every year. The great provincial towns and cities
of France, for example, are ceasing to be dependent, as they formerly
were, upon the press of Paris for their news and views of which passes
in the capital.

There are no such journals yet in any of the French provinces as the
powerful newspapers which are to be found throughout the United Kingdom;
but there is a steady and very notable growth in the circulation of the
more important local journals, and the telegraph brings them the news of
the day from Paris long before the Parisian papers can reach their
readers. The development of these influences has been checked, and is
still checked, by the official control at Paris of the telegraphic
system, and it is worth noting here that, just before the legislative
elections, the Minister of the Interior, to whom the control of the post
office and of the telegraphs had been transferred, caused the telephone
offices throughout France to be taken possession of by the officials of
the Government, though the negotiations with the private companies
owning the telephones for the purchase of them were still incomplete,
and though the private owners formally protested against the act.

But though the Government may check and retard, it cannot prevent the
development of these influences. France, such as I have found it, full
of activity, full of energy, leavened with a genuine leaven of religious
faith, irritated by a persistent mockery of the forms of liberty into
prizing and demanding the realities of liberty, must grow steadily
stronger. The Republic condemned to a policy of persecution and of
financial profligacy must grow steadily weaker.

Instead of trying to develop France, or letting France develop herself
into a republic, the partisans of a Republic have invented successive
republics, each more grotesque and uncomfortable than its predecessor,
and insisted on cramming France into them. So far the republics have
gone to pieces and France has survived. So intense is her vitality, so
tough appears to me to be the old traditional fibre in many parts of the
French body politic, that before the great chapter of the _Gesta Dei per
Francos_ can be safely assumed to be finally closed, a good many more
milliards will have to be spent on that State Establishment of
Irreligion and Disestablishment of God which the 'true Republicans' of
the Third Republic call 'laicisation.' Long before those milliards can
be raised and spent, the Third