Part 2 (1/2)
The purity and peacefulness of Swiss press and politics are due to the national development of today as expressed in appropriate inst.i.tutions.
Of these inst.i.tutions the most effective, the fundamental, is direct legislation, accompanied as it is with general education. In education the Swiss are preeminent among nations. Illiteracy is at a lower percentage than in any other country; primary instruction is free and compulsory in all the cantons; and that the higher education is general is shown in the four universities, employing three hundred instructors.
An enlightened people, employing the ballot freely, directly, and in consequence effectively--this is the true sovereign governing power in Switzerland. As to what, in general terms, have been the effects of this power on the public welfare, as to how the Swiss themselves feel toward their government, and as to what are the opinions of foreign observers on the recent changes through the Initiative and Referendum, some testimony may at this point be offered.
In the present year, Mr. W.D. McCrackan has published in the ”Arena” of Boston his observations of Swiss politics. He found, he says, the effects of the Referendum to be admirable. Jobbery and extravagance are unknown, and politics, as there is no money in it, has ceased to be a trade. The men elected to office are taken from the ranks of the citizens, and are chosen because of their fitness for the work. The people take an intelligent interest in every kind of local and federal legislation, and have a full sense of their political responsibility.
The ma.s.s of useless or evil laws which legislatures in other countries are constantly pa.s.sing with little consideration, and which have constantly to be repealed, are in Switzerland not pa.s.sed at all.
In a study of the direct legislation of Switzerland, the ”Westminster Review,” February, 1888, pa.s.sed this opinion: ”The bulk of the people move more slowly than their representatives, are more cautious in adopting new and trying legislative experiments, and have a tendency to reject propositions submitted to them for the first time.” Further: ”The issue which is presented to the sovereign people is invariably and necessarily reduced to its simplest expression, and so placed before them as to be capable of an affirmative or negative answer. In practice, therefore, the discussion of details is left to the representative a.s.semblies, while the people express approval or disapproval of the general principle or policy embraced in the proposed measure. Public attention being confined to the issue, leaders are nothing. The collective wisdom judges of merits.”
A.V. Dicey, the critic of const.i.tutions, writes in the ”Nation,” October 8, 1885: ”The Referendum must be considered, on the whole, a conservative arrangement. It tends at once to hinder rapid change and also to get rid of that inflexibility or immutability which, in the eyes of Englishmen at least, is a defect in the const.i.tution of the United States.”
A Swiss radical has written me as follows: ”The development given to education during the last quarter of a century will have without doubt as a consequence an improved judgment on the part of a large number of electors. The press also has a role more preponderant than formerly.
Everybody reads. Certainly the ruling cla.s.ses profit largely by the power of the printing press, but with the electors who have received some instruction the capitalist newspapers are taken with due allowance for their sincerity. Their opinion is not accepted without inquiry. We see a rapid development of ideas, if not completely new, at least renewed and more widespread. More or less radical reviews and periodicals, in large number, are not without influence, and their appearance proves that great changes are imminent.”
Professor Dicey has contrasted the Referendum with the _plebiscite_: ”The Referendum looks at first sight like a French _plebiscite_, but no two inst.i.tutions can be marked by more essential differences. The _plebiscite_ is a revolutionary or at least abnormal proceeding. It is not preceded by debate. The form and nature of the questions to be submitted to the nation are chosen and settled by the men in power, and Frenchmen are asked whether they will or will not accept a given policy.
Rarely, indeed, when it has been taken, has the voting itself been full or fair. Deliberation and discussion are the requisite conditions for rational decision. Where effective opposition is an impossibility, nominal a.s.sent is an unmeaning compliment. These essential characteristics, the lack of which deprives a French _plebiscite_, of all moral significance, are the undoubted properties of the Swiss Referendum.”
In the ”Revue des Deux Mondes,” Paris, August, 1891, Louis Wuarin, an interested observer of Swiss politics for many years, writes: ”A people may indicate its will, not from a distance, but near at hand, always superintending the work of its agents, watching them, stopping them if there is reason for so doing, constraining them, in a word, to carry out the people's will in both legislative and administrative affairs. In this form of government the representative system is reduced to a minimum. The deliberative bodies resemble simple committees charged with preparing work for an elected a.s.sembly, and here the elected a.s.sembly is replaced by the people. This sovereign action in person in the transaction of public business may extend more or less widely; it may be limited to the State, or it may be extended to the province also, and even to the town. To whatever extent this supervision of the people may go, one thing may certainly be expected, which is that the supervision will become closer and closer as time goes on. It never has been known that citizens gave up willingly and deliberately rights acquired, and the natural tendency of citizens is to increase their privileges.
