FRENCH MINISTRY DEFEATED.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1775, 14 March 1906, Page 55

FRENCH MINISTRY DEFEATED.

RESIGNATION ACCEPTED. SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE. PARIS, March 8. Owing to the fanatical opposition of mountaineers in Upper Cevennes, the French Government decided not to apply the inventory clause of the Act for tho Separation of Church and State. It was also reported that the Government intended elsewhere to officially recognise the inventories taken yearly by Mayors of communes and parish priests. In the Chamber of Deputies a resolution was proposed approving the action of the Government. The resolution was rejected, whereupon the Premier. M. Rouvier. tendered his resignation, which has been accepted bv President Fallieres. PARIS, March 8. The debate in the Chamber of Deputies was very heated on the resolution (in support of the Government’s attitude concerning the taking of inventories of church property) which, on rejection, was followed by the resignation of the Premier, M. Rouvier. It arose out of a gendarme shooting a butcher, who resisted an inventory being taken at a church at Boaschepe. Several deputies protested against the Separation Act producing tumults and not pacification. M. Briana, reporting on the Separation Act. denounced the provocative tactics of the clergy, and declared that the opposition to the inventories was political' and not religious. M. Rouvier* said the Government was unable to stop the inventories, hut would enforce the law with prudence and tact. He accepted the resolution approving the Government’s statements on this matter. This resolution, however, was rejected by 267 votes to 234, the entire Right, half the Progressive Republicans, most of the Socialists, and some ©f the Radicals voting against the Government. M. Rouvier thereupon resigned.