BELGIUM. 



59 



ligious ministers of its own than the judicial 

 beach or the Legislative Chamber. If the 

 parish vicars in the garrison towns refused to 

 extend their spiritual ministrations to the mili- 

 tary, their pay would be stopped. A provision 

 in the budget cuts off the salary or stipend at- 

 tached to any place in which a foreign priest 

 officiates who has not received the permission 

 of the Government. 



The Government declared, in response to an 

 interpellation, in May, that no overtures had 

 been made by the Vatican toward the reopen- 

 ing of diplomatic relations. During King Leo- 

 pold's visit to Vienna, on the occasion of his 

 daughter's wedding, he met the former nun- 

 cio, Vanutelli, in the presence of his cabinet- 

 chief, Frere-Orban, but was not approached on 

 the subject of resuming diplomatic intercourse. 



An angry controversy broke out among the 

 Clericals between the extreme Ultramontanes, 

 represented by Professor Perin, of Louvain, 

 and the moderate portion. The former held 

 persistently to the doctrine advanced in the 

 Syllabus of Pius IX, and would not acknowl- 

 edge the secularized Belgium, in which the 

 therein defined relations to the Church were 

 disregarded, to be a legitimately constituted 

 state. The Clerical representatives in Parlia- 

 ment were bitterly asailed for accepting the 

 new order of things and seeking a modus vi- 

 vendi with the state. This contest called forth 

 a reproof from Pope Leo, who significantly 

 admonished the Catholics of Belgium that the 

 Church, while maintaining unalloyed its holy 

 teachings and principles of jurisprudence, pre- 

 serves always a " discreet attitude," has " due 

 regard for the right mode suited to the time 

 and place," and often finds itself obliged "to 

 submit to evils which it finds it almost impos- 

 sible to prevent without exposing itself to still 

 worse evils and complications." The bishops 

 felt impelled by the Pope's letter to remove 

 Perin, the pragmatical upholder of the Sylla- 

 bus, from the chair of Civil Law in the Univer- 

 sity of Louvain. 



A law has been made providing that the 

 glebe-lands shall be administered in the same 

 manner as the other state demesnes, and may 

 also be alienated by the Government. Clergy 

 who have received the revenues of the church 

 estates are to be paid entirely out of the pub- 

 lic treasury. The vicar Yserbyt, and villagers 

 of Heule, near Courtrai, who created a disturb- 

 ance in the latter part of 1880, were sentenced 

 to prison. 



President Guillery, of the House of Deputies, 

 was overruled by the vote of his own party on 

 a question of order, March 10th, and conceiving 

 the action of the House to be an infraction of 

 his authority, he resigned. A member of the 

 Eight had stated that the army had resented 

 partisan orders of the War Minister. The 

 president accepted as sufficient a declaration of 

 the member, Woeste, that he would retract the 

 words, but still held to the opinions; but the 

 House demanded a completer apology for the 



insult to the army. The Deputies elected in 

 Guillery's place Descamps, the first vice-presi- 

 dent. 



The Government carried a measure for the 

 reorganization of secondary schools. A pro- 

 posal brought forward by the advanced Liber- 

 als to abolish religious instruction in the mid- 

 dle-class schools was not accepted by the Gov- 

 ernment, and was defeated in the Chamber. 

 The motion was to rescind the provision of the 

 law of 1850, according to which the clergy are 

 invited to impart religious instruction in second- 

 ary schools, and leave religious teaching to the 

 families of pupils. 



The Government has established 12 addi- 

 tional colleges and 100 intermediate schools, 

 56 for boys and 44 for girls. 



The election registry for 1881 contains about 

 9,000 names less than in 1879, the number of 

 voters in a total population of 5,536,654 souls 

 being 116,090. A large number of names were 

 dropped from the lists in 1880, and an addition- 

 al number in 1881, on the ground that the 

 omitted persons did not pay the amount of 

 taxes which legally qualifies them for the fran- 

 chise. They were mostly peasants and men in 

 holy orders. At the rate of progression which 

 took place anterior to this strict construction 

 of the law, the number of voters would be 

 131, 000 or over. The lists of communal elect- 

 ors have, by a like rigorous application of the 

 election laws, been reduced from 384,549 

 names in 1879 to 373,666 in 1881. The fees 

 for naturalization have been reduced by Parlia- 

 ment from 1,000 and 5,000 francs for the two 

 grades, to half those amounts. 



In the summer an agitation was commenced 

 in favor of universal suffrage, or for the estab- 

 lishment of an educational instead of the tax 

 qualification. Mass-meetings were held in 

 Brussels, Antwerp, and elsewhere. The Radi- 

 cal, Janson, demanded in the Chamber that the 

 Government show its colors on this question. 

 For communal and provincial elections to be- 

 gin with, the abolition of the limitation or the 

 substitution of an intellectual test was asked 

 for. The Minister of Finance replied that the 

 question was not yet ripe, that the Constitution 

 prescribed the ceiwe, and that if the matter 

 were carried before the country the Liberal 

 party would be divided and the Clerical oppo- 

 sition would succeed to the helm. The subject 

 was brought forward again when a law relating 

 to the provincial assemblies was under consid- 

 eration. The Prime Minister proposed to de- 

 fer Jauson's proposition, to which the mover 

 agreed; but the seconder, Dufuisseaux, de- 

 serted by his friends, felt called upon to resign 

 his seat. An extension of the franchise would 

 benefit the Clerical and Social-Democratic par- 

 ties; for which reason the Liberal ministry, 

 though not opposed to the reform, will not 

 take the step without cautiously measuring the 

 effects. The elections of delegates to the mu- 

 nicipal councils in October resulted in a 

 marked victory for the Liberals. 



