circumstances they involve a loss of time and money, give rise to vexatious measures and soon become a hindrance to traffic and trade. They offer the further drawback of making access to the territory of a country subject to the goodwill of the authorities of the foreign nations, that may, as they judge fit, stop or limit the immigration of their fellow-citizens by simply refusing to issue them any passports.

As far as their supervision is concerned, the foreigners entering France are divided into two distinct classes:

(a) The mere passers-by, who do not wish to settle definitely in France or to carry on any business, industry or trade in the country;

(b) Those wishing to exert a special trade in France, to take up private lodgings and possibly settle in the country.

From the former, class (a), the Bill requires the filling up, the signing and remittance to their hosts on their arrival of a written statement setting forth their name and nationality. The document must be immediately sent to the police. From the latter, class (b), the Bill requires the obtaining from the police of an identity card granting them leave to abide in the country. Should that card be withheld, the refusal would amount to a consilium abeundi, and an expulsion order, in due form, would be served on the aliens persisting in not understanding the real sense of that tacit invitation voluntarily to quit the country.

So far the provisions of the Bill do nothing new. All nations have always claimed the right to expel undesirable aliens guilty of actual violations of the peace or constructive violations by tending to make others break it. In France the matter is ruled by the law of December 3 to 11, 1849. But whilst under the present legislation any alien whatever is entitled, until he has been served with an expulsion order, to travel freely all over the country, the Bill under consideration confers on the Government full powers, by means of special or general regulations, to withhold leave either to enter the territory or to sojourn in certain areas, towns or places.

The promoters of the Bill argue as follows:

(a) The fact of granting certain classes of aliens full liberty to settle in the precincts or close vicinity of fortified towns, seaports, dockyards, arsenals, public manufactories, or naval and military stores, is apt to encourage the practice of spying and consequently to endanger mobilisation.

(b) Furthermore, the heaping together in the neighbourhood of the frontiers of such aliens as are amenable to the jurisdiction of bordering nations may likewise create insecurity.

(c) And also the return of foreigners belonging to ex-hostile Powers to the localities they have personally taken a part in

devastating or amidst a population they have overawed during the occupation is bound to kindle the old enmity and run the risk, should their attitude be in the least provocative, of giving rise to lamentable incidents. Præstat cautela quam medela. In view of the revival of normal international relations and the benefit of the foreigners themselves, and as a measure o precaution, it is highly advisable that the Government shoul be given sufficient powers in case of need to keep those alien away from the places in which their presence might prov undesirable.

Even in this respect the Bill does not propound anythin 'notable, new, and hitherto unsaid.' It accomplishes nothin beyond taking up again various provisions scattered in th legislation of other nations, viz., the Dutch law of August 1 1849; the Luxemburgian law of December 13, 1893; and th Belgian law of February 12, 1897. While so doing, it mos fittingly conciliates the demands of national security by a marke alleviation of the provisions of the French legislation on expulsion which would only be resorted to as an extreme measure.

Monsieur Paul Escudier, Deputy and former President of th Municipal Council of the city of Paris, drafted, in the name the Select Committee, a report in which he commended mo of the provisions of the Bill. Political events unfortunatel prevented the House from passing the Bill at that time, which however, was brought in again after the elections and favourabl reported upon by Monsieur Niveaux, Deputy for the Vienn Department. But this time, again, the powers of the Hous expired prior to the Bill being passed.

On July 31, 1924, shortly after the last elections, the Chambe of Deputies finally decided to take up, as forming the subjec matter for all eventual debates, not the first draft, but Monsieu Niveaux's, which at bottom but very slightly differs from th one brought in by Monsieur Escudier in 1919. We have bee fortunate enough to interview Monsieur Paul Escudier, to who for the second time will be entrusted the honour and the delicat task of reporting on the Bill. He proposes to defend before th Select Committee, whose work will consist in drafting the fin wording of the new Bill, a text which may be condensed follows:

As was the case in the first scheme, all the foreigners comin into France are divided into two distinct classes:

(a) Those who are mere passers-by, not wishing to settle France or to carry on any business, industry or trade there;

(b) Those who, on the contrary, desire to settle in that countr for good and all, and who are bound to apply for and obtain a identity card. The Government may, at their discretion and fo

such reason as they think fit, withhold that identity card, thus causing an alien to quit the territory prior to an expulsion order having been served on him. The Government, furthermore, retain the right of expulsion which they hold from the law of 1849; but, so as to compel the executive to free the country from all undesirable elements, a provision of the Bill enacts that all aliens convicted of such crimes or misdemeanours as, had they been committed by French subjects, would have caused the same to be pressed into the African battalions of light infantry, shall at the end of their imprisonment immediately be expelled from the territory of the Republic.

