irst boon of such real value, that nothing but unjust
pretensions could overlook its importance. We shall discuss this act in
its every detail. But limiting ourselves, at present, to consider the
principle on which is based the Pontifical concession, we say that it
grants all desirable provincial and municipal liberties. As to political
liberties, consisting in the power of deciding on the public business of a
country in one of the two assemblies, and in union with the executive--as
in England, for instance--it is very true that the _motu proprio_ does not
grant this sort of political liberty, or only grants it in the rudimentary
form of a council without deliberative voice. This is a question of
immense gravity, which the Holy Father alone can solve, and which he and
the Christian world are interested in not leaving to chance. That on this
point he should have chosen to be prudent; that after his recent
experience he should have preferred not to reopen a career of agitation
among a people who have shown themselves so unprepared for parliamentary
liberty, is what we do not know that we have either the right or the cause
to deem blameworthy."

A well-known British statesman expressed similar views. "We all know,"
said Lord Palmerston, "that the Pope, on his restoration to his states in
1849, published an ordinance called _motu proprio_, by which he declared
his intention to bestow institutions, not indeed on the large proportions
of a constitutional government, but based, nevertheless, on popular
election, and which, if they had only been carried out, must have given
his subjects such satisfaction as to render unnecessary the intervention
of a foreign army." These words were uttered in 1856, when Lord Palmerston
ought to have known, if indeed he did not actually know, that the proposed
reforms of the Pope had been faithfully and successfully carried out. The
report of Count de Rayneval was before the world, and so important a state
paper could not have been unknown to a statesman who interested himself so
much in European affairs generally, and those of Rome in particular. The
Rayneval report, besides, which showed how completely Pius IX. had
fulfilled his promises--how assiduously and effectually he had labored in
the cause of reform--had been specially communicated, as has been seen, to
an eminent member of the British Cabinet, Lord Clarendon. It is not so
clear that the Pope's subjects were not satisfied. None knew bett