With stupendous cynicism Waldeck Rousseau calls the Associations Bill a “law of liberty and of appeasement.” One or two passages will exemplify the character of this infamous Act. ART. I All associations can be formed freely and without authorization. ART. XIII No religious association can be formed without authorization given by a law which will determine how it is to function. One of M. Waldeck Rousseau’s henchmen stated the truth squarely, a few days ago, when he said “the enemy is God,” improving on Gambetta’s maxim, “Le clericalisme voilà l’ennemi.” Already there are symptoms that the Premier is being carried away by his Socialist advance guard. When they now demand the suppression of the Concordat he no longer protests as earnestly as he did, affirming his devotion to the secular clergy, whose interests, he used to declare, were the main object of the Trouillot or Associations Bill. The trial of Comte Lur Saluce by a so-called “High Court,” composed of senators, was a most peculiar episode. Accused of plotting to restore the monarchy, his defence was one long, incisive, itemized arraignment of the Third Republic and all its works and ways. His judges listened with much interest, fascinated, no doubt, by the truth of his statements, after which they found him guilty with extenuating circumstances--a tacit admission apparently that his enmity to the Third Republic was justified. Meanwhile, poor France is threatened with all the horrors of another revolution, if the same elements compose the next parliament, as they most certainly will, if opposition candidates are not even allowed to hold meetings unmolested, as at Toulouse and Lyons recently. Religious liberty has however found a new home in a most unexpected quarter, none other than the realm of the Grand Llama of Tibet, who is sending a special embassy to the Czar. The latter may follow the good example and proclaim religious liberty in all the Russias, at the same time as the Calendar reforms which are being prepared. The two questions are not as irrelevant to each other as one might suppose at first sight. INCONSISTENT JACOBINISM _11th November, 1901._ In 1894, 1895, and 1896 I contributed several papers on the Eastern Question to the _Progress_. At that time public opinion was much excited and indignant over the massacres in Armenia, but none of the Powers who signed the Berlin Treaty thought fit to interfere. Massacres on a small scale were renewed from time to time, and a few months ago they reached considerable proportions; but nothing was done to punish the culprits, or to protect the victims of Turkish barbarity.