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everything in this case seemed foundations of the earth are

to have gone exactly as it should, we still awaited the final confirmation. It was soon received. On its arrival on deck Andrew seized the tube, unscrewed its lower section, and there, safe enough, held in by the non-return valve, was the precious burden it bore, half filling the interior, and consisting of a material which resembled brown mud, but is known to oceanographers as "red clay." The three "dunts" on the bottom had been successful in digging up an unusually large quantity of "specimen."

A special plate and spoon had been provided for the occasion by the hopeful Andrew, and the lump of clay was soon scooped out to the last clinging fragment. Commonplace as it appeared, it did not require much imagination to be impressed by it as it lay there on the plate, for we realised that we saw before us that of which the very

made, and also that we were the first to see land that came from a depth below sea-level which was just a little more than the height of snow-topped Everest is above it.

With a sigh of triumph old Andrew descended the forecastle ladder bearing the precious morsel to be examined under the microscope, and then to bottle it for sending home to the Hydrographer at the Admiralty, with the report of the sounding.

It formed incontrovertible evidence that bottom had truly been reached in the tremendous abyss from which it had come up. His labour and perseverance lay rewarded and concentrated in that little dollop of muddy clay.

The ship was put on her northward course once more, and the pipe to "Make plain sail, set starboard studdingsails," went whistling along the decks. We were off to Tongatábu.

MUSINGS WITHOUT METHOD.

THE VATICAN AND THE 'ACTION FRANÇAISE - THE ATTACK OF
CARDINAL ANDRIEU- WHAT IS ITS MOTIVE - THE PURPOSE OF
STATE TRIALS-THEIR SUPPRESSION OF JUSTICE-THE ILL FATE
OF MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS-RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN AMERICA
-THE BANNING OF EVOLUTION-DARWIN AND SHAKESPEARE.

THE Vatican has been accredited hitherto with wisdom and with courage. It has been established upon an impregnable rock of authority. In those countries where it holds sway, it has imposed its "infallible" will upon its subjects. It has sometimes been wise enough not to interfere in the politics of those within its spiritual domain. Whenever and wherever the Vatican has attempted to overstep the boundary which separates political affairs from religious belief, there has been an outcry. When in 1892 there seemed in France a danger of encroachment, the protests were loud and immediate. "This official display of pontifical authority in our domestic policy," said Monsignor Hulst, "makes us afraid both for the Holy See and for the Catholics of France. I fear that before long our right to speak and to act as free citizens will be threatened. They will tell us: you are merely the clerks of Rome; you have not even the right to your own opinions." What was feared in 1892 has come to pass in 1927. The Royalists of France, their organisation, and their journal, 'l'Action Française,'

lie to-day under the papal ban. The 'Action Française' is put upon the Index. It is not only condemned for what it has said in the past. Whatever it may say in the future shall not be read by the faithful. No good Roman Catholic henceforth may read it or buy it or sell it. The school of the 'Action Française' is condemned. The League of Royalists may be supported by none who bow the knee to the Pope. And at the very time that this policy of persecution is initiated in France against an active and patriotic party in the State, the Roman Catholics of America are permitted to claim their full political freedom without reprobation, disavowal, or remonstrance. "I recognise no power in the institutions of my Church," says Mr Alfred Smith, the Roman Catholic Governor of the State of New York, "to interfere in the practice of the Constitution of the United States, or in the execution of the laws of my country." The Pope has sent no message of authority to Mr Alfred Smith. He has left him in possession of his own opinions. Wisely do MM. Daudet and Maurras demand that they re

1927.]

Cardinal Andrieu attacks the 'Action Française.'

main in possession of theirs. "No one," they declare, "shall take them from us."

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Intolerant and unreasonable as is the decision of the Vatican, still more bitterly deplorable is the method in which the attack upon the Action Française was begun. The first shot in the combat was fired on 27th August 1926 by Cardinal Andrieu, the Archbishop of Bordeaux, in answer to a group of young Catholics who asked his counsel as to the Action Française.' The Archbishop replied to his friends in words which are unintelligible to those who are familiar with the policy and the writings of the directors of the 'Action Française.' With a disingenuousness unworthy of an archbishop and a cardinal, he denounced those who have espoused the Royalist cause in France as though their crimes were concentrated and exemplified in one man onlyCharles Maurras. Nowhere in justification of his odious charges does he quote from the 'Action Française' itself. No other one of the eminent directors of that journal does he mention by name. The passages upon which he relies for his absurd charges he culls from the works of M. Maurras, and thus sees to it that his attack should be irrelevant as well as unjust. The directors of the 'Action Française' are briefly, according to Cardinal Andrieu, "atheists or agnos

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tics"; they are also what he calls "amoralists"; they have made a clean sweep of the distinction between good and evil." They lavish their sarcasm and their contempt upon what they are said to call "virtuist doctrines." They have even dared to propose the re-establishment of slavery; and their chief has been so infamous in his defence of the " pretended physical laws say:

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as to God is not allowed to enter our observatories!"

