"We shall outline only the main principles of the constitution of the Czecho-Slovak nation. The final decision as to the constitution itself falls to the legally chosen representatives of the liberated and united people. The Czecho-Slovak State shall be a republic in constant endeavour for progress. It will guarantee complete freedom of conscience, religion and science, literature and art, speech, the press and the right of assembly and petition. The Church shall be separated from the State. Our democracy shall rest on universal suffrage; women shall be placed on an equal footing with men politically, socially and culturally, while the right of the minority shall be safeguarded by proportional representation. National minorities shall enjoy equal rights. The government shall be parliamentary in form and shall recognise the principles of initiative and referendum. The standing army will be replaced by militia. The Czecho-Slovak nation will carry out far-reaching social and economic reforms. The large estates will be redeemed for home colonisation, and patents of nobility will be abolished. Our nation will assume responsibility for its part of the Austro-Hungarian pre-war public debt. The debts for this war we leave to those who incurred them. "In its foreign policy the Czecho-Slovak nation will accept its full share of responsibility in the reorganisation of Eastern Europe. It accepts fully the democratic and social principle of nationality and subscribes to the doctrine that all covenants and treaties shall be entered into openly and frankly without secret diplomacy. Our constitution shall provide an efficient, national and just government which will exclude all special privileges and prohibit class legislation. "Democracy has defeated theocratic autocracy, militarism is overcome, democracy is victorious. On the basis of democracy mankind will be reorganised. The forces of darkness have served the victory of light, the longed-for age of humanity is dawning. We believe in democracy, we believe in liberty and liberty for evermore. "Given in Paris on the 18th October, 1918. _(Signed)_ "PROFESSOR THOMAS G. MASARYK, Prime Minister and Minister of Finance. GENERAL DR. MILAN STEFANIK, Minister of National Defence. DR. EDWARD BENES, Minister for Foreign Affairs and of the Interior." BIBLIOGRAPHY PAN-GERMANISM CHERADAME, A.: _The Pan-German Plot Unmasked_. John Murray, London, 1916. NAUMANN, F.: _Central Europe_. King & Son, London, 1916. For complete survey of Pan-Germanism and Pan-German literature, see Prof. Masaryk's articles in the first volume of the _New Europe_, as well as various articles in _La Nation Tcheque_. THE SLAVS BAILEY, V.F.: _The Slavs of the War Zone_. Chapman & Hall, London, 1917. LEGER, Louis: _Etudes slaves_. Leroux, Paris, 1875, 1880 and 1886.