falling into private hands certain monopolies that in other countries
take from the many to enrich a few. Continuing to act on the principles
observed, they must in time establish not only equal rights in the land
but the full economic as well as political sovereignty of the
individual.
_Land and Climate._
Glance at the theatre of the labor of this people. Switzerland, with
about 16,000 square miles, equals in area one-third of New York. Of its
territory, 30 per cent--waterbeds, glaciers, and sterile mountains--is
unproductive. Forests cover 18 per cent. Thus but half the country is
good for crops or pasture. The various altitudes, in which the climate
ranges from that of Virginia to that of Labrador, are divided by
agriculturists into three zones. The lower zone, including all lands
below a level of 2,500 feet above the sea, touches, at Lake Maggiore, in
the Italian canton of Ticino, its lowest point, 643 feet above the sea.
In this zone are cultivated wheat, barley, and other grains, large crops
of fruit, and the vine, the latter an abundant source of profit. The
second zone, within which lies the larger part of the country, includes
the lower mountain ranges. Its altitudes are from 2,500 to 5,000 feet,
its chief growth great forests of beech, larch, and pine. Above this
rises the Alpine zone, upon the steep slopes of which are rich pastures,
the highest touching 10,000 feet, though they commonly reach but 8,000,
where vegetation becomes sparse and snow and glaciers begin. In these
mountains, a million and a half cattle, horses, sheep, and goats are fed
annually. In all, Switzerland is not fertile, but rocky, mountainous,
and much of it the greater part of the year snow-covered.
Whatever the individual qualities of the Swiss, their political
arrangements have had a large influence in promoting the national
well-being. This becomes evident with investigation. Observe how they
have placed under public control monopolies that in other countries
breed millionaires:--
_Railroads._
One bureau of the Post-Office department exercises federal supervision
over the railroads, a second manages the mail and express services, and
a third those of the telegraph and telephone.
Of railroads, there are nearly 2,000 miles. Their construction and
operation have been left to private enterprise, but from the first the
Confederation has asserted a control over them that has stopped short
only of management. Hence there are no duplicated lines, no
discriminations in rates, no cities at the mercy of railroad
corporations, no industries favored by railroad managers and none
destroyed. The government prescribes the location of a proposed line,
the time within which it must be built, the maximum tariffs for freight
and passengers, the minimum number of trains to be run, and the
conditions of purchase in case the State at any time should decide to
assume possession. Provision is made that when railway earnings exceed a
certain ratio to capital invested, the surplus shall be subjected to a
proportionately increased tax. Engineers of the Post-Office department
superintend the construction and repair of the railroads, and
post-office inspectors examine and pass upon the time-tables, tariffs,
agreements, and methods of the companies. Hence falsification of reports
is prevented, stock watering and exchange gambling are hampered, and
"wrecking," as practiced in the United States, is unknown.
Owing to tunnels, cuts, and bridges, the construction of the Swiss
railway system has been costly; Mulhall's statistics give Switzerland a
higher ratio of railway capital to population than any other country in
Europe. Yet the service is cheap, passenger tariffs being considerably
less than in France and Great Britain, and, about the same as in
Germany, within a shade as low as the lowest in Europe.
Differing from the narrow compartment railway carriages of other
European countries, the passenger cars of Switzerland are generally
built on the American plan, so that the traveler is enabled to view the
scenery ahead, behind, and on both sides. For circular tours, the
companies make a reduction of 25 per cent on the regular fare. At the
larger stations are interpreters who speak English. Unlike the service
in other Continental countries, third class cars are attached to all
trains, even the fastest. On the whole, despite the highest railroad
investment per head in Europe, Switzerland has the best of railway
service at the lowest of rates, the result of centralized State control
coupled with free industry under the limitations of that control. In the
ripest judgment of the nation up to the present, this system yields
better results than any other: by a referendary vote taken in December,
1891, the people refused to change it for State ownership of railroads.
_Mails, the Telegraph, the Telephone, and Highways._
The Swiss postal service is a model in completeness, cheapness, and
dispatch. Switzerland has 800 post-offices and 2,000 dépôts where
stamps are sold and letters and packages received. Postal cards cost 1
cent; to foreign countries, 2 cents, and with return flap, 4. For
half-ounce letters, within a circuit of six miles, the cost is 1 cent;
for letters for all Switzerland, up to half a pound, 2 cents; for
printed matter, one ounce, two-fifths of a cent; to half a pound, 1
cent; one pound, 2 cents; for samples of goods, to half a pound, 1 cent;
one pound, 2 cents.
