“But it was necessary to disunite the common interests, and in order to do so differential treatment had to be meted out. The idea was to disintegrate and paralyse resistance; this again was the idea that actuated the Government when they fixed the tax of 30 per cent for recognized religious institutions, and at 40 per cent for the unrecognized, payable annually, on the value of property both real and personal, so that the latter, who are not permitted to hold property, are judged liable to pay, and to pay even more than the others. “To sum up, for the further burden of our religious bodies to the common taxes are added the tax on inalienable property, the income tax of 4 per cent, and the so-called increment duties, which are not modified but accentuated by what is called the ‘droit d’abonnement’ or subscription duty. Is this endurable? Is it possible to find in the whole world another such abominable example of spoliation? No, you must admit, M. le Président, that it is not. “And when the religious orders of my diocese asked me what they were to do, could I give them any other reply than the following: ‘Resist the law! It is your right and duty to oppose injustice! Resist the law! Say to them, “We cannot do it. _Non possumus._”’ “They are resolved so to do, M. le Président, and all our religious bodies, recognized or unrecognized, teaching, charitable or cloistered, destined to foreign missions or to lives of monastic retreat, are agreed, in spite of the inequality with which they are assessed, upon a stubborn resistance. They have realized that the different forms of treatment meted out to them by your so-called laws are uniformly iniquitous, and that it behoves them to join together in a common defence. Their resolve is unshakable. After having paved the way to it, I support their resolution, and in so doing feel assured that I am not failing in the obedience I owe to authority and to the law, and which I whole-heartedly render to you both as a matter of conscience and religion. I feel sure that I am not misjudging your power, which can only be exercised for the maintenance of justice. _Ecce in justitia regnabit rex_ (Paralip. xxii. 22).