Direct Legislation by the Citizenship through the Initiative and Referendum Part 4

_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 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 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 dictatorship; 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 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._

As to the tenure of the land held in Switzerland as private property, Hon. Boyd Winchester, for four years American minister at Berne, in his recent work, "The Swiss Republic," says: "There is no country in Europe where land possesses the great independence, and where there is so wide a distribution of land ownership as in Switzerland. The 5,378,122 acres devoted to agriculture are divided among 258,637 proprietors, the average size of the farms throughout the whole country being not more than twenty-one acres. The facilities for the acquisition of land have produced small holders, with security of tenure, representing two-thirds the entire population. There are no primogeniture, copyhold, customary tenure, and manorial rights, or other artificial obstacles to discourage land transfer and dispersion." "There is no belief in Switzerland that land was made to administer to the perpetual elevation of a privileged cla.s.s; but a widespread and positive sentiment, as Turgot puts it, that 'the earth belongs to the living and not to the dead,' nor, it may be added, to the unborn."

Turgot's dictum, however, obtains no more than to this extent: (1) The cantonal testamentary laws almost invariably prescribe division of property among all the children--as in the code Napoleon, which prevails in French Switzerland, and which permits the testator to dispose of only a third of his property, the rest being divided among all the heirs. (2) Highways, including the railways, are under immediate government control. (3) The greater part of the forests are managed, much of them owned, by the Confederation. (4) In nearly all the communes, some lands, often considerable in area, are under communal administration. (5) In the Landsgemeinde cantons largely, and in other cantons in a measure, inheritance and partic.i.p.ation, jointly and severally, in the communal lands are had by the members of the communal corporation--that is, by those citizens who have acquired rights in the public property of the commune.

Nearly every commune in Switzerland has public lands. In many communes, where they are mostly wooded, they are entirely in charge of the local government; in others, they are in part leased to individuals; in others, much of them is worked in common by the citizens having the right; but in the Landsgemeinde cantons it is customary to divide them periodically among the members of the corporation.

Of the Landsgemeinde cantons, one or two yet have nearly as great an area of public land as of private. The canton of Uri has nearly 1,000 acres of cultivated lands, the distribution of which gives about a quarter of an acre to each family ent.i.tled to a share. Uri has also forest lands worth between 4,000,000 and 5,000,000 francs, representing a capital of nearly 1,500 francs to each family. The commune of Obwald, in Unterwald, with 13,000 inhabitants, has lands and forests valued at 11,350,000 francs. Inner Rhodes, in Appenzell, with 12,000 inhabitants, has land valued at 3,000,000 francs. Glarus, because of its manufactures, is one of the richest cantons in public domain. In the non-Landsgemeinde German cantons, there is much common land. One-third of all the lands of the canton of Schaffhausen is held by the communes.

The town of Soleure has forests, pastures, and cultivated lands worth about 6,000,000 francs. To the same value amounts the common property of the town of St. Gall. In the canton of St. Gall the communal Alpine pasturages comprise one-half such lands. Schwyz has a stretch of common land (an _allmend_) thirty miles in length and ten to fifteen in breadth. The city of Zurich has a well-kept forest of twelve to fifteen square miles, worth millions of francs. Winterthur, the second town in Zurich, has so many forests and vineyards that for a long period its citizens not only had no taxes to pay, but every autumn each received gratis several cords of wood and many gallons of wine. Numerous small towns and villages in German Switzerland collect no local taxes, and give each citizen an abundance of fuel. In addition to free fuel, cultivable lands are not infrequently allotted. At Stanz, in Unterwald, every member of the corporation is given more than an acre. At Buchs, in St. Gall, each member receives more than an acre, with firewood and grazing ground for several head of cattle. Upward of two hundred French communes possess common lands. In the canton of Vaud, a number of the communes have large revenues in wood and b.u.t.ter from the forests and pastures of the Jura mountains. Geneva has great forests; Valais many vineyards.

In the canton of Valais, communal vineyards and grain fields are cultivated in common. Every member of the corporation who would share in the produce of the land contributes a certain share of work in field or vineyard. Part of the revenue thus obtained is expended in the purchase of cheese. The rest of the yield provides banquets in which all the members take part.

Excepting in the case of forests, the trend is away from working the lands in common. Examples of the later methods are to be seen in the cantons of Ticino and Glarus, as follows:--

Several communes in Ticino, notably Airolo, have much public wealth.

Airolo has seventeen mountain pastures, each of which feeds forty to eighty head of cattle. Each member of the corporation has the right to send up to these pastures five head for the summer. Those sending more, pay for the privilege; those sending less, receive a rental. On a specified day at the beginning of the season and on another at the close, the milk of each cow is weighed; from these amounts her average yield is estimated, and her total produce computed. The cheese and b.u.t.ter from the herds are sold, most of it in Milan, the hire of the herders paid, and the net revenue divided among the members according to the yield of their cows.

In Glarus, the produce of the greater part of the communal lands, instead of being directly divided among the inhabitants, is subst.i.tuted for taxation. The commonable alps are let by auction for a term of years, and, in opposition to ancient principles, strangers may bid for them. Some of the Glarus communes sell the right to cut timber in the forest under the superintendence of the guardians. The mountain hotels, in not a few instances the property of the communes, are let year by year. Land is frequently rented from the communes by manufacturing establishments. A citizen not using his share of the communal land may lease it to the commune, which in turn will let it to a tenant. The communes of Glarus are watchful that enough arable land is preserved for distribution among the members. If a plot is sold to manufacturers, or for private building purposes, a piece of equal or greater extent is bought elsewhere. Glarus has relatively as many people engaged in industries aside from farming as any other spot in Europe. It has 34,000 inhabitants, of whom nearly 15,000 live directly by manufactures, while of the rest many indirectly receive something from the same source.

