The Evolution of States Part 40

As regards the true political problems, those of domestic life, the Swiss case presents the usual elements. From dangerous religious strife (the Jesuits being excluded) it seems likely to be preserved in future by the rationalising force of the Socialist movement; but that movement in turn tells of the social problem. A country of not readily extensible resources, Switzerland exhibits nearly as clearly as does Holland the dangers of over-population. The old resource of foreign enlistment being done with,[933] surplus population forces a continual emigration, largely from the rural districts, where the lands are for the most part heavily mortgaged.[934] The active industrialism of the towns--with their large manufacture of clocks and watches, cottons and silks--involves a large importation of foreign food, with which native agriculture cannot advantageously compete. Thus, as in the eighteenth century, the pinch falls on the country, while the towns are in comparison thriving. The relatively high death-rate of recent years raises an old issue. Malthus has told[935] how in the eighteenth century a panic arose concerning the prudential habits of the population in the way of late marriages and small families, and how thereafter encouragements to early marriage had led to much worsening of the lot of many of the people. With a small birth-rate there had been a small death-rate; whereas the rising birth-rate went with rising misery.[936]

Perhaps through the influence of his treatise, the movement of demand for increase of population seems to have died out, and the practice of prudence to have regained economic credit. It would appear, however, that within the past half-century the conditions as to population have again somewhat worsened. At 1850, when nearly half of all the men married per year in England were under twenty years of age, the normal marrying age in the Vaud was thirty or thirty-one; and there had existed in a number of the old Catholic Cantons laws inflicting heavy fines on young people who married without proving their ability to support a family.[937] The modern tendency is to abandon such paternal modes of interference; and it does not appear that personal prudence thus far replaces them, though on the other hand there was in the first half of last century a marked recognition by Swiss publicists of the sociological law of the matter.

Thus M. Edward Mallet of Geneva pointed out before 1850 that the chances of life had steadily gone on increasing with the lessening of the birth-rate for centuries back.[938] His tables run:--

----------------------------+--------+---------+------- LIFE CHANCES. | YEARS. | MONTHS. | DAYS.

----------------------------+--------+---------+------- | | | Towards end of 16th century | 8 | 7 | 26 In 17th century | 13 | 3 | 16 In the years 1701-1750 | 27 | 9 | 13 " " 1751-1800 | 31 | 3 | 5 " " 1801-1813 | 40 | 8 | 0 " " 1814-1833 | 45 | 0 | 29 ----------------------------+--------+---------+-------

The statistician's summary of the case is worth citing:--

"As prosperity advanced, marriages became fewer and later; the proportion of births was reduced, but greater numbers of the infants born were preserved. In the early and barbarous periods the excessive mortality was accompanied by a prodigious fecundity. In the last few years of the seventeenth century a marriage still produced five children and more; the probable duration of life was not twenty years, and Geneva had scarcely 17,000 inhabitants.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century there were scarcely three children to a marriage; and the probability of life exceeded thirty-two years. At the present time a marriage produces only two and three-quarter children; the probability of life is forty-five years; and Geneva, which exceeds 27,000 in population, has arrived at a high degree of civilisation and material prosperity. In 1836 the population appeared to have attained its summit: the births barely replaced the deaths."

But in 1910 the population of Geneva (Canton) was 154,159;[939] and the figures of Swiss emigration--averaging about 5,000 per annum--tell their own tale. Increasing industrialism, as usual, has meant conjugal improvidence. Once more the trouble is not smallness of population, but undue increase.

As Protestantism appears to increase slightly more than Catholicism, no blame can in this case be laid on the Catholic Church. But in Switzerland, as elsewhere, Catholicism tends to illiteracy. In the Protestant cantons the proportion of school-attending children is as one to five; in the half-and-half Cantons it is as one to seven; and in the Catholic it is as one to nine. This, and no tendency of race or _direct_ tendency of creed, is the explanation of the relative superiority of Protestant to Catholic Cantons in point of comfort and freedom from mendicancy; for the Cantons remarked by travellers for their prosperity are indifferently French-and German-speaking, while the less prosperous are either German or mixed.[940] The fact that the three oldest Forest Cantons are among the more backward is a reminder that past-worship, there at its height, is always a snare to civilisation. Describing these cantons over half-a-century ago, Grote spoke severely of "their dull and stationary intelligence, their bigotry, and their pride in bygone power and exploits."[941] The reproach is in some measure applicable to other parts of Switzerland, as to other nations in general; and it must cease to be deserved before the Republic, cultured and well administered as it is, can realise republican ideals. But the existing Federation of the Helvetic Cantons, locally patriotic and self-seeking as they still are, is a hopeful spectacle--for this among other reasons, that it is a perpetual reminder of the possibility of federations of States, even at a stage of civilisation far short of any Utopia of altruism.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 871: "To one whose studies lie in the contemplation of historical phenomena [the Swiss Cantons] comprise between the Rhine and the Alps a miniature of all Europe.... To myself in particular they present an additional ... interest from a certain political a.n.a.logy (nowhere else to be found in Europe) with ... the ancient Greeks"

(Grote, _Seven Letters concerning the Politics of Switzerland_ [1847], ed. 1876, pref.).]

[Footnote 872: "What the Cantons mostly stand chargeable with, is the feeling of cantonal selfishness" (Grote, as cited, p. 20). Compare, in the work of Sir F.O. Adams and C.D. Cunningham on _The Swiss Confederation_ (ed. francaise par Loumyer, 1890, p. 29), the account of how, after the most fraternal meetings in common of the citizens of the different Cantons, "each confederate, on returning home, begins to yield to his old jealousy, and thinks of hardly anything but the particular interests of his Canton."]

