HERRIOT TAKES ON A GIANT

Premier Herriot's battle with the Catholic Church has brought a hornet's nest about his ears, and may make his position as Premier even more precarious. The strike of school children in Alsace-Lorraino was merely a local skirmish in the nation-wide dissention, but it was the spark which set off the fiery Chamber of Deputies into fist-fight over Herriot's policy. Both sides have lined up for a fight to the finish on the question of what position the Church shall assume in French education.

Because of the strong anti-clerical feeling of his followers and his dependence on them to retain his Premiership, Herriot must of necessity oppose the Church. Ever since the Concordat of Napoleon with the Vatican, which established its position in France, the Catholic Church has been on the side of the Rovalists, and therefore directly opposed to republican principles. Furthermore the breaking of the Concordat in 1904 and Poincare's attempt to re-establish it in 1923 have aggravated a tense situation.

The Catholics in France have protested against closing of Church schools in Alsace-Lorraine, which is still under the old ecueordat in its relations with the Vatican. Anti-Clericals, or men who like Herriot are indifferent to religion as long as it does not interfere with the State, look on the Church as the chief tool of the royalists among the common people. The growth of socialism and communism have gone hand in hand with an increasing distrust of the church, until now the radicals, as a vital wing of the majority coalition, have decided that France shall have no official connection with the Vatican.

Whether or not Herriot succeeds in subordinating the Catholic Church to the French State, he will at least have placed the issue squarely before the people. They must choose between the supremacy of an international Church in education or a purely national and secular control of popular instruction.