Switzerland is an example of this type of democratic government....
There is some reason for regarding parliamentary government--at least under its cla.s.sic and orthodox form of rivalry between two parties, who watch each other closely, in order to profit by the faults of their adversaries, who dispute with each other for power without the interests of the country, in the ardor of the encounter, being always considered--as a transitory form in the evolution of democracy.”
The spirit of the Swiss law and its relation to the liberty of the individual are shown in pa.s.sages of the cantonal and federal const.i.tutions. That of Uri declares: ”Whatever the Landsgemeinde, within the limits of its competence, ordains, is law of the land, and as such shall be obeyed,” but: ”The guiding principle of the Landsgemeinde shall be justice and the welfare of the fatherland, not willfulness nor the power of the strongest.” That of Zurich: ”The people exercise the lawmaking power, with the a.s.sistance of the state legislature.” That of the Confederation: ”All the Swiss people are equal before the law. There are in Switzerland no subjects, nor privileges of place, birth, persons, or families.”
In these general notes and quotations is sketched in broad lines the political environment of the Swiss citizen of to-day. The social mind with which he stands in contact is politically developed, is bent on justice, is accustomed to look for safe results from the people's laws, is at present more than ever inclined to trust direct legislation, and, on the whole, is in a state of calmness, soberness, tolerance, and political self-discipline.
The machinery of public stewards.h.i.+p, subject to popular guidance, may now be traced, beginning with the most simple form.
_Organization of the Commune._
The common necessities of a Swiss neighborhood, such as establis.h.i.+ng and maintaining local roads, police, and schools, and administering its common wealth, bring its citizens together in democratic a.s.semblages.
These are of different forms.
One form of such a.s.semblage, the basis of the superstructure of government, is the political communal meeting. ”In it take place the elections, federal, state, and local; it is the local unit of state government and the residuary legatee of all powers not granted to other authorities. Its procedure is ample and highly democratic. It meets either at the call of an executive council of its own election, or in pursuance of adjournment, and, as a rule, on a Sunday or holiday. Its presiding officer is sometimes the _maire_, sometimes a special chairman. Care is taken that only voters shall sit in the body of the a.s.sembly, it being a rule in Zurich that the register of citizens shall lie on the desk for inspection. Tellers are appointed by vote and must be persons who do not belong to the village council, since that is the local cabinet which proposes measures for consideration. Any member of the a.s.sembly may offer motions or amendments, but usually they are brought forward by the town council, or at least referred to that body before being voted upon.”[F] The officials of the commune chosen in the communal meeting, are one chief executive (who in French communes usually has two a.s.sistants), a communal council, which legislates on the lesser matters coming up between communal meetings, and such minor officials as are not left to the choice of the council.
[Footnote F: Vincent.]
A second form of neighborhood a.s.semblage is one composed only of those citizens who have rights in the communal corporate domains and funds, these rights being either inherited or acquired (sometimes by purchase) after a term of purely political citizens.h.i.+p.
A third form is the parish meeting, at which gather the members of the same faith in the commune, or of even a smaller church district. The Protestant, the Catholic, and the Jewish are recognized as State religions--the Protestant alone in some cantons, the Catholic in others, both in several, and both with the Jewish in others.
A fourth form of local a.s.sembly is that of the school district, usually a subdivision of a commune. It elects a board of education, votes taxes to defray school expenses, supervises educational matters, and in some districts elects teachers.
Dividing the commune thus into voting groups, each with its appropriate purpose, makes for justice. He who has a share in the communal public wealth (forests, pastoral and agricultural lands, and perhaps funds), is not endangered in this property through the votes of non-partic.i.p.ant newcomers. Nor are educational affairs mixed with general politics. And, though State and religion are not yet severed, each form of belief is largely left to itself; in some cantons provision is made that a citizen's taxes shall not go toward the support of a religion to which he is opposed.
_Organization of Canton and Confederation._