The New Irish Constitution Part 5

I have already suggested that the Congested Districts Board should be relieved of the duty of purchasing land, the Land Commission being required to make these purchases on requisition from the Congested Districts Board. I would add (in accordance with the principle suggested by paragraph 100 of the Report of the Royal Commission on Congestion in Ireland, (1908)) that the creation of an Irish Legislature destroys the justification for this Board. The work can be better done by an Executive Agency working under the control of a Committee of Parliament. But if a Board is retained it should not be the large Board we have now. A small Board of five will be more conducive to efficiency and far more amenable to the control of the Legislature. That control I venture to add will be most beneficially exercised in bringing about the abandonment of the Congested District Board's present policy of spoon-feeding the congested villages of the West; and of dealing with them not, to any extent, on eleemosynary principles, but exclusively on those of self-help. The Board's methods of relieving congestion should be a.s.similated to the practice of the Land Commission on dealing with congested areas, if men now living are to see the end of the Board's activities.

In connexion with Registration, I think it is desirable to bring all kinds of registration under the control of one Minister, but the work is mostly of a routine character and a single Minister will doubtless find himself able to direct this and also the last Department remaining on my list.

This Department-for General Purposes-brings together the remaining Boards and Offices dealing with official work in Ireland; and under it may in future be brought any official business of a temporary character, not of sufficient importance to be dealt with by a separate Office, but yet of such importance that a vote is taken for it in Committee of Supply.

I have placed "Fisheries" in this Department because that important industry requires more attention than it has. .h.i.therto received, or than it can receive from the Department of Agriculture. It will also be observed that I have placed in this Department the subject of Thrift and Credit Societies and Co-operative Banks: thus dissociating them from the Department of Agriculture, which deals with them at present but with which they have no necessary connexion. They have been made far too much the battle-ground of contending parties. Some supervision by the Government over these co-operative agencies may perhaps be necessary, but they will flourish most when interference by the Government is least felt.

It remains to refer to the position and functions of the Lord-Lieutenant under the new dispensation (it is, of course, to be presumed that no religious disqualification will any longer attach to the office). On the a.s.sumption that the Executive power will continue vested in the King, all executive acts of the Irish Government must issue by authority of the Lord-Lieutenant through whom will also be communicated the a.s.sent to, or the withholding of a.s.sent from, Acts of the Irish Legislature. The Bill of 1893 (Clause 5 (2)) provided for:

"An Executive Committee of the Privy Council in Ireland to aid and advise in the government of Ireland being of such members and comprising persons holding such offices under the Crown as His Majesty, or if so authorised, the Lord-Lieutenant, may think fit, save as may be otherwise directed by Irish Act."(75)

It will be desirable that such a Committee of the Irish Privy Council should be created to a.s.sist the Lord-Lieutenant. But while the majority of the Committee should always be composed of Ministers, it would, I think, conciliate the minority, and otherwise make for efficiency, if some members on the Privy Council Committee, were taken from outside the Government. If the Committee were composed of ten members, seven might be Ministers, and three members might be taken from outside the Government: the decision of the Council would be that of the majority.

Of course, I am conscious of the fact, that this arrangement may be objected to on the ground that it would expose the plans of the Government, in particular cases, to gentlemen who might not be of the Party in Office. But Privy Councillors are bound by oath to secrecy; and I think the danger of a dishonourable betrayal of trust is incommensurate with the advantages which this representation of outside feeling on the Committee, would bring. Moreover, the Lord-Lieutenant would be free not to summon any particular Privy Councillor to a session of the Committee, if the Prime Minister objected to his presence. The proceedings of the Privy Council would be secret, and no Minutes of dissent would be recorded.

I take it that under the coming Bill, the Lord-Lieutenant will have no power to initiate action otherwise than by suggestion to the Ministers concerned, who, may, or may not, act on the suggestion. Ordinarily, the Lord-Lieutenant in Council will accept the Minister's advice: but when he differs, and persists in differing, he would be bound in the last resort to refer the matter to the British Cabinet. _Ex-concessis_, all proceedings of the Irish Legislature or Government will be subject to the ultimate control of the Imperial Parliament.

