Mexico Marks Time

Words flowed in Mexico last week--angry words. Otherwise there was no appreciable development in the contest between Church and State (TIME, Feb 22 et seq.).

President Calles spoke for three hours after formally opening the Mexican Parliament which will continue in session until the first of the year. Beginning his speech with a booming "Citizens, Senators, Deputies!" the President turned at once to the foreign relations of Mexico and gladdened Wall Street by a guarded admission that the anti-foreign Mexican Land and Oil Laws (TIME, Jan. 25 et seq.) may eventually be modified "if in practice the Mexican government finds that the application of these laws is not in accord with the policy which has guided the attitude and aims of Mexico, or if experience advises modification within this same spirit of justice and equity."

Continuing, President Calles declared that the religious "situation was caused by the clergy, rebellious as ever against the institutions of the Republic. . . .

"Perhaps laws and measures issued recently injure deep feelings which at first it would seem should be respected. But those laws and measures have been dictated with a memory of painful historical experience. "Just as history justifies those laws issued half a century ago, which then provoked general dissatisfaction, so the President is confident that future history will justify what has been done." Rebuttal. The Mexican Episcopate issued a long and passionate rebuttal next day. One paragraph distilled the whole document to a sulphuric essence:

"It is calumny for the President to state that the Church has always been rebellious against the country's institutions. He would better have said that all the Governments since 1853 have been oppressors of the Church, inspired by a Jacobism or a premature bolshevism."

No ray of hope shone last week on the Mexican impasse. During the week James A. Flaherty, Supreme Knight of Columbus, called on President Coolidge but disappointed sensationmongers when he appealed only for "sympathetic action in any way possible within the bounds of international law" in behalf of Mexican Catholics. It had been supposed that Mr. Flaherty would request U. S. intervention, withdrawal of recognition, or some other drastic curb on the Calles anti-Catholic program.