A short explanation is here necessary. The French law relating to the recruiting of the Army enacts that special units, called sections d'exclus and bataillons d'infanterie légère d'Afrique, shall be the units to which shall be assigned all recruits who, before being called to the colours, have been convicted of specially odious or grave offences, a complete list of which appears in sections 4 and 5 of the law of March 5, 1905, as amended by sections 1 and 2 of the law of April 11, 1910, sections 1 and 2 of the law of March 30, 1912, and sections 1 and 2 of the law of December 6, 1912.

The criterion is very safe :

It is quite legitimate [writes Monsieur Niveaux] to expel from France such aliens as, had they been natural-born subjects of the country, would at the time of their being called to the colours either have been excluded from the Army or embodied in special units composed of men considered as unworthy of serving in any French or colonial regiments.

Moreover, the Bill provides that, unless and until so authorised by the Government, foreigners shall not be capable of following certain avocations, such as managing director or employee of an agency for the emigration, immigration, transport or transit of alien labourers; managing director of an insurance company, newspaper, etc.

Lastly, a section of the Bill determines on what conditions a company shall be entitled to term itself' a French company.'

All these provisions are prompted by equity and the care of national security. None of them is inspired by any hatred of or suspicion against foreigners. The Bill does not even attempt, as might be advocated, to thrust the burden of an extra tax on the shoulders of aliens, though, in truth, they stand in several respects in a favoured position (neither being, inter alia, bound to serve in the Army nor compelled when their stay lasts under a year to pay income tax).

It is therefore to everybody's interest that a strict, minute, effective supervision be forthwith exerted on all immigrants

entering the French territory. Were the present state of things to continue, many people would be led to mistake the honest worthy, industrial, painstaking foreigners that, even when not amalgamated, yet constitute a source of prosperity and wealth for the undesirable aliens-the disgrace of their native countrythat take advantage of the hospitality which is offered them.

The moral of this paper, nay, of statistics, is contained in five words: The Bill must be passed.' Failing this, immigration will shortly become—at least in France-according to Edward Gibbon's definition of history, 'little more than the register of the crimes, follies and misfortunes of mankind.'

ANDRÉ PAULIAN and

ADRIEN PAULIAN.

CHRISTIANITY AND CIVILISATION

ONE of the most absorbing, as it is one of the most baffling, problems presented to the modern mind concerns the place of Christianity as a constructive moral element in the civilisation of to-day. We say 'the place' advisedly, as the time has long gone by when Christianity could be regarded as the normal background of the social and political activities of the Western world.

In the Middle Ages policy was directed in the light of a theory that made Church and State one. Heresy and treason were for all practical purposes synonymous, and it required more than ordinary courage to challenge a spiritual authority that could, and very often did, invoke the secular arm in defence of those principles which lay at the root of Church and State alike.

In exchanging the mediæval for the modern spirit we have exchanged one world for another.

The spiritual prestige of medieval Christendom was largely based on the ignorance and superstition of the masses, both carefully fostered in the interests of a priesthood which dared not submit its credentials to the dry light of human reason.

With the growth of the scientific temper and the removal of the age-long embargo on free inquiry which had kept the human race so long in leading-strings, men began to see the Church as she was, a human institution with her roots not in heaven, but in history, and showing all the distinguishing marks of her mundane origin.

Nor was resistance to papal pretensions possible until Luther had dislodged the corner-stone on which the whole vast edifice depended. The movement, once begun, was destined to continue motu proprio, more especially among those Northern nations which had never completely assimilated Latin Christianity, and it was not long before the principle of 'private judgment ' had split the whole body of traditional belief into fragments, and religion became almost a matter of quot homines, tot sententiæ. The solidarity of the medieval system, however, was not more than apparent. It was bolstered up by a fiction which, ignoring all local or national claims, invested Rome with a commission from God Himself, reinforced by a convenient anticipation of rewards and punishments usually reserved for the life beyond the grave.