It will be necessary to provide for the representation of the Irish Government in the Imperial Parliament (a different thing from the representation of Ireland, which, if the solidarity of the United Kingdom is to be preserved, must be maintained, though, as I have already said, in a proportion "which should be sensibly less than the proportion existing between British Members and their electorates"). Some Member of the Imperial Parliament must answer for that Government; and the question arises whether the Member should be an Irish Member, designated by the Irish Government, as its representative, or a British Minister. In view of the fact that the Acts of the Irish Government will be subject to the control of the Imperial Parliament, and must, therefore, come regularly under the cognizance of the British Ministry, I suggest that the duty should be discharged by the British Home Secretary, pending the time when the establishment of the Federal System (Home Rule all round) will call for a more far-reaching Parliamentary adjustment.

If the Land Commission (Group VII.) be excluded from Irish control, the number of Ministers in charge of departments would be seven, reducible to six by giving the portfolios of Groups VIII. and IX. to the same Minister, and to five if a separate Minister for Law and Justice be not at once appointed. With the Prime Minister, who might have charge of a department, or, as in Canada, might be President of the Privy Council, a Cabinet of seven or six as a minimum number would be composed; and this would seem to be an adequate number, at all events to begin with.

The general result of the preceding suggestions should be that responsibility for every agency engaged in the administration of public business in Ireland will attach to a particular Minister, responsible to the Irish Parliament; that interest in Irish public business will be enormously stimulated in Ireland, and that a salutary public control will be effectively exercised. In particular, it may be expected that public money will be husbanded, and when expended, will be spent to the best advantage.

It is not possible within the limits of a paper like this, to enumerate the provisions of law, peculiar to Ireland which the organic changes indicated in the preceding paragraphs may necessitate. An enquiry into that matter (as into the redundancy of Judicial, Executive and Secretariat establishments) will no doubt be undertaken by the Irish Government on a suitable opportunity. But it is probably correct to say that changes of substantive law will not be so much required as changes of practice, whereby the administration of the law may be brought more into harmony, than it is at present, with popular sentiment.

It is always to be remembered that the scheme of Home Rule or Devolution which is advocated in this paper, does not contemplate the creation of a body of law for Ireland, different from that prevailing in Great Britain.

In all matters of _status_, property and personal rights, the laws of the two countries will, I presume, remain identical; and no legislation of a restrictive, sectional, or sectarian character will be permissible in the one country, which is not permitted in the other. It is also to be presumed that the decrees of English Courts will be as enforceable by Irish Courts and Authorities as they are now, and _vice versa_; and that, in fact, the Judicial and Executive Organisations will be as available, under the new order of things, for carrying on His Majesty's Government in both countries, as they are now.

If this be understood, most of the doubts and fears, and forebodings of evil to come from this extension of Irish Local Government, will, I predict, be soon dissipated.

III.-The Judicial Committee And The Interpretation Of The New Const.i.tution. BY SIR FREDERICK POLLOCK

"In this [the United States] and all other countries where there is a written const.i.tution designating the powers and duties of the legislative, as well as of the other departments of the government, an act of the legislature may be void as being against the const.i.tution." So James Kent wrote in his Commentaries when the foundation of American independence was still within living memory, and an observer in search of const.i.tutional autonomy under the British flag beyond the British Islands would have been driven to find his best example in Barbados. Kent continues: "The judicial department is the proper power in the government to determine whether a statute be or be not const.i.tutional"; for the interpretation of the const.i.tution which is the supreme law of the land is as much a judicial act as the interpretation of an ordinary written law. This is the view most natural to minds trained in English legal and political tradition. It was established in the United States by a decision of the Supreme Court at Washington early in the nineteenth century, and, though not previously free from controversy, has been received ever since; and it has been accepted by British publicists and lawyers as applicable to the decision of causes involving const.i.tutional questions throughout the British Empire. As Chief Justice Marshall said:

"If two laws conflict with each other, the courts must decide on the operation of each. If the courts are to regard the const.i.tution, and the const.i.tution is superior to any ordinary act of the Legislature, the const.i.tution, and not such ordinary act, must govern the case to which they both apply."(76)

The principle, so far as I know, has never been disputed by any English authority, but occasions for its application did not often arise before our own time. In strictness of law the King in Parliament has supreme legislative power, as with or without Parliament he has supreme executive power, in every part of his dominions. But in fact very large powers of government have been granted in various ways and at various times, and in the cases which now concern us are coupled with an effectual understanding, though of a political rather than legal nature, that they shall not be recalled. It may be observed that a grant of this kind is quite possible without representative inst.i.tutions. Extensive powers of government and jurisdiction, including the highest "regalities" which could be granted to a subject, were conferred on individuals by several of the early colonial charters. William Penn's charter is perhaps the best known of these, and is a striking example. This, however, is remote from the present purpose, as is the still wider subject of the political and semi-political authorities granted by charter to the East India Company and other trading companies. We have now to attend only to the creation of autonomous powers by statutes of the Imperial Parliament.

