Spain's Draft Constitution A second draft constitution, of a more
radical type than the first, has been laid before the Spanish Cortes. The Republic is to be a unitary State, but is to allow autonomy to those provinces which want it—especially Catalonia, the Basque country, Andalusia and perhaps Galicia and others. The President is to be elected by popular vote for six years, as in Germany. The Cortes, consisting of a single Chamber, may by a two-thirds majority demand his resignation ; a referendum must then be taken, and either the President or the Cortes must go, according to the verdict of the electors. On the critical question of the Church, it is proposed not merely that the Church should be disestablished, but that all the religious orders should be dissolved and their property nationalized. Spain has done this before, and undone it. But the new Republican Government looks to the future and not to the past, and seems resolved to face the conflict with the Church that now seems inevitable. A radical divorce law and the abolition of the death penalty are among the other propOsed reforms.
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