There are 1,350 telegraph offices open to the public. A dispatch for any
point in Switzerland costs 6 cents for the stamp and 1 cent for every
two words.
The Swiss Post-Office department has many surprises in store for the
American tourist. Mail delivery everywhere free, even in a rural commune
remote from the railroad he may see a postman on his rounds two or three
times a day. When money is sent him by postal order, the letter-carrier
puts the cash in his hands. If he wishes to send a package by express,
the carrier takes the order, which soon brings to him the postal express
wagon. A package sent him is delivered in his room. At any post-office
he may subscribe for any Swiss publication or for any of a list of
several thousand of the world's leading periodicals. When roving in the
higher Alps, in regions where the roads are but bridle paths, the
tourist may find in the most unpretending hotel a telegraph office. If
he follows the wagon roads, he may send his hand baggage ahead by the
stage coach and at the end of his day's walk find it at his
destination.
There are three hundred stage routes in Switzerland, all operated under
the Post-Office department, private posting on regular routes being
prohibited. The department owns the coaches; contractors own the horses
and other material. From most of the termini, at least two coaches
arrive and depart daily. Passengers, first and second class, are
assigned to seats in the order of purchasing tickets. Every passenger in
waiting at a stage office on the departure of a coach must by law be
provided with conveyance, several supplementary vehicles often being
thus called into employ. A postal coach may be ordered at an hour's
notice, even on the mountain routes. Coach fare is 6 cents a mile; in
the Alps, 8. Each passenger is allowed thirty-three pounds of baggage;
in the Alps, twenty-two. Return tickets are sold at a reduction of 10
per cent.
The cantonal wagon roads of Switzerland are unequaled by any of the
highways in America. They are built by engineers, are solidly made, are
macadamized, and are kept in excellent repair. The Alpine post roads are
mostly cut in or built out upon the steep mountain sides. Not
infrequently, they are tunneled through the massive rocky ribs of great
peaks. Yet their gradient is so easy that the average tourist walks
twenty-five miles over them in a short day. The engineering feats on
these roads are in many cases notable. On the Simplon route a wide
mountain stream rushes down over a post-road tunnel, and from within the
traveler may see through the gallery-like windows the cataract pouring
close beside him down into the valley. On the route that passes the
great Rhone glacier, the road ascends a high mountain in a zigzag that,
as viewed in front from the valley below, looks like a colossal
corkscrew. This road is as well kept as the better turnpikes of New
York, teams moving at a fast walk in ascending and at a trot in
descending, though the region is barren and uninhabitable, and wintry
nine months in the year. These two examples, however, give but a faint
idea of the vast number of similar works. The federal treasury
appropriates to several of the Alpine cantons, in addition to the sums
so expended by the local administrations, from $16,000 to $40,000 a year
for the maintenance of their post roads.
With lower postage than any other country, the net earnings of the Swiss
postal system for 1889 were $560,000. This, however, is but a fraction
of the real gain to the nation from this source. Without their roads,
railroads, stage lines, and mail facilities, their hotels, numbering
more than one thousand and as a rule excellently managed, could not be
maintained for the summer rush of foreign tourists, worth to the country
many million dollars a year. The finest Alpine scenery is by no means
confined to Swiss boundaries, but within these lines the comforts of
travel far surpass those in the neighboring mountainous countries. In
Savoy, Lombardy, and the Austrian Tyrol, the traveler must be prepared
to put up with comparatively antiquated methods and primitive
accommodations.
Yet, previous to 1849, each Swiss canton had its own postal
arrangements, some cantons farming out their systems either to other
cantons or to individuals. In each canton the service, managed
irrespective of federal needs, was costly, and Swiss postal systems, as
compared with those of France and Germany, were notoriously behindhand.
_Banking._
While the Confederation coins the metallic money current in the country,
it is forbidden by the constitution to monopolize the issue of notes or
guarantee the circulation of any bank. For the past ten years, however,
it has controlled the circulation of the banks, the amount of their
reserve fund, and the publication of their reports.[H] The latter may be
called for at the discretion of the executive council, in fact even
daily.
[Footnote H: A vote, October 18, 1891, made note-issuing a federal
monopoly.]
There are thirty-five banks of issue doing business under cantonal law.
