The forces of Liberalism and formity axe joining against the Education Bill: and there is no doubt tht the members of the Government are more than a little anxious about the result. The opposition to the measure is not entirely confined to the Nonconformists. There are a good many moderate churchmen as well who feel strongly that the Bill in its present shape will unduly maintain and strengthen the clerical control of our national education. But for the support which was generally afforded them by the Irish Roman Catholics their big normal majority would have fallen very low on several occa-ions during the recent sittings of Parlia ut; and it has been facetiously remarked that every fresh rest of a Nationalist M. P. under the Crimes Act further jeopardices the measure, It is of course impossible for the Government to drop the Bill. Even those who regret the di ion of the School Boards that. apart from its of education more efficient is almost universally acknowledged. It is by no means improbable, however, that some attempt at a compromise on the religions question will be made. Mr. Balfour has already xuzyested one basis of compromise—that Noncomformists should be allowed to enter the church schools at certain hours and teach Nonconformity to those children whose parents wish them to receive such instruction, and that as a conn-clergy should be admitted into what are now nown as board schools. That, however, is, I believe, 2 hopeless scheme of compromise. It would please neither the extreme Nonconformists nor the extreme Churchmen, and it would still less com-end itself tu those moderate Nonconformists and Churchmen who hare no desire to see the schools made into battle grounds of sectarian cent The Princess Stephan The Countess Lonyay received a very sympathetic welcome at Dover on her return from her visit to the death bed of her mother, the Queen of the Belgians. The minds of most_people were shocked the conduct of King Leopold in refusing to see his daughter and ordering her to quit the palace. It has been generally concluded, of course, that the cause of the quarrel was the Princess's second marriage; and since the Emperor of Aus-trio, the father of her first husband, agreed to the marriage, and since the Princess's mother also was reconciled to
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.