France is at present engaged in taking breath after the Dreyfus struggle, and preparing for the next conflict, it being of course impossible for the inhabitants of this happy republic to refrain for any length of time from tearing each other to pieces. Present indications are that the heat fight will be between the Republicans and the Clericals, The latter will he called to a reckoning for their anti-Dreyfus intrigues. If, as now seems probable, the Government survives the first shock of the interpellations to be discusser immediately after the reopening of Parliament next month, a strong anti-clerical measure will be brought in with a view to overcoming the resistance of a considerable number of religious congregations to the levying of the tax known as the droit d'accroissement. Many of these religious bodies, actuated, it is to be feared, by the wisdom of the serpent rather than by the harm. lewness of the dove, have carefully concealed their financial' resources and placed all the legal responsibility on men of straw, so that it has been impossible for the Government officials to obtain payment of the tax. The Government proposes to checkmate and defeat this manceuvre by altering the law, and a fierce Patli mentary battle may be expected.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.