The Council of State is itself so convinced of the insufficiency of this ground of accusation, that it has deemed it necessary to cite against the Appellant an article of the Genevese law of the 9th February, 1844, concerning police regulations in regard to foreigners, in the terms of which “the Council of State in virtue of its supreme administrative power has always the right to send out of the Canton foreigners whose presence there may _imperil the interests of the country or the security of the State_.” This declaration is analogous to that of Article 70 of the Federal Constitution, in which it is stated that “the Confederation has the right to expel from its territory foreigners whose presence may _compromise the internal or external security of Switzerland_.” These are measures of _public safety_ which every State has maintained the right to take in circumstances of a character eminently exceptional. Now what amount of weight has this article of the Genevese law in the presence of the Anglo-Swiss Treaty of Establishment? This declaration of the Genevese law bears the date of 1844. At that epoch the Swiss Confederation did not possess the legal competence which it possesses to day, nor did international relations at that period rest on so sound a basis. The maintenance of treaties with foreign States is a matter for which the Confederation is alone responsible. In any case of an appeal on the part of a foreigner against a breach on the part of the Cantonal Government of the International Treaty, which protects him in Switzerland, it is the Federal authority alone which is competent to take in regard to the foreigner and of his own Government the responsibility of the incriminated act, and of the grounds upon which that act rests. Under these circumstances, it is allowable to ask oneself if the declaration pronounced in the Genevese law of 1844, founded upon the supreme administrative power of the Council of State and anterior to the Federal Constitution of 1848, has not somewhat lost its significance. It must be noticed besides that this declaration is also anterior to the Anglo-Swiss Treaty which is based upon the Federal Constitution of 1848.

But whatever may be said of this point of law it is not at all necessary to insist upon it in the presence of the inability of the Council of State of Geneva to establish or even to explain in what manner the presence of the Appellant and a few of her friends upon Genevese soil has imperilled “the interests of the country or the security of the State.” In so grave a question involving the application of an international treaty whose stipulations are reciprocal, it is not sufficient to quote a single article of a law, or simply to express an opinion. It is necessary that facts should be brought forward and proved. The Council of State of Geneva is bound therefore—First, to define the facts to which it alludes, and then to furnish the proof of the existence of such facts. Secondly, it is bound to demonstrate the manner in which these facts have “imperilled the interests of the country or the security of the State.” Until the moment when it shall have defined these facts and demonstrated their existence, the grounds upon which it bases its decree of expulsion cannot be admitted by any reasonable person.

In fact, no one can believe, unless furnished with distinct proof of the same, that the few adherents of the Salvation Army, whose actions have been limited to the announcement at Geneva in private houses of the same evangelistic truths which are daily preached in all the Reformed Churches of Switzerland, and who cannot be accused of any want of regard toward the Constitution, the Government, or the people of Switzerland, can have placed in peril the interests of any part of Switzerland or the security of any part of the State; while the things which may indeed injure the interests of Switzerland are, the absence of any security for the foreigner who may be dwelling here; public disturbances which are allowed to continue unchecked; the prevalence abroad of the idea that any foreigner coming here is, without appeal and without mercy, at the disposal of the police.

But the Appellant has too much confidence in the wisdom of the Federal High Council to suppose that it is needful to point out to it that neither she nor her friends can be held responsible for the troubles which accompanied their residence in Geneva, and of which they themselves have been the chief victims. It would be as true to say that a person robbed is responsible for the robbery committed to his injury, or a murdered person for the crime which has cost him his life.

The Appellant can confidently affirm that she and her friends have conformed to every direction which has been laid down for them by the authorities; that the two or three advertisements placarded on the walls at the beginning of their sojourn in Geneva received, as the law prescribes, the sanction of the police; that these advertisements were put aside the moment it was stated that they had had a bad effect, and that the same was the case in regard to the musical instruments commonly in use among them in England, as soon as it was perceived that these instruments produced a painful effect upon Genevese ears.