The accustomed form in such creations is to confer in express words power to make laws for the peace, order (sometimes "welfare"), and good government of the territory in question. Within the limits prescribed in its const.i.tution, legislative power so created is full and perfect. The Judicial Committee of the Privy Council has repeatedly laid down-not for one Dominion only, but alike for British India, Ontario and New South Wales-that it must not be likened to the merely vicarious authority of a delegate or agent, and is not to be restrained by the rules applicable to agency. So far as it extends, it is a plenary power a.n.a.logous to that of the Imperial Parliament itself and not to a ministerial authority which cannot be delegated; and this applies to the federated units in a federal system no less than to central or unitary legislature.(77) It is, therefore, not quite accurate, though useful in the first introduction of novices to the subject, to liken the enactments of any such local legislature to the by-laws made under statutory authority by a railway company or a town council. Such bodies can make the regulations they are empowered to make, but cannot delegate the framing of any regulation, or the decision of questions arising under it, to the traffic manager or the town clerk. But a local legislature, within the limits of subject-matter originally fixed, can do all that its creator the Parliament of the United Kingdom could have done. The working safeguard against legislation which, by improvidence or oversight, would conflict with Imperial requirements, is the refusal of royal a.s.sent by the local Governor on the advice of his Ministers, or, in the last resort, by the Home Government. Some of the earlier Acts establishing self-government, following the common form of the old colonial charter, provided that local legislation should not be repugnant to the laws of England. This might have been held to forbid such revolutionary changes as abolishing the publicity of Courts of Justice or depriving prisoners of the right to trial by jury. In our own time the question has been raised whether the sacred number of twelve jurymen could be reduced by Order in Council in a criminal court established under the Foreign Jurisdiction Acts in an Asiatic country.(78) But in 1865 it was expressly declared by the Colonial Laws Validity Act that the enactments of colonial legislatures should not be called in question for repugnancy to the law of England in any other sense than repugnancy to some Act of the Imperial Parliament or an order made under its authority.

These matters are only preliminary to the questions that arise under federal const.i.tutions, but they are necessary to be understood if we are to avoid confusion. In the case of a federated Dominion within the British Empire the federal const.i.tution is itself an Act of the Imperial Parliament, and therefore all exercise of legislative power in the Dominion, whether by the central legislature or by that of any const.i.tuent State or Province, must be consistent with its provisions, or otherwise it will clearly be invalid to the extent of the repugnancy or excess. Every such const.i.tution has to a.s.sign the bounds of central and local legislation; in the case of Canada, for example, the field of action open to the Dominion Parliament at Ottawa and the legislatures of the several Provinces. In strict legal theory the Confederation Act of Canada or the Commonwealth Act of Australia can be amended at Westminster like any other Act of Parliament; but, as in fact these const.i.tuent Acts were framed by Canadian and Australian statesmen, so it is well understood that the Home Parliament will not touch them except at the request of Canada or Australia. With such request, there have been amendments and legislative interpretations of the Canadian Const.i.tution. If any Act of Parliament might be called unconst.i.tutional, uninvited intermeddling with the const.i.tution of a self-governing colony would be so. We may pause here to draw one immediate consequence. Whenever Home Rule is enacted and established for Ireland, Parliament must harden its heart against all endeavours, from whatever quarter they may proceed, to obtain any alteration in the scheme save as it may be required by the regularly expressed will of Ireland as a whole. This should be an understanding outside and above all party divisions, British or Irish; and it is equally necessary whether or not a certain number of Irish members continue to sit at Westminster.

