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 mass of useless or evil laws which legislatures in other countries are constantly passing with little consideration, and which have constantly to be repealed, are in Switzerland not passed at all.

In a study of the direct legislation of Switzerland, the "Westminster Review," February, 1888, passed 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 assemblies, 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 constitutions, 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 constitution 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 rôle more preponderant than formerly. Everybody reads. Certainly the ruling classes 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 plébiscite: "The Referendum looks at first sight like a French plébiscite, but no two institutions can be marked by more essential differences. The plébiscite 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 assent is an unmeaning compliment. These essential characteristics, the lack of which deprives a French plébiscite, 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 assembly, and here the elected assembly 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 classic 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 passages of the cantonal and federal constitutions. 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 assistance 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 stewardship, 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 establishing and maintaining local roads, police, and schools, and administering its common wealth, bring its citizens together in democratic assemblages. These are of different forms.

One form of such assemblage, 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 assembly, 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 assembly 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."