The only restriction on the authority of the recognised native chiefs lies in the necessity for them not to run counter, in the decisions taken, to public order, that is to say, principles which are at the base of the organisation of society, as it is comprehended and wished to be by the legislator. The chief’s authority ceases as soon as the measures taken are contrary to that public order. Thus, in matters of private right, the native chief could not legitimately take any course which would assail the organisation of families constituted under the _régime_ of the civil Code, and according to its prescribed form,—in other words, entered on the European statute. On the other hand, he could not establish slavery, oppose religious liberties or commercial liberty, or order acts contrary to the penal law. Still it is necessary to remark that he may employ coercive and repressive measures to ensure, as chief, and within the limits of his power according to custom, the execution of his orders. But this sanction itself would be contrary to public order if its character differed from our ideas of what repression should be, more especially if it were accompanied by torture, mutilation, or other acts of cruelty, or if it were surrounded with superstitious practices, such as the proof by poison; in a word, if it were really to run counter to our ideas of humanity and the civilising object of the State. Corporal punishments, similar to those employed by the State and in a similar measure to what is employed by it, inflicted by the native chief according to custom, would evidently not be contrary to public order. Such are the regulations set forth in a general way which govern the 258 recognised native chiefs in their participation with the political life of the State. These instructions recommend to the territorial authorities “continual relations with the native chiefs, incessant instructions and recommendations, a direction and control without interruption, and a moral and material support in order to maintain and increase the chief’s authority with a similar object,” and to the judicial authorities “an intervention marked by prudence in order not to diminish uselessly the chief’s authority, and not to destroy, or even weaken, the influence that he should have, and of which the Government means to make use for the spread of civilisation.” The care of maintaining intact and of developing the principle of the chief’s authority might perhaps one day be carried farther. It would indeed be permissible to wish that, in the future, all the decisions of an administrative and judicial character, passed by the European authorities themselves, should be executed by the intermediary of the recognised chief; in other words, the native would receive orders only from his natural chief.