Jost before the close of the session on New Year's eve the Senate decided to appoint a commission to inquire into the manner in which the sale of property formerly belonging to religious congregations in France has been carried out. This decision has spread something like dismay amongst the scandalous proceedings which hi 3 going on ever since the liquidation of ecclesiastical property began. When the discussion of M. Waldeck-Rous-sean's law against the religious orders was in fall swing, one of the main arguments of its supporters was that the country in general would benefit materially by the real estate which the noncomplying congregations would be obliged to leave behind, Although Waldeck-Rousseau never _committed himself to any estimate, it assumed that the total of this estate would reach about a milliard of francs, or forty million pounds sterling, and the lectors were assured that this sum would eventually be available to form a fund sufficient to defray the whole cost! of old-age pensions for workers. It is now abundantly evident that this expectation will never be fulfilled. The liquidation has now been in progress about six years, and the net result up to the present is a considerable deficit instead of " balance in hand. The Treasory has advanced about seven million francs to the liquidators on account of their expenses and has received merely a few hundred thousand francs. It tarned out that nearly all the convents and monasteries were mortgaged. To keep the property out of the State's clutches, the mortgages laboured by every legal means in their power, and practically all the lawsuits begun in this connex are still going on, For his costs, the liquidator draws on the public purse, and the Treasury continues to advance money in the hope of getting it back again defeated. few lots which the when the importunate mortgages are
liquidators hare succeeded in selling by auction have fetched prices very far below the estimated value, especially in the provinces, where all the inflaence of the clergy was exerted, and generally with success, to discourage purchasers. They were told they would be excommunicated, and even those who were indifferent to the Papal ban had to recognize that they ran the risk of offending the reactionary element and damaging their business interests. Atl pai Nancy two nearly new chapels which cost about ten thousand pounds apiece were sold for their bare value in building materials. In other cases, it proved impracticable to convert large con-eventual buildings for secular purposes the result, of course, being a marked depreciation in the supposed value of the property.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.