Distributive cooperative societies on the English plan exist in most of the industrial communes. The members of the communal corporations in Glarus, though not rich, are as free and independent as any other wage-workers in the world: they inherit the common lands; their local taxes are little or nothing; they are a.s.sured work, if not in the manufactories then on the land.

Of the poverty that fears pauperism in old age, that dreads enforced idleness in recurrent industrial crises, that undermines health, that sinks human beings in ignorance, that deprives men of their manhood, the Swiss who enjoy the common lands of the Landsgemeinde cantons know little or nothing. They have enough. They have nothing to waste, nothing to spare; their fare is simple. But they are free. It is to the like freedom and equality of their ancestors that historians have pointed. It would be well nigh meaningless to refer to any freedom and equality among other ancient Swiss. The right of asylum from religious oppression is the sole feature of liberty at all general of old. The present is the first generation in which all the Swiss have been free. The chief elements of their political freedom--the Initiative and Referendum--came from the Landsgemeinde cantons. From the same source, in good time, so also may come to all Switzerland the prime element of economic freedom--free access to land.

Poverty is a relative condition. Men may be poor of mind--ignorant; and of body--ill-fed, ill-clothed, ill-sheltered; and of rights--dependent.

And from the state of hopeless deprivation involving all these forms upward are minute gradations. Where stand the Swiss in the scale?

This the reply: Their system of education gives free opportunity to all to partake of the mental heritage of the ages. Their method of distribution, through the inheritance laws, of private and common lands, has made roughly two-thirds of the heads of families agricultural land holders. There being in other regards government control of all monopolies, the consequence is a widespread distribution of the annual product. Hence, no pauperism to be compared with that of England; no plutocracy such as we have in America. Certain other facts broadly outline the general comfort and independence. As one effect of the subdivision of the land, the soil, so far as nature permits, is highly cultivated, its appearance fertile, finished, beautiful, and in striking contrast with the dominating vast, bare mountain rocks and s...o...b..ds. The many towns and cities bear abundant signs of a general prosperity, their roads, bridges, stores, residences, and public buildings betokening in the inhabitants industry and energy, and freedom to employ these qualities. Emigration is at low percentage, and of those citizens who do leave for the New World not a few are educated persons with some means seeking short cuts to fortune. Much of the rough work of Switzerland is done by Savoyards, as houseworkers, and by Italians, as farm hands, laborers, and stone masons: showing that as a body even the poorest of the propertyless Swiss have some choice of the better paid occupations.

Every spring sees Italians, by scores of thousands, pouring over the Alps for a summer's work in Switzerland. Indeed, Swiss wage-workers might command better terms were it not for competing Italians, French, and Germans. In other words, through just social arrangements, enough has been done in Switzerland to raise the economic level of the entire nation; but the overflow of laborers from other lands depresses the condition of home labor. Nevertheless, where, it may be asked, is the people higher in the scale of civilization, in all the word implies, than the Swiss?

To recount what the Swiss have done by direct legislation:

They have made it easy at any time to alter their cantonal and federal const.i.tutions,--that is, to change, even radically, the organization of society, the social contract, and thus to permit a peaceful revolution at the will of the majority. They have as well cleared from the way of majority rule every obstacle,--privilege of ruler, fetter of ancient law, power of legislator. They have simplified the structure of government, held their officials as servants, rendered bureaucracy impossible, converted their representatives to simple committeemen, and shown the parliamentary system not essential to lawmaking. They have written their laws in language so plain that a layman may be judge in the highest court. They have forestalled monopolies, improved and reduced taxation, avoided incurring heavy public debts, and made a better distribution of their land than any other European country. They have practically given home rule in local affairs to every community.

They have calmed disturbing political elements;--the press is purified, the politician disarmed, the civil service well regulated. Hurtful partisanship is pa.s.sing away. Since the people as a whole will never willingly surrender their sovereignty, reactionary movement is possible only in case the nation should go backward. But the way is open forward.

Social ideals may be realized in act and inst.i.tution. Even now the liberty-loving Swiss citizen can discern in the future a freedom in which every individual,--independent, possessed of rights in nature's resources and in command of the fruits of his toil,--may, at his will, on the sole condition that he respect the like aim of other men, pursue his happiness.

DIRECT LEGISLATION IN THE UNITED STATES.

"But these are foreign methods. How are they to be engrafted on our American system?" More than once have I been asked this question when describing the Initiative and Referendum of Switzerland.

The reply is: Direct legislation is not foreign to this country. Since the settlement of New England its practice has been customary in the town meeting, an inst.i.tution now gradually spreading throughout the western states--of recent years with increased rapidity. The Referendum has appeared, likewise, with respect to state laws, in several forms in every part of the Union. In the field of labor organization, also, especially in several of the more carefully managed national unions, direct legislation is freely practiced. The inst.i.tution does not need to be engrafted on this republic; it is here; it has but to develop naturally.

_The Town Meeting._

The town meeting of New England is the counter-part of the Swiss communal political meeting. Both a.s.semblies are the primary form of the politico-social organization. Both are the foundation of the structure of the State. The essential objects of both are the same: to enact local regulations, to elect local officers, to fix local taxation, and to make appropriations for local purposes. At both, any citizen may propose measures, and these the majority may accept or reject--_i.e._, the working principles of town and commune alike are the Initiative and the Referendum.