May. While the powers and duties of the body vary somewhat in different cantons, they usually cover the following subjects: Partial as well as total revision of the constitution; enactment of all laws; imposition of direct taxes; incurrence of state debts and alienation of public domains; the granting of public privileges; assumption of foreigners into state citizenship; establishment of new offices and the regulation of salaries; election of state, executive, and judicial officers.[A]

The programme for the meeting is arranged by the officials and published beforehand, the law in some cantons requiring publication four weeks before the meeting, and in others but ten days. "To give opportunities for individuals and authorities to make proposals and offer bills, the official gazette announces every January that for fourteen days after a given date petitions may be presented for that purpose. These must be written, the object plainly stated and accompanied by the reasons. All such motions are considered by what is called the Triple Council, or legislature, and are classified as 'expedient' and 'inexpedient.' A proposal receiving more than ten votes must be placed on the list of expedient, accompanied by the opinion of the council. The rejected are placed under a special rubric, familiarly called by the people the Beiwagen. The assembly may reverse the action of the council if it chooses and take a measure out of the 'extra coach,' but consideration of it is in that case deferred until the next year. In the larger assemblies debate is excluded, the vote being simply on rejection or adoption. In the smaller states the line is not so tightly drawn.... Votes are taken by show of hands, though secret ballot may be had if demanded, elections of officers following the same rule in this matter as legislation. Nominations for office, however, need not be sent in by petition, but may be offered by any one on the spot."[B]

The Initiative and the Referendum.

It will be observed that the basic practical principles of both the communal meeting and the Landsgemeinde are these two:

(1) That every citizen shall have the right to propose a measure of law to his fellow-citizens—this principle being known as the Initiative.

(2) That the majority shall actually enact the law by voting the acceptance or the rejection of the measures proposed. This principle, when applied in non-Landsgemeinde cantons, through ballotings at polling places, on measures sent from legislative bodies to the people, is known as the Referendum.

The Initiative has been practiced in many of the communes and in the several Landsgemeinde cantons in one form or other from time immemorial. In the past score of years, however, it has been practiced by petition in an increasing number of the cantons not having the democratic assemblage of all the citizens.

The Referendum owes its origin to two sources. One source was in the vote taken at the communal meeting and the Landsgemeinde. The principle sometimes extended to cities, Berne, for instance, in the fifty-five years from 1469 to 1524, taking sixty referendary votings. The other source was in the vote taken by the ancient cantons on any action by their delegates to the federal Diet, or congress, these delegates undertaking no affair except on condition of referring it to the cantonal councils—ad referendum.

The principles of the Initiative and Referendum have of recent years been extended so as to apply, to a greater or lesser extent, not only to cantonal affairs in cantons far too large for the Landsgemeinde, but to certain affairs of the Swiss Confederation, comprising three million inhabitants. In other words, the Swiss nation today sees clearly, first, that the democratic system has manifold advantages over the representative; and, secondly, that no higher degree of political freedom and justice can be obtained than by granting to the least practicable minority the legal right to propose a law and to the majority the right to accept or reject it. In enlarging the field of these working principles, the Swiss have developed in the political world a factor which, so far as it is in operation, is creating a revolution to be compared only with that caused in the industrial world by the steam engine.

The cantonal Initiative exists in fourteen of the twenty-two cantons—in some of them, however, only in reference to constitutional amendments. Usually, the proposal of a measure of cantonal law by popular initiative must be made through petition by from one-twelfth to one-sixteenth of the voters of the canton. When the petition reaches the cantonal legislature, the latter body is obliged, within a brief period, specified by the constitution, to refer the proposal to a cantonal vote. If the decision of the citizens is then favorable, the measure is law, and the executive and judicial officials must proceed to carry it into effect.

The cantonal Referendum is in constant practice in all the cantons except Freiburg, which is governed by a representative legislature. The extent, however, to which the Referendum is applied varies considerably. In two cantons it is applicable only to financial measures; in others it is optional with the people, who sometimes demand it, but oftener do not; in others it is obligatory in connection with the passage of every law. More explicitly: In the canton of Vaud a mere pseudo-referendary right exists, under which the Grand Council (the legislature) may, if it so decides, propose a reference to the citizens. Valais takes a popular vote only on such propositions passed by the Grand Council as involve a one and a half per cent increase in taxation or a total expenditure of 60,000 francs. With increasing confidence in the people, the cantons of Lucerne, Zug, Bâle City, Schaffhausen, St. Gall, Ticino, Neuchâtel, and Geneva refer a proposed law, after it has passed the Grand Council, to the voters when a certain proportion of the citizens, usually one-sixth to one-fourth, demand it by formal petition. This form is called the optional Referendum. Employed to its utmost in Zurich, Schwyz, Berne, Soleure, Bâle Land, Aargau, Thurgau, and the Grisons, in these cantons the Referendum permits no law to be passed or expenditure beyond a stipulated sum to be made by the legislature without a vote of the people. This is known as the obligatory Referendum. Glarus, Uri, the half cantons of Niwald and Obwald (Unterwald), and those of Outer and Inner Appenzell, as cantons, or demi-cantons, still practice the democratic assemblage—the Landsgemeinde.

In the following statistics, the reader may see at a glance the progress of the Referendum to the present date, with the population of Switzerland by cantons, and the difficulties presented by differences of language in the introduction of reforms:—