Of these, eighteen, known as cantonal banks, either are managed or have
their notes guaranteed by the respective cantons. Thus, while banking
and money-issuing are free, the cantonal banks insure a requisite note
circulation, minimizing the rate of interest and reducing its
fluctuations. The setting up of cantonal banks, in order to withdraw
privileges from licensed banks, was one of the public questions agitated
by social reformers and decided in several of the cantons by direct
legislation.
_Taxes._
The framework of this little volume does not admit so much as an
outline of the various methods of taxation practiced in Switzerland. As
in all countries, they are complex. But certain significant results of
direct legislation are to be pointed out. In all the cantons there is a
strong tendency to raise revenue from direct, as opposed to indirect,
taxes, and from progressive taxation according to fortune. The
following, from an editorial in the "Christian Union," February 12,
1891, so justly and briefly puts the facts that I prefer printing it
rather than words of my own, which might lie under suspicion of being
tinged with the views of a radical: "With the democratic revolution of
1830 the people demanded that direct taxation should be introduced, and
since the greater revolution of 1848 they have been steadily replacing
the indirect taxes upon necessities by direct taxes upon wealth. In
Zurich, for example--where in the first part of this century there were
no direct taxes--in 1832 indirect taxation supplied four-fifths of the
local revenue; to-day it supplies but one-seventeenth. The canton raises
thirty-two francs per capita by direct taxation where it raises but two
by indirect taxation. This change has accompanied the transformation of
Switzerland from a nominal to a real democracy. By the use of direct
taxation, where every man knows just how much he pays, and by the use of
the Referendum, where the sense of justice of the entire public is
expressed as to how tax burdens should be distributed, Switzerland has
developed a system by which the division of society into the harmfully
rich and wretchedly poor has been checked, if not prevented. In the
most advanced cantons, as has been brought out by Professor Cohn in the
'Political Science Quarterly,' the taxes, both on incomes and on
property, are progressive. In each case a certain minimum is exempted.
In the case of incomes, the progression is such that the largest incomes
pay a rate five times as heavy as the very moderate ones; while in the
case of property, the largest fortunes pay twice as much as the
smallest. The tax upon inheritances has been most strongly developed. In
the last thirty years it has been increased sixfold. The larger the
amount of property, and the more distant the relative to whom it has
been bequeathed, the heavier the rate is made. It is sometimes as high
as 20 per cent. Speaking upon this point, the New York 'Evening Post'
correspondent says: 'Evidently there are few countries that do so much
to discourage the accumulation of vast fortunes; and, in fact,
Switzerland has few paupers and few millionaires.'"
Until 1848, each canton imposed cantonal tariff duties on imported
goods, and, as is yet the case in most continental countries, until a
few years ago the larger cities imposed local import duties (_octrois_).
But the _octroi_ is now a thing of the past, and save in one respect the
cantons have abolished cantonal tariffs. The mining of salt being under
federal control, and the retail price regulated by each canton for
itself, supervision of imports of salt into each canton becomes
necessary.
The "Statesmen's Year Book" (1891) gives the debts of all the cantons
of Switzerland as inconsiderable, while the federal debt, in 1890 but
eleven million dollars, is less than half the federal assets in stocks
and lands. In summing up at the close of his chapter on "State and Local
Finance," Prof. Vincent says: "On the whole, the expenditures of
Switzerland are much less than those of neighboring states. This may be
ascribed in part to the lighter military burden, in part to the fact
that no monarchs and courts must be supported, and further, to the
inclinations of the Swiss people for practical rather than ornamental
matters." And he might pertinently have added, "and to the fact that the
citizens themselves hold the public purse-strings."
_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 circumstances 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
constitution then substituted 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
municipalities against nuisances. The final judicial decision in this
case was in effect that while persons of every religious belief are free
to worship 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 Assembly 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 asserted 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 constitutes Swiss territory have been of tyranny
and not of liberty. In most of that territory, in turn, bishop, king,
noble, oligarch, and politician governed, but until the past half
century, or less, never the masses. 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 dictatorship; Neuchâtel 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 Encyclopædia Britannica, "one of the
darkest passages of Swiss history." Of the older Switzerland, Bâle,
Berne, and Zurich were oligarchical cities, each holding in feudality
extensive neighboring regions. Not until 1833 were the peasants of Bâle
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 pass 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 class.
Municipalities gained the upper hand over rural districts, and within
the municipalities the old families assumed 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 constitutions 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 constitutions 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 institution 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 citizenship 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._