Part 4 (1/2)

_Limitations to Swiss Freedom._

Certain stumbling blocks stand in the way of sweeping claims as to the freedom enjoyed in Switzerland. One is asked: What as to the suppression of the Jesuits and the Salvation Army? As to the salt and alcohol monopolies of the State? As to the federal protective tariff? What as to the political war two years ago in Ticino?

Two mutually supporting forms of reply are to be made to these queries.

One relates to the immediate circ.u.mstances under which each of the departures from freedom cited have taken place; the other to historical conditions affecting the development of the Swiss democracy of to-day.

As to the first of these forms of reply:

In the decade previous to 1848 occurred the religious disturbances that ended in the war of the Sonderbund (secession), when several Catholic cantons endeavored to dissolve the loose federal pact under which Switzerland then existed. On the defeat of the secessionists, the movement for a closer federation--for a Confederation--received an impetus, which resulted in the present union. By an article of the const.i.tution then subst.i.tuted for the pact, convents were abolished and the order of the Jesuits forbidden on Swiss soil. Both had endangered the State. Mild, indeed, is this proscription when compared with the effects of the religious hatreds fostered for centuries between territories now Swiss cantons. In the judgment of the majority this restriction of the freedom of a part is essential to that enjoyed by the nation as a whole.

The exercises of the Salvation Army fell under the laws of the munic.i.p.alities against nuisances. The final judicial decision in this case was in effect that while persons of every religious belief are free to wors.h.i.+p in Switzerland, none in doing so are free seriously to annoy their neighbors.

The present federal protective tariff was imposed just after the federal Referendum (optional) had been called into operation on several other propositions, and, the public mind weary of political agitation, demand for the popular vote on the question was not made. The Geneva correspondent of the Paris ”Temps” wrote of the tariff when it was adopted in 1884: ”This tariff has sacrificed the interest of the whole of the consumers to temporary coalitions of private interests. It would have been shattered like a card house had it been submitted to the vote of the people.” In imposing the tariff, the Federal a.s.sembly in self-defense followed the action of other Continental governments. Many raw materials necessary to manufactures were, however, exempted and the burden of the duties placed on luxuries. As it is, Switzerland, without being able to obtain a pound of cotton except by transit through regions of hostile tariffs, maintains a cotton manufacturing industry holding a place among the foremost of the Continent, while her total trade per head is greater than that of any other country in Europe.

The days of the federal salt monopoly are numbered. The criticisms it has of late evoked portend its end. A popular vote may finish it at any time.

The State monopoly of alcohol, begun in 1887, is as yet an experiment.

Financially, it has thus far been moderately successful, though smuggling and other evasions of the law go on on a large scale. The nation, yet in doubt, is awaiting developments. With a reaction, confidently predicted by many, against high tariffs and State interference with trade, the monopoly may be abolished.

The little war in Ticino was the expiring spasm of the ultramontanes, desperately struggling against the advance of the Liberals armed with the Referendum. The reactionaries were suppressed, and the people's law made to prevail. The story, now to be read in the annual reference books, is a chronicle that cannot fail to win approval for democracy as an agency of peace and justice.

The explanations conveyed in these facts imply yet a deeper cause for the lapses from freedom in question. This cause is that Switzerland, in many cantons for centuries undemocratic, is not yet entirely democratic.

Law cannot rise higher than its source. The last step in democracy places all lawmaking power directly and fully in the hands of the majority, but if by the majority justice is dimly seen, justice will be imperfectly done. No more may be a.s.serted for democracy than this: (1) That under the domination of force, at present the common state of mankind, escape from majority rule in some form is impossible. (2) That hence justice as seen by the majority, exercising its will in conditions of equality for all, marks the highest justice obtainable. In their social organization and practice, the Swiss have advanced the line of justice to where it registers their political,--their mental and moral,--development. Above that, manifestly, it cannot be carried.

Despite a widespread impression to the contrary, the traditions for ages of nearly all that now const.i.tutes Swiss territory have been of tyranny and not of liberty. In most of that territory, in turn, bishop, king, n.o.ble, oligarch, and politician governed, but until the past half century, or less, never the ma.s.ses. Half the area of Switzerland, at present containing 40 per cent of the inhabitants, was brought into the federation only in the present century. Of this recent accession, Geneva, for a brief term part of France, had previously long been a pure oligarchy, and more remotely a dictators.h.i.+p; Neuchatel had been a dependency of the crown of Prussia, never, in fact, fully released until 1857; Valais and the Grisons, so-called independent confederacies, had been under ecclesiastical rule; Ticino had for three centuries been governed as conquered territory, the privilege of ruling over it purchased by bailiffs from its conquerors, the ancient Swiss League--”a harsh government,” declares the Encyclopaedia Britannica, ”one of the darkest pa.s.sages of Swiss history.” Of the older Switzerland, Bale, Berne, and Zurich were oligarchical cities, each holding in feudality extensive neighboring regions. Not until 1833 were the peasants of Bale placed on an equal footing with the townspeople, and then only after serious disturbances. And the inequalities between lord and serf, victor and vanquished, voter and disfranchised, existed in all the older states save those now known as the Landsgemeinde cantons. Says Vincent: ”Almost the only thread that held the Swiss federation together was the possession of subject lands. In these they were interested as partners in a business corporation. Here were revenues and offices to watch and profits to divide, and matters came to such a pa.s.s that almost the only questions upon which the Diet could act in concert were the inspection of accounts and other affairs connected with the subject territories.

The common properties were all that prevented complete rupture on several critical occasions. Another marked feature in the condition of government was the supremacy gained by the patrician cla.s.s.

Munic.i.p.alities gained the upper hand over rural districts, and within the munic.i.p.alities the old families a.s.sumed more and more privileges in government, in society, and in trade. The civil service in some instances became the monopoly of a limited number of families, who were careful to perpetuate all their privileges. Even in the rural democracies there was more or less of this family supremacy visible.

Sporadic attempts at reform were rigorously suppressed in the cities, and government became more and more petrified into aristocracy. A study of this period of Swiss history explains many of the provisions found in the const.i.tutions of today, which seem like over-precaution against family influence. The effect of privilege was especially grievous, and the fear of it survived when the modern const.i.tutions were made.”

Here, plainly, are the final explanations of any shortcomings in Swiss liberty. In those parts of Switzerland where these shortcomings are serious, modern ideas of equality in freedom have not yet gained ascendency over the ages-honored inst.i.tution of inequality. Progress is evident, but the goal of possible freedom is yet distant. How, indeed, could it be otherwise when in several cantons it was only in 1848, with the Confederation, that manhood suffrage was established?

But how, it may be inquired, did the name of Swiss ever become the synonym of liberty? This land whose soldiery hired out as mercenaries to foreign princes, this League of oppressors, this hotbed of religious conflicts and persecutions,--how came it to be regarded as the home of a free people!

The truth is that the traditional reputation of the whole country is based on the ancient character of a part. The Landsgemeinde cantons alone bear the test of democratic principles. Within them, indeed, for a thousand years the two primary essentials of democracy have prevailed.

They are:

(1) That the entire citizens.h.i.+p vote the law.

(2) That land is not property, and its sole just tenure is occupancy and use.

The first-named essential is yet in these cantons fully realized; largely, also, is the second.

_The Communal Lands of Switzerland._