[Footnote 873: Vieusseux, _History of Switzerland_, 1840, p. 39.]

[Footnote 874: Rilliet, _Les origines de la Confederation Suisse_, 1868, pp. 26-28; Dierauer, _Geschichte der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft_, 1887, i, 84.]

[Footnote 875: Rilliet, pp. 21, 27, 28.]

[Footnote 876: J. von Muller, _Geschichte der schweizerischen Eidgenossenschaft_, ed. 1824, i, 287.]

[Footnote 877: Muller, i, 288; Rilliet, pp. 39-42. The men of Schwytz were a.s.sociated as concurrers with the powerful Counts of Lenzburg in disputes with the monastery.]

[Footnote 878: It seems just possible that a confederation of tribes existed in the Alps at the beginning of the fifth century--on the theory, that is, that the _Bagaudae_ of that period were so called from a Celtic word _Bagard_, meaning a cl.u.s.ter. See the editorial note in Bohn ed. of Gibbon, iii, 379.]

[Footnote 879: Rilliet, pp. 88 _ff._; Dierauer, i, 78.]

[Footnote 880: Having sworn an oath to stand by each other, they called themselves _Eidgenossen_=Oathfellows, Confederates. The old spellings, _Eitgnozzen_ and _Eidgnosschaft_ (Dierauer, i, 265, _n._; Dandliker, _Geschichte der Schweiz_, i, 636--in the old Tell song), show how easily could arise the later French form "Huguenots."]

[Footnote 881: Dierauer, pp. 85, 90; Rilliet, pp. 50, 67, 68.]

[Footnote 882: Cp. Rilliet, p. 53.]

[Footnote 883: Rilliet, _Origines_, p. 33.]

[Footnote 884: At Morgarten the infantry of the Austrian force was in large part furnished by the other Germanic towns and Cantons of Zurich, Winterthur, Zug, Lucerne, Sempach, and Aargau. When the cavalry were discomfited, the foot would not be very energetic.]

[Footnote 885: This fact, as well as the unequal status of Glarus, was till recently slurred over in the patriotic tradition. See, for instance, the account of Vieusseux, _History of Switzerland_, pp. 58-60.

Cp. the results of exact research in Dierauer, i, 217; Dandliker, _Geschichte der Schweiz_, 1884, i, 480, and _Short History_, Eng. tr.

pp. 62, 63, 68, 69. Zug returned to the Confederation in 1368; Glarus, as a connection only, in 1387, and as a full member in 1394.]

[Footnote 886: Cp. Dierauer, i, 265, and Freeman, _History of Federal Government_, ed. 1893, pp. 5, 6.]

[Footnote 887: Zurich alone is said to have spent two million francs in buying land between 1358 and 1408.]

[Footnote 888: Cp. Zschokke, _Des Schweizerlands Geschichte_, Kap. 30, 9te Aufl., p. 147.]

[Footnote 889: Prof. Dandliker, in his _Short History_ (Eng. tr. p. 41), has the odd expression that "in those times of the surging of party strife the towns formed a quiet refuge for the cultivation of the intellectual life." The whole of his own history goes to show that no such quiet cultivation took place, or could take place.]

[Footnote 890: Cp. the author's _Buckle and his Critics_, pp. 160-74.]

[Footnote 891: Zschokke, _Des Schweizerlands Geschichte_, 9te Aufl.

1853, p. 149.]

[Footnote 892: Cp. Dandliker, ii, 620, 722; _Short History_, pp. 124, 125, 131; Dierauer, ii, 473; Vieusseux, pp. 119, 124, 211; Zschokke, as above cited.]

[Footnote 893: Cp. Freeman, _History of Federal Government_, 2nd ed. pp.

272, 273.]

[Footnote 894: Vieusseux, p. 193.]

[Footnote 895: Cp. Menzel, _Geschichte der Deutschen_, Kap. 417; Dandliker, _Geschichte der Schweiz_, ii, 623-26; Zschokke, _Des Schweizerlands Geschichte_, Kap. 30, p. 148; Vieusseux, p. 118.]

[Footnote 896: On this see Vieusseux, p. 130.]

[Footnote 897: Vieusseux, pp. 128-32, 142.]

[Footnote 898: Zschokke, Kap. 32.]

[Footnote 899: Vieusseux, p. 140. Zurich, however, on Zwingli's urging, restricted villenage and lessened t.i.thes (Dandliker, _Short History_, p.

135).]

[Footnote 900: The number printed rose speedily to thirty-eight in a year, then again to sixty. Two thousand men were employed in the printing industry (Dandliker, ii, 560).]

[Footnote 901: Dandliker, ii, 558, 559; _Short History_, p. 157.]

[Footnote 902: Dandliker, _Geschichte_, ii, 743.]

[Footnote 903: _Id._ _Short History_, p. 192.]

[Footnote 904: _Id._ _Geschichte_, ii, 626.]

[Footnote 905: _Id._ _ib._ ii, 722.]

[Footnote 906: _Id._ _ib._ ii, 609-12; _Short History_, pp. 172, 203.]

[Footnote 907: _Id._ _Geschichte_, ii, 731, 742-45.]

[Footnote 908: _Id._ _ib._ ii, 556 _ff._, 622 _ff._, 728, 729.]