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  maintain ­
  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  indicated ­
  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