We now turn to the possible conflicts of legislation under a federal const.i.tution. It will be convenient to use the more expressive and generally understood word "State" for the autonomous components of the federation. The Canadian term "Province" is prior in time within the Empire; but it might be misleading to readers unacquainted with Canadian affairs, as tending to suggest merely administrative functions like those of a County Council: a body which has many important duties and some delegated legislative authority, but cannot reasonably be called autonomous. A federal const.i.tution must a.s.sign some legislative powers exclusively to the federal legislature, and it may reserve or a.s.sign others exclusively to the State legislatures. It may also leave a region in which the States have power to legislate, but subject to a concurrent and superior power in the federal authority. This is actually the case in Canada. Hence questions may arise of a more complicated kind than those which are open under unitary Home Rule; they may nevertheless be instructive in simpler cases. The Judicial Committee has deliberately abstained from laying down any general system of interpretation or any presumption in favour of extending or limiting the powers of either Federal or State legislation. It is prepared to take some pains to reconcile apparently conflicting enactments, but beyond that no precise method can be formulated. The Court must deal with the problem of each case on its own merits. "The true nature and character of the legislation in the particular instance under discussion must always be determined in order to ascertain the cla.s.s of subject to which it really belongs."(79) Again: "In performing this difficult duty, it will be a wise course for those on whom it is thrown to decide each case which arises as best they can, without entering more largely upon an interpretation of the statute than is necessary for the decision of the particular question in hand."(80) It would seem obvious without argument that the courts of Canada, Australia, or in the future, Ireland, cannot be bound in any case to give effect to two conflicting enactments of the local and the central legislative bodies at once, notwithstanding that some of the language used by the Judicial Committee a few years ago, on an appeal from the Supreme Court of Victoria, suggests that there is no authority anywhere, short of an Act of the Imperial Parliament, capable of resolving such a contradiction.(81)

The question remains what should be the ultimate court of appeal for questions of this kind arising under an Irish Home Rule Act. According to our general forensic habit and tradition, it would be the court to which appeals are taken in the ordinary course from the Court of Appeal in Ireland, namely the House of Lords. It appears however to have been decided that this duty will be more appropriate to the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Now it is high time, for quite independent reasons, that these two courts of last resort, which are composed in practice of the same, or very nearly the same members, should be merged in a single tribunal of final appeal for the whole of the British Empire. In the meanwhile the only material difference is that when n.o.ble and learned persons are sitting as the House of Lords they can and do express their individual opinions in the form of speeches addressed to the House itself, and when they sit as "their Lordships" of the Privy Council, or "this Board," only one opinion is given as the Judicial Committee's advice to His Majesty. For my part I rather think that the suppression of dissenting opinions does not work well in cases of const.i.tutional interpretation.

Some decisions of the Judicial Committee within pretty recent memory have been hardly intelligible; one is tempted to conjecture that not all of the reasons for them commanded unanimous a.s.sent, and the reasons to which the whole or the greater part of their Lordships could agree were not the best that any of them could have given. Separate and dissenting opinions are freely given in the Supreme Court of the United States, which has dealt with the most delicate const.i.tutional questions ever since its work began.

If I were an Irishman I think I should prefer the House of Lords to the Judicial Committee. But, as above said, it is hoped that before very long they will cease to be distinct tribunals. Moreover there is a practical reason, which shall now be mentioned, for making the Judicial Committee the final Court of Appeal in this behalf.

It appears from the published text of the Bill [cl. 29, sub.-cl. 1] that the Lord-Lieutenant or a Secretary of State-in ordinary political language either the Irish Government or the Home Government-may refer a question whether any provision of an Irish Act or Bill is const.i.tutional to be heard and determined by the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. That Committee is to decide who are the proper parties to argue the case. There does not seem to be any reason to apprehend that the parties interested would make difficulties on the score of expense; they would be either public authorities or representative a.s.sociations. This provision is really not a novelty but a special declaration, and perhaps an enlargement, of the very wide power given by the Act which established the Judicial Committee in 1833,(82) and empowered the King "to refer to the said Judicial Committee for hearing or consideration any such other matters whatsoever as His Majesty shall think fit": a power more than once exercised in our own time.(83) It is quite easy, however, for even learned persons who are not familiar with the practice of the Privy Council to overlook the existence of this enactment, and therefore the insertion of an express clause in the Home Rule Bill is judicious. Probably no one will seriously propose to deprive the Crown, as regards Ireland, of a power which it already has throughout the British Empire. But it is a matter from which party politics ought to be rigorously excluded. It should be understood that the power will not be exercised without a considered opinion of the law officers, in Ireland or here, that there is a substantial and arguable question.

IV.-Const.i.tutional Limitations Upon The Powers Of The Irish Legislation.

