i-urssiA. 



705 



81 against 46 votes. A supplement to tho law 

 on tin- .duration of clergymen WHS likewise 

 adopted l.v l.oth Houses, r'rom tin- report of 

 the Minuter of Finances, made on April 28th, 

 it appeared that the financial administration 

 of tlir kin/doin is very successful. I>uring 

 there had been a surplus of 

 81,000,000 tlmlers, of which 12,000,000 were 

 derived from the administration of mines, 

 _', oiio.ooo from the forests, and 2,800,000 from 



the indirect t:i 



1 lie I >;. t wad closed on May 22d. 



bishops and priests of the Roman Cath- 

 olic ( 'liiirch remained almost unanimous in their 

 nice to tho new Church laws, which, in 



had heen adopted by the Diet and ap- 

 proveil l,y the Government. In addition to the 

 Archbishop of Posen, the Archbishop of Co- 



and tiie Iti-hopsof Trevesand Paderborn, 

 v. . iv imprisoned in the course of the year; the 

 two former were, however, set free again before 

 the end of the year. In addition to these bish- 

 ops, a large number of priests were imprisoned 

 for non-compliance with the Church laws, and 

 a still larger number were deprived of their 

 salaries. The severest sentence was on April 

 15th pronounced by the Ecclesiastical Court 

 of Berlin against Archbishop Ledochowski, 

 \vlio, on account of his persistence in non-com- 

 plianco with the state laws, was deprived of 

 his see, in conformity with the provisions of 

 the law of May, 1873. As the chapters of the 

 archdiocese at Posen and Gnosen refused to 

 elect an administrator of the vacant diocese, 

 on the ground that Ledochowski was con- 

 sidered by them the only lawful archbishop, 

 the Government appointed a civil officer as 

 administrator of the Church property. 



Contrary to the expectations of the Govern- 

 ment, the lower clergy were almost unanimous 

 in openly and emphatically supporting the poli- 

 cy pursued by the bishops. Only in a few iso- 

 lated cases the priests submitted or even in- 

 voked the state laws against the bishops. The 

 Ecclesiastical Court of Berlin, at its first session 

 in January, had before it the complaint of a 

 chaplain who had been removed, as he thought, 

 illegally, from his office by the Bishop of Pader- 

 born. The court decided that the act of the 

 bishop was null and void. At Xions, in the 

 province of Posen, a public disturbance arose 

 out of a similar case. The living being vacant, 

 the patron appointed a priest named Kubeczack ; 

 but the dean, on whom the function devolves 

 during the imprisonment of the bishop, refused 

 to institute him. Kubeczack repaired to his 

 post, but the dean and vicar refused to hand 

 over the key of the church. The building was 

 accordingly forced open, as also the chest con- 

 taining the church books. At the beginning 

 of the service on Sunday, a mob, mostly con- 

 sisting of peasants, entered the church, seized 

 on the crucifixes and images, which they car- 

 ried round, and insulted the new incumbent. 

 The military had to be sent for from Schrimm 

 to restore order. 



VOL. xiv. 45 A 



Though the resistance of the Catholic bishops, 

 tin- lower clergy, and the laity, to the n.-\\ 

 church law proved to be much more formidu- 

 l<le than had been anticipated, the Government 

 remained unyielding in its policy, and even an- 

 nounced that in 1876 laws still more stringent 

 would be proposed to the Diet to carry out iti 

 designs. 



l>r. AMAI.HKKT FAI.K, the chief representa- 

 tive, next to I'rince Bismarck, of the policy now 

 pursued with regard to the Catholic Church 

 by the Prussian Government, is the Mini.-ter 

 of Public Education and Ecclesiastical Affairs, 

 lie was born on August 10, 1827, studied from 

 1844 to 1847 at the University of Berlin, and 

 entered the service of tho Prussian state in 

 1847. From 1850 to 1862 he was in succession 

 state attorney at Breslan, Lyck, and Berlin ; 

 from 1862 to 1868 councillor of the Court of 

 Appeals at Glogau. In 1871 he received the 

 title of Geheimer Oberjustizrath, and in 1872 

 he was appointed minister. From 1854 to 1861 

 he was a member of the Prussian House of Dep- 

 uties ; in 1867 he was elected member of the 

 North-German Reichstag, and in 1873 of the 

 second Reichstag of the empire. At the new 

 election of a Prussian House of Deputies no less 

 than seven districts elected him their repre- 

 sentative. In 1871 he was for a time one of 

 the representatives of Prussia in the Federal 

 Council. The first important bill introduced 

 by him aimed at extending the control of the 

 state Government over the educational insti- 

 tutions, including the theological schools. The 

 bill was enthusiastically supported by all the 

 Liberal parties of the Prussian Diet, disliked 

 by a large portion of the Protestant clergy 

 of orthodox views, and violently opposed 

 by the Catholic bishops and the Catholic 

 party. 



Dr. RUDOLPH FBIEDENTHAL. The ministry 

 of Agriculture, which for some time had been 

 vacant and provisionally been administered by 

 the Minister of Commerce, was, in September, 

 filled by the appointment of Dr. Friedenthal, a 

 prominent member of the Conservative Reich- 

 partei in the German Reichstag. The appoint- 

 ment, which had been recommended to the 

 King by all members of the ministry, was hailed 

 by papers of all parties with the unreserved and 

 most cordial recognition of his eminent services 

 Born on September 15, 1827, he studied law at 

 the Universities of Breslan, Heidelberg, and 

 Berlin, and had, from 1850 to 1854, been em- 

 ployed in the service of the Government. He 

 left the state service in order to devote himself 

 wholly to agricultural and industrial pursuits, 

 in which he met with eminent success. Since 

 1857 he has been an active influential, and uni- 

 versally respected member of the Parliament 

 of Prussia and Germany, and in 1873 he was 

 elected vice-president of the Prussian House of 

 Deputies. Even before accepting the office of 

 minister, Dr. Friedenthal disposed of his large 

 commercial establishments at Breslau, Pesth, 

 and Trieste. 