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It is hardly possible that any one of the group of young Catholics who sought the advice of the Archbishop of Bordeaux should have taken this foolish denunciation seriously. The Action Française' is now some twenty years old, and has been read by many thousands who are able to check the Cardinal's reckless statements. Indeed we may doubt whether the Cardinal-Archbishop himself took his own statements seriously. For so little are they the fruit of his own research or his own inspiration that he lifted them all from a pamphlet written by one Fernand Passelecq, a proBoche and Galliphobe barrister of Brussels. M. Maurras, in what he calls his 'Livre Jaune,'1 a very moderate and respectful statement of his case, which he might have made overwhelming, prints the two versions of this ridiculous piece of invective in parallel columns. The result is extraordinary, and does little

1 'Les Pièces d'un Procès. L'Action Française et le Vatican.' Préface de Charles Maurras et Léon Daudet.

his blessing to the director of the 'Action Française.' He resisted all attempts to persecute him or condemn his works.

credit either to the invention publicly esteemed. On more
of the Cardinal or to his good than one occasion this pope sent
faith. There can be little
sincerity in a borrowed attack,
and when the Archbishop of
Bordeaux goes to M. Passelecq
not only for his arguments but
for his very words, we have a
right to conclude that his case
is founded upon the sands of
ignorance and prejudice.

The mystery of the sudden attack is still less easy to pierce when it is recorded that in 1915 and again in 1919 the same archbishop, who a year ago borrowed the insulting words of M. Passelecq, had thanked M. Maurras for his work in the 'Action Française' and elsewhere. Nor has the archbishop condescended to explain or to apologise for his unmerited abuse. When M.

Maurras offered a reward of 100,000 francs to any one who could discover in any writing of his the ridiculous phrase to the effect that "God should not be permitted to enter our observatories," Cardinal Andrieu was content to say that it was a mere trifle and to express no contrition. To protests and entreaties alike the Vatican has made no response. When the practising Catholics of the staff of the 'Action Française' made their solemn profession of faith, they were silently ignored. No proof of its inaccuracy availed to move the Vatican from its attitude of condemnation. Pope Pius X. was called from the grave to bear witness against M. Maurras, whom he had cordially and

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They come, in anger, like dogs," he is reported by a trustworthy witness to have said, "saying to me, 'Condemn him. Holy Father, condemn him.' I replied to them, 'Go away, go and read your breviary, go and pray for him." And a French bishop, quoted by M. Maurras, declares that Pope Pius X. spoke these words to him: "Never in my lifetime shall the 'Action Française be condemned. It does too much good. It defends the principles of authority. It defends order."

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Yet it is Pope Pius X. who is summoned to support the recent extravagances of the Cardinals, who, in the words of that Pope himself, acting less in zeal and love for their sacred religion than in hatred of the political doctrines preached by the 'Action Française." And what is it that the Vatican urges M. Maurras and his friends to surrender to the twisted arguments of M. Passelecq? They are ordered, in the words of Admiral Schwerer, one of the leaders of the League, to abandon their country. "Personally," writes the Admiral, "I have the pretension to be a good Catholic, but I am also a good Frenchman. In serving the 'Action Française,' I serve France. To cease to serve the 'Action

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Française would, in my eyes, councils of Europe. For it is be to abandon my country. idle at this time to belittle No one in the world has either that great organisation which the power or the right to oblige is known as the Action Franme to abandon her. Nobody çaise.' Its leaders are men of in the world has either the the highest patriotism and inpower or the right to set in tegrity. They alone in France opposition my religious faith have a constructive policy of and my political faith. In their own. They would, if serving the Action Française,' they could, restore to the proI believe that I am also serv- vinces of France their ancient ing my religion, since I am life and autonomy. They would fighting against men who are free their country from the at the same time the enemies of shackles of centralisation in France and of religion." And which Napoleon bound her. here is his clear and courage- They would bring their counous conclusion: "In the do- trymen back to the noble tramain of religion, we shall re- dition of the Kings of France. main entirely submissive to the And they who follow these religious authority of the Pope; leaders are not a mere rabble. in the domain of politics, we They are held together in every shall continue to follow the district of France by a common political direction of the great faith and a common enthusiasm. Frenchmen, the men of in- So well drilled are they that telligence and straight con- they do the bidding of their science who are our chiefs." chiefs without bungling or hesitation. And the journal which is directed by MM. Daudet and Maurras is at once a gospel and a trumpet call.

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In this pronouncement there is no doubt nor wavering, and Admiral Schwerer makes it plain that between the Vatican and the Action Française there can be no compromise. The deadlock is complete. Nor is this dispute between a large and powerful party of Frenchmen and the Vatican of no interest to the rest of Europe. It is an affair which concerns all those who, like ourselves, are knit to our neighbours across the Channel in the bonds of sympathy and friendship. The Vatican does but wantonly increase the bitterness of political strife, which makes it difficult for the voice of France to be heard in the

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