BY SIR JOHN MACDONELL, C.B., LL.D.

Securities For Religious Freedom

It may be of interest before dealing with the safeguards for religious liberty in Ireland to describe those adopted in other countries. This survey, made in no controversial spirit, may help to give a proper sense of perspective and proportion. A brief comparative study of the legal safeguards for religious liberty may not perhaps help much to inspire the spirit of charity and toleration, which are its best supports. But we know our own position better when we know that of others. It is some gain also to find that others have had the same problems as ours, and have solved them with more or less success. Certain fears are much abated when it is recognised that it is proposed to make in Ireland an experiment of a kind which has been satisfactorily carried out elsewhere. Political justice has been found, in the countries to which I refer, compatible with religious freedom. Why not in Ireland?

Const.i.tutional Limitations

I. PROGRESS OF RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

In most States to-day religious liberty exists with some qualifications-it is one of the most characteristic features of modern legislation. All religious denominations are tolerated; some may be favoured; all are free so long as they do not come into conflict with generally accepted principles of morality. In most States there is a further advance; we find a tendency, more and more accentuated, towards religious equality; more and more is it the policy of States to place all religious denominations upon the same footing. This principle is not carried out completely in all or indeed in most States. Certain churches are in a special sense State Churches. In some countries, the churches of large parts of the population are treated as "recognised churches," to their advantage and to the exclusion, it may be, of others. In Austria, for example, there are six recognised churches and religious societies; and a similar system exists in Hungary.

I do not attempt to a.n.a.lyse the many causes of these movements. The fact at all events is that, whether as the result of the attrition, everywhere going on, of dogmatic creeds, or of the growth of the spirit of tolerance, or of indifference, or the rediscovery of charity as a fundamental principle of Christianity, or because toleration is the line of least resistance, or because it best accords with democracy, almost everywhere in modern times in Europe and America religious equality seems to be the condition towards which States are moving. It is worthy of notice that complete freedom is demanded by many sincere adherents of churches who are impatient of State control, and who believe that spiritual life thrives best in an atmosphere of freedom. It is the creed, I am inclined to think, of an ever increasing number that the existence of a free Church in a free State is to the welfare of both.

Even where the principle is questioned, practice tends to conform thereto.

Reluctantly and grudgingly conceded as a favour, religious toleration becomes part of the habitual att.i.tude of mind at first of the more enlightened and then of ordinary men. The principle of religious liberty or equality is still disputed by the Church of Rome.(84) The doctrines of Gregory VII. and Innocent III. are still a.s.serted as of old. The syllabus of Pius IX. condemns the principle of equality as enshrining an error not less pernicious because common; it is the vain attempt to equalise creeds incomparable with each other and radically different; such liberty is no better than liberty to err. That is the position taken up in the Papal Syllabus. But in modern times all churches, the Roman Catholic not excepted, have yielded, often insensibly and reluctantly, to the pressure of facts. The ideal condition may be domination of the church; the practical problem in adverse circ.u.mstances is how to make the best compromise. Vatican decrees notwithstanding, the powers which issue them cannot, and do not, press their claims as they once did. Immutable in doctrine, they are found to be adaptive in practice. Churches which retract nothing alter their practice; they do not escape the influence of the age and the country, Ireland not excepted, in which they work.

Everywhere the tendency is towards religious equality; I find abundant evidence of it even in the policy of the Church of Rome. Many books have been written describing the recent increase of the pretensions of Papal absolutism. There exists, so far as I am aware, no complete history of the policy pursued by the Church of Rome in countries in which it cannot give full effect to its doctrines respecting the true connection between Church and State. Such a history would reveal the existence and exercise of a singularly adaptive power; the growth of a policy suitable for and acceptable in non-Catholic countries and under democratic rule. In the wonderfully rich system of the Canon law are devices suitable for all circ.u.mstances. The Church may promulgate a decree in one country and not in another; the Tridentine decrees at the close of some four centuries are not yet made universally obligatory. It may for centuries leave it uncertain whether a bull specially a.s.sertive of the power of the Church, is in force in a particular country. The doctrine of the Canon law as to the efficacy of customs, and particularly local customs, permits of variations in accordance with the necessities of time and place. _Semper eadem_, but elastic and always opportunist-such is the character of the actual policy of the Church;(85) and there is no reason to think that it will be otherwise in Ireland under popular government.

