CATHOLIC SOCIALISTS.
II7
montanes voted together wherever they were in a minority, and
at the second ballot they came to an understanding among
themselves to get in that one of the candidates of either party
who had received the largest number of votes. The Catholic
papers declare openly that rather than come to terms with the
Chancellor they will support the most extreme parties, and in
the debate upon the Anti-Socialist law the Ultramontane
centre declared at the outset that it would not accept it under
any form, no matter how amended. Bismarck may well main
tain that the alliance of the two Internationals is an accomplished
fact ; it is even said that his object in entering upon relations
with Rome was to break up their union.
In France it would appear that the militant Catholics, the
only ones who really constitute a political party, are entering
upon the same course. Recently the paper which wields the
peatest influence among them, and which is at the same time
looked upon with most favour in Rome, published a complete
plan of social reforms, destined to put an end to the “ disorder
of the existing industrial régime.” The general idea was indi
cated in the book of a distinguished Economist, M. Périn,*
professor at the Catholic University of Louvain ; but up to this
they seem to have conflned themselves to a Platonic aspiration
towards a return to the economic institutions of the Middle
Ages. Now, on the contrary, the question is to devise a
programme of practical reforms which will rally the labouring
classes around it. M. Périn and the Count de Mun both said
as much, with all the eloquence which the subject inspires at
the congress of Catholic labourers lately assembled at Chartres
Everywhere, under the most various forms, working men's clubs
and associations are founded, where these ideas are made known
and spread. As, however, in France, Democratic Socialism
hghts in the front rank of the great anti-clerical army. Catholic
Socialism can scarcely borrow anything from it, or grant it any
mort. But in Germany, where every shade of Socialism
bZwIved'' most important evolution may
