Reviev of Rentas, 1/ 10/06. 



The Reviews Reviewed. 



40s 



THE ITALIAN REVIEWS. 



The mosfc notenorthy contribution to the Basseqna 

 Nazionak, as throwing a vivid light on intellectual and 

 religious difficulties in Italy to-day, is aJi open letter on 

 the present position of the Catholic laity, addressed 

 by a well-knon-n layman, F. T. Gallarati Scotti, to 

 Don Romolo Murri. whose organ, the CuUura Sociak, 

 has just ceased to exist, owing to high ecclesiastical 

 disapproval. The letter has already created a sensa- 

 tion in Italy and France, for it deplores openly "the 

 reactionai-y attitude, recalling the times of Pius IX.. 

 adopted Ijy the Roman Curia since the death of Leo 

 XIII.," and declares that suppression of intellectual 

 liberty can only result in widespread religious in- 

 difference. 



•• We are to-day in Italy,'' says the writer, " very 

 many who. with a profound faith, cannot submit to a 

 politico-clerical direction which seriously threatens 

 that intellectual Catholic progress for which we desire 

 to labour energetically. And, therefore, it has seemed 

 to me that it might be useful to co-operate with a 

 group ot young men whose sole pre-occupation would 

 be to remain at all costs in perfect harmony with the 

 ideal world." 



He urges on his friends not to create a new party, 

 nor to adopt an attitude of mere revolt, but to labour 

 on broad independent lines, untrammelled by ecclesi- 

 astical supervision, for the moral, social and intellec- 

 tual welfare of their country. A second article, in- 

 spired by somewhat similar ideas, denounces the anti- 

 quated procedure of the Congregation of the Index. 

 Under the title, " The Last Chase of German Protes- 

 tantism," Don E. Vereesi sketches very ably the de- 

 velopment of an undogmatic Christianity among Ger- 

 man Protestants from Luther to Harnack. Two ar- 

 ticles deal sympathetically with Feminism, one of them 

 being a moderate and sensible plea for the vote by a 

 woman. Marianna S. de Frankenstein, who points out 

 that at different periods in Venice, Tuscany, and 

 Lombardy, women enjoyed political rights. 



Tlie miista (I'IfaUa urges the imperative need of an 

 organised State scheme for combating the malarial fever 

 that renders so many districts of Italy almost unin- 

 habitable. The free distribution of quinine is one of 

 the methods proposed. 



LA REVUE. 



In the two July numbers of La Berup, H. Pozzi- 

 Escot gives an account of the French Penal Settlement 

 in New Caledonia. 



A FRENCH PENAL SETTLEMENT. 



It wa.<; in 1884 that the first batch of prisoners, two 

 hundred in number, arrived at Noumea, on board the 

 " Iphigenie." and from that date convicts were regu- 

 larly sent to the island till the year 1897. when M. 

 Feillet, the governor, advised a provisional suspension 

 of the transportation. The settlement is still inhab- 

 ited, and will probably continue to be occupied till 

 the death or the release of the last convict. Mean- 

 while the colonLsts and miners in the island have been 

 appealing for the restoration of the settlement, and in 

 all probability their request will be granted. It is a 

 terrible picture which the writer gives of the life in the 

 settlement, and on its threshold might well be written 

 — " All hope abandon ye who enter here." The con- 

 victs have to sleep without mosquito nets. The filth 

 and the vermin and the pestilential atmosphere of the 

 sleeping quarters defy description, while no words can 

 convey any real conception of the horrible messes 

 called food. 



FRANCE AND RUSSIA AFTER THE LOAN. 

 The second July number of La Reiue opens with an- 

 other article on France and Russia by a friend of the 



Alliance. A short time ago, the author, writing in 

 La Beiue. prophesied that the new loan to Russia 

 would only encourage the desperate resistance of the 

 bureaucracy, and in the present article he shows how 

 his prophecy has been realised. With reference to the 

 loan, he writes : — 



The great financiers announced positively that tlie loan 

 would be covered twenty, thirty, or fifty times, and specu- 

 lators subscribed sums far exceeding their fortunes Never- 

 thelesa the enlightened opinion of the minority knew well 

 the extent of the intrigues which ended in the authorisa- 

 tion of the loan. ^.^ ^. 



Experience has shown that there is no institution power- 

 ful enough to fight against the reality ot events, and it the 

 Russian autocracy continues its heroic exploits tor a few 

 more months we" defy certain of our great banks, and 

 among others the Credit Lyonnais itself, to go on deceiving 

 the public without risking their own existence. 



THE REVUE DE PARIS. 



Writing on the Tabab incident, the editor of the 

 Bevue de Paris, Victor Berard, summarises the history 

 of the Sinaitio Peninsula from early times down to the 

 evacuation of Taibah on May 11th last. 



THE FRIEND OF THE SULTAN. 

 The recent action of Turkey on the Egyptian fron- 

 tier, he says, is not an isolated incident. During the 

 last year the policy of 'Abdul Hamid has been one of 

 aggression towards all his neighbours ; in fact, he has 

 not a single neighbour in Europe, Asia, or Africa that 

 he has not failed to provoke. 



In reference to the evacuation, the writer wonders 

 whether the Sultan only succumbed when he had tan- 

 gible proof of the defection of the Kaiser, " the friend 

 of the three hundred millions of Mussulmans." Ger- 

 many is accused of having a hand in the incident, but 

 it may be that the Sultan was too full of admiration 

 for the Kaiser to note that with his friend prudence of 

 action invariably belies boldness of speech. 



The real cause of the incident, thinks the writer, 

 was probably connect-ed with the question of the con- 

 strurtion of a railway to Medina and Mecca, and per- 

 haps the Sultan imagined a Turkish railway to Tabah 

 would be the best means to prevent the English from 

 making a railway across Arabia. At aU events, when 

 England imputes the responsibility of the affair to 

 German diplomacy alone, sufficient allowance is not 

 made for the morbid imagination, alternating between 

 depressing terror and wild fancy, which determines the 

 conduct of Abdul Hamid. 



THE TOURING INDU.STKY. 

 Every summer we have articles on touring and the 

 organisation of travel. In the second July number of 

 the Bevw de Paris Raoul Fabens deals with the Tour- 

 ing Club of France and other organisations. To-day, 

 he writes, travel is the favourite pleasure of all nations 

 and all classes, and it has, therefore, become a very 

 important industry, having its producers in the form 

 of companies of transport makers of automobiles, 

 cycles, etc., hotelkeepers and others, and its consu- 

 mers — namely, the tourists. To realise this fact w© 

 need but consider for a moment what touring means to 

 Switzerland and Italy. 



Switzerland was one of the first countries to discover 

 that beautiful scenery represents considerable capital, 

 provided some trouble is taken to put such a natural 

 advantage to account. France has been slow to or- 

 ganise travel in her country. The Alpine Club, found- 

 ed in 1874, was perhaps "the first organisation, now 

 it counts over 6000 members. The Touring Club of 

 France, founded about 1890, is less limited in its aims. 

 A copy of the English Cyclists' Touring Club, it had, 

 in 1891, 557 members; to-day it nunibere 100,000 

 Tecefistes, as the membere ai-e called. It has generally 

 extended its aims, and includes not only cyclists, but 

 el! categories of tourists. 