The Roman Catholic Church has lately shown itself accommodating in Germany in regard to the marriage law. When Dr. Hogan of Maynooth College writes of "the peaceful character and disposition of the church and her reluctance to cause any disturbance of the social affairs of States or communities, even where the vast majority of the people are hostile to her religious claims"; when he adds "if it can be shown that a new law (the _Ne temere_ decree) inflicts any serious grievance on Protestants in this country, we are satisfied that due consideration will be given to any representations which may be made in this matter," he is borne out by the recent policy of his Church, even if one cannot admit the accuracy of his further statement: "Such has always been the policy and practice of the Church in this matter."-(_See_ _Irish Ecclesiastical Record_, February, 1911). The system never breaks, but it bends-bends to the exigencies of new situations, and particularly of democratic inst.i.tutions, such as will exist in Ireland under Home Rule.

II. SECURITIES FOR RELIGIOUS LIBERTY

How to obtain and still more how to secure such liberty or equality is a problem in every modern State. The actual solutions, though many, fall into a few groups(86); I enumerate the chief. There are countries with State Churches in which have gradually been made concessions to other denominations. England is the typical example. Religious equality (so far as it exists) is the result of a long series of measures; the successive removal of disabilities of Dissenters and Roman Catholics; of measures relating to the tenure of public offices, and as to marriage, or oaths. No one Act states any governing principle. After the fashion of English legislation there has been movement from point to point, though, on the whole, always, or with few relapses, in modern times, in one direction.

The securities for equality are found in a long series of individual statutes. Such, also, may be said to have been the history of religious equality in Hungary; as in so many countries there has been a gradual abandonment of the old maxim _cujus regio, ejus religio_.

I am concerned with the safeguards for equality within a State, and so I need say little or nothing of the Gallican system, which was intended to secure liberty against foreign intrusion. It was the liberty claimed by a church, which refused toleration to other denominations; the protests of a national Church part of Catholicism against the intrusion of the Papacy; it was the a.s.sertion of claims, which, to quote Saint Simon, "_blessent douloureus.e.m.e.nt la Cour de Rome_"; a.s.sertions of the doctrine that the French kings were in secular matters independent of the Pope, and that the Pope's spiritual authority was limited by the laws of the church. In some countries, churches have secured a large measure of religious liberty or autonomy by means of Concordats with the civil Power. The typical case is that of the Catholic Church in France, where such a system may be said to have existed from the Concordat of Bologna, concluded between Francis I.

and Leo X. in 1516, until recent times, with the exception of a short break at the Revolution; they may be said to have established an offensive and defensive alliance between Church and State.

I come to systems and devices chiefly used in modern times to secure religious liberty or equality. They are to be found in particular in countries possessing written const.i.tutions. Either they lay down with more or less clearness principles of religious equality, or, dealing specifically with some pressing danger or difficulty, they provide a safeguard as to it. The first striking example of this kind of restriction is to be found in America. Dread of the existence of an established Church and of its ultimate effects upon republican inst.i.tutions was shared by the framers of the United States Const.i.tution and most of the framers of the States Const.i.tutions. The provision which Jefferson caused to be inserted in the Virginia Bill of Rights and the article in the Ma.s.sachusetts Declaration of Rights have been copied with variations by the States.

Speaking generally, they provide for equality of treatment of religious denominations (Stimson, "Federal and State Const.i.tutions," p. 137). In the Const.i.tution of the United States there is only one Article on the subject (Amendment, Article 1). "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishment(87) of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

In the United States true equality exists; all denominations are treated alike; the modern tendency towards equality has triumphed as the result partly of national habits and partly of const.i.tutional restrictions.

I may here cite one or two examples of modern Const.i.tutions which have laid down principles designed to secure religious equality.(88) Naturally Switzerland, with its population nearly equally divided into Catholics and Protestants, has been obliged to deal with this question, and so far as I am aware, it has done so with success. The principles of religious equality are embodied in the amended Const.i.tution of 1874. I quote the chief provisions, because they are on the whole the most complete set of existing safeguards which I have found.

"_Article_ 49.-La liberte de conscience et de croyance est inviolable. Nul ne peut etre constraint de faire partie d'une a.s.sociation religieuse, de suivre un enseignement religieux, d'accomplir un acte religieux, ni encourir des peines, de quelque nature quelles soient, pour cause d'opinion religieuse.