VATICAN PROTESTS.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 867, 13 July 1910, Page 7

VATICAN PROTESTS.

SPANISH ANTI-CLERICAL POLICY. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright. (Rec. July 12, 10.10 p.m.) London, July 12. Heuter's Madrid correspondent reports that the Vatican ■ has made another severe protest against tho socalled Cadtnas Bill, prohibiting tbe establishment of new religious associations in Spain until tho negotiations for tho reform of the Concordat, have been concluded.

A DIFFICULT POSITIUN.

Writing recently of the situation in Spain a: correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian" said:—One- of the crying grievances which will have to be redressed is the exemption of the religious orders, from taxation. This exemption was granted by a Concordat with the Vatican inoro than fifty years ago, and although the religious orders have been twice expelled from the country, they are now encamped and entrenched in great force, and are actively engaged in a considerable number of industries and manufactures as well as in agricultural pursuits. Tho industrial monk? are exempt from the heavy trade licenses which have to be paid by lay manufacturers, and it was this consciousness -of an unfair rivalry which infuriated the factory hands of Barcelona and the smaller Catalan towns and was the most potent cause of the recent ■ insurrection. This problem of the religious orders is perhaps tho greatest obstacle in the path of Senior Canalejas. Tho short-lived Ministry of Moret came to grief over it, for it presented a Note to the Vatican in terms which aroused clerical resentment in all parts of Spain. But Senor Canalejas, though a Radical, is on good terms both with the Church" and with the Court. If he can hold the Liberal party together, it is quite poFsiblo that by a skilful diplomacy ho will bo able to induce the Vatican to agree to such a reasonable modification of the Concordat as will remove, or at least mitigate, the economic grievances under which Spain is now smarting, and which, if they are suffered to continue, seem likely once niore to endanger tho Spanish monarchy/