nd countries represented in the Reichsrath there exists a common
right of Austrian citizenship. The complicated conditions under which
citizenship may be obtained, exercised, and forfeited are prescribed
in legislative enactments of various dates. One of the five
fundamental laws of 1867, however, covers at some length the general
rights of citizens, and certain of its provisions are worthy of
mention.[658] All citizens, it is declared, are equal before the law.
Public office is open equally to all. Freedom of passage of persons
and property, within the territory of the state, is absolutely
guaranteed, as is both liberty of person and inviolability of
property. Every one is declared free to choose his occupation and to
prepare himself for it in such place and manner as he may desire. The
right of petition is recognized; likewise, under legal regulation,
that of assemblage and of the formation of associations. Freedom of
speech and of the press, under legal regulation, and liberty of
religion and of conscience are guaranteed to all. Science and its
teaching is declared free. One has but to recall the repression of
individual liberty and initiative by which the era of Metternich was
characterized to understand why, with the liberalizing of the Austrian
state under the constitution of 1867, it should have been deemed
essential to put into the fundamental law these and similar guarantees
of personal right and privilege.[659]

[Footnote 658: Law concerning the General Rights of
Citizens. Dodd, Modern Constitutions, I., 71-74.]

[Footnote 659: The texts of the fundamental laws at
present in operation are printed in E. Bernatzik,
Die oesterreichischen Verfassungsgesetze (2d ed.,
Vienna, 1911), and in a collection issued by the
Austrian Government under the title Die
Staatsgrundgesetze (7th ed., Vienna, 1900). The
statutes of 1867 are in Lowell, Governments and
Parties, II., 378-404, and, in English translation,
in Dodd, Modern Constitutions, I., 71-89. The best
description in English of the Austrian governmental
system is Lowell, _op. cit._; II., Chap. 8. The
best extended treatise is J. Ulbrich, Lehrbuch des
oesterreichischen Staatsrechts (Vienn