342 



FRANCE. 



to insist on retaining the system of election by 

 which the Life-Senators had been chosen. The 

 Senate, in selecting its life-members, took them 

 from a different class of men from those who 

 secured election in the departments, or from 

 the active politicians who would enter the Sen- 

 ate as the candidates of the ruling party in 

 the Chamber. They were the most distin- 

 guished men who took an interest in public, 

 affairs, from the ranks of diplomacy, the law, 

 literature, science, the press, and military life. 

 By an unchanging custom, which prevailed 

 since the Senate first counted a Republican ma- 

 jority, the vacancies as they occurred among 

 the members for life were filled on what was 

 called the principle of co-option from each of 

 the three groups of the majority the Left 

 Center, the Pure Left, and the Advanced Left 

 in rotation. If the system of co- option were 

 abandoned, these seats would all fall to the two 

 latter sections of the party. 



When the bill came before the Chamber of 

 Deputies, M. Floquet offered an amendment, 

 December 2, for the election of Senators by 

 universal suffrage. Enough members of the 

 Republican and Democratic Unions, which con- 

 stitute the ministerial majority, joined their 

 votes with those of the Extreme and Radical 

 Left and the reactionary groups to carry the 

 resolution by 267 to 250 votes. The bill thus 

 amended was sent back to the Senate. As the 

 fate of the Government, as well as of the bill, 

 depended on reconciling the antagonistic views 

 of the two Chambers and passing the measure 

 before the 15th of December, when the war- 

 rants for the senatorial elections had to be 

 issued, the Senate renounced the Lenoel amend- 

 ment, making the new Senators elective by the 

 Senate alone, rejected the Floquet amendment, 

 and adopted the scheme of the Senate com- 

 mittee which had been adopted by the Gov- 

 ernment. When the bill came back to the 

 Chamber, M. Ferry made the rejection of the 

 Floquet amendment a Cabinet question, and 

 secured the passage of the bill, and at the same 

 time a general vote of confidence, by a major- 

 ity of 53. The measure, as finally approved, 

 merges the 75 life-senatorships as they fall 

 vacant with the 225 departmental senatorships. 

 The scale of senatorial electors assigned to the 

 municipalities proportions their voting power 

 to the number of municipal councilors as fol- 

 lows: 1 delegate or senatorial elector to com- 

 munes with 10 municipal councilors, 2 for 12 

 councilors, 3 for 15, 6 for 21, 9 for 23, 12 for 

 27, 15 for 30, 18 for 32, 21 for 34, 24 for 36, 

 and 30 for Paris. 



The Primary Education Bill. The Chamber in 

 March passed a bill debarring the clergy and 

 members of religious orders from the direction 

 of primary schools as teachers, inspectors, 

 members of the educational councils or of the 

 officially appointed school boards. This meas- 

 ure, introduced by Paul Bert, directs the Gov- 

 ernment to secularize the state schools entirely 

 within five years, by appointing lay teachers 



in the place of the 3,000 friars'and 20,000 nnns 

 who have 12,000 of the schools under their 

 management, and partly control 6,000 others. 

 It also forbids the lay instructors from accept- 

 ing salaried employments in the churches. 



The Divorce Law. The Naquet bill to legalize 

 divorce was passed by the House of Deputies 

 in the session of 1883. Divorce of the most 

 unrestricted kind was enacted under the first 

 republic, and afterward abrogated. Napoleon 

 I re-established divorce, and availed himself of 

 his decree to put away the Empress Josephine. 

 M. Naquet's biU repealed the act of 1816, by 

 which divorce was abolished after the restora- 

 tion. The Senate passed the clause of the bill 

 repealing the law of 1816 by a large majority, 

 and, after considerable discussion, agreed upon 

 a measure granting divorce for the causes of 

 adultery, conviction of crime, cruelty, and on 

 other grounds. As judicial orders of separation 

 have been granted at the rate of about 5,000 a 

 year, there were a great number of suits ready 

 to be entered as soon as the law was in force. 

 The attitude of the Vatican was defined in a 

 diplomatic note, sent immediately after the 

 passing of the measure, in which the Pope re- 

 minded the Government that the Church had 

 never sanctioned divorce, and that the indisso- 

 lubility of marriage was a dogma of the Catho- 

 lic religion. The Government replied that the 

 new law had purely civil effects and was not 

 intended to set aside the law of the Church as 

 to marriage, and that the Holy See could give 

 its bishops whatever instructions it saw fit, and 

 use its religious powers to prevent the opera- 

 tion of the law among Catholics. 



The Recidivists. The French Government has 

 long had in contemplation the plan of relieving 

 France of habitual criminals by colonization. 

 The introduction of a comprehensive measure 

 for this purpose was a part of the legislative 

 programme for 1884. The prospect of such 

 legislation caused excitement in Australia, and 

 was made the pretext of an agitation in favor 

 of the annexation by Great Britian of the isl- 

 ands of the South Sea, which France and Ger- 

 many in their colonizing mood might covet. 

 The French authorities had, after the return 

 of the Communards, sent certain classes of 

 criminals, especially homicides, to New Cale- 

 donia. Under the humanitarian administra- 

 tion of Captain Pallu de la Barriere, the con- 

 victs in New Caledonia enjoy many liberties, 

 and in some cases make their escape in small 

 boats, and in several instances reached the 

 coast of Queensland, 1,000 miles distant. To 

 carry out the idea of colonization, women from 

 the French female reformatories, who were 

 willing to marry the New Caledonian convicts, 

 were sent out in annual parties. The criminal 

 population on the island was already almost 

 large enough to occupy all the fertile spaces 

 not alienated by the Government. Under the 

 pressure brought to bear by the British colo- 

 nists, Lord Granville remonstrated with the 

 French Government for planting a penal colony 



