No. 246.
Mr. Adee
to Mr. Fish.
Madrid , August 30, 1876. (Received September 16.)
Sir: The religious question, raised by the action of the subgovernor of Minorca in prohibiting advertisements or notices of the movements of the evangelical sects in the journals of Mahon, * * * has attained such a degree of bitterness here as to make it probable that like heated versions of the affair will be current in the United States; and I therefore deem it not amiss to communicate to you such explanations and details as have been made public here in justification of the course of the local authority.
It would seem from these explanations that the repressive measure in question was not the result of a general determination of the government or due to the reactionary fanaticism of the subgovernor, as was [Page 451] alleged, bat was, as I conjectured, adopted simply as a local measure of public order.
It is stated that in Mahon the number of dissidents from the Catholic faith is relatively large; that they are incautious and obtrusive in the assertion of their faith and the forwardness of their propaganda; that public feeling, already running high, was in danger of being still further excited by the tenor of the advertisements inserted in the journals; and that the subgovernor, in the interest of the preservation of tranquillity, interposed his authority to put a stop to the danger.
The government has approved the course of the subgovernor, without, however, committing itself thereby to the adoption of his interpretation of the eleventh article of the constitution as general rule for all Spain.
I think that, in the discussion of this vexed question here—as may happen also in the discussion of it in foreign countries—the tendency is to overlook the fact that what the framers of the constitution contemplated, and in effect conceded in its eleventh article, was the simple, naked fact of toleration, not sanction or neutrality—with respect not only to the faith of the individual, but to the performance of acts of worship in common. The language of the article was nevertheless left broad enough to admit of toleration approaching to the bounds of freedom of worship where and when it could be safety done.
In other words, what was conferred was “immunity of the place of worship, of the cemetery, and of the book.” All beyond that is simply a question of police régime, and, as such, subject to be affected by local causes.
Reasoning on these grounds, the supporters of the government assert that the publication at Mahon in the public and non-religious journals of advertisements calculated to exacerbate the feelings and excite the animosity of the majority of the inhabitants becomes, in that locality and under those circumstances, a “public manifestation” within the meaning of the eleventh article.
Of course the opponents of the government make ready reply that what is unconstitutional at Mahon cannot be constitutional at Madrid, and vice versa, calling on the government to adopt one general and inflexible standard of interpretation of the disputed article to apply to all Spain.
To which retort is made that circumstances alter cases; that an act, harmless per se, and, in present conditions, innocent and non-resultant in Madrid, can be, and is, malicious and dangerous in Menorca, (a statement which one of the newspapers brings down to general comprehension by a neat illustration of the varying effects of a lighted match let fall on a sand-bank, on a wood-pile, or on a powder-magazine;) and that the government is strong on the basis of preserving public order at any cost; and these assertions and counter-assertions bring the contestants to a dead lock and leave them there.
I have, &c.,