem likely to be their first public action, just as the recognition of Moscow was the first action of the British Labour Government.