Art. 8.-DEMOCRACY IN SWITZERLAND. 1. Les Constitutions Fédérales de la Confédération Suisse. Par C. Hilty, Docteur en Droit, Professeur à l'Université de Berne. Neuchâtel, 1891. 2. De la Liberté Politique dans l'État Moderne. Par Arthur Desjardins. Paris, 1894. 3. Governments and Parties in Continental Europe. By A. Lawrence Lowell. Two vols. London: Longmans, 1896. 4. The Swiss Confederation. By Sir Francis Ottiwell Adams, K.C.M.G., C.B., and C. D. Cunningham. London: Macmillan, 1889. 5 The Swiss Republic. By Boyd Winchester, late United States Minister at Bern. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1891. 6. Government in Switzerland. By John Martin Vincent, Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Johns Hopkins University. London: Macmillan, 1900. 7. Die Schweiz seit 1848. Von Prof. Dr J. Schollenberger. Berlin, 1908. 8. Geschichte der Schweiz. Von Dr Karl Dändliker. Drei Bänden. Dritte Auflage. Zürich, 1893. And other works. THE late Sir Leslie Stephen has taught us to call Switzerland the 'Playground of Europe.' Only during the last century did it assume this character. The first English guide-book to that country-a very humble precursor of our Murray and our Baedeker-was published in 1818 by Daniel Wall, of London. The work was a sign of the newly awakened interest in the Swiss lakes and mountains, due, probably, to Lord Byron more than to any one else. Now, I suppose, there are few Englishmen or Englishwomen, of even moderate means, who have not visited Switzerland, for longer or shorter periods, who have not fallen under the spell of its happy valleys and sunny vineyard slopes, of its snow-clad mountains and its wild torrents with their unceasing thunder and eternal foam,' of its blue lakes set in frames of dazzling verdure, of its cities, so diversely beautiful: Geneva, bright and sparkling as Paris itself, Lausanne, dowered with perpetual youth, Schaffhausen, where the charm of the Middle Ages still lingers, and imperial Bern, adorned with umbrageous roads, gigantic terraces, noble fountains, and antique walls well-nigh encircled by the swift-flowing Aar. Then there are the Swiss people, simple but shrewd, candid but courteous, homely but hospitable. Are there any of us who have sojourned among them, far away from the scurry and scramble, the tedium and treacheries of London life, with its fumum et opes strepitumque,' and have not felt, 'It is good for us to be here?' But it is not of these things that I am about to write, nor of the debt that not a few of us owe to 'bathing in the salubrious and beneficial mountain air,' to use Rousseau's words, which he prophetically discerned as 'one of the great resources of medical science.' There is another point of view from which this little country-it is half the size of Scotland-has a strong claim upon our consideration. Mr Winchester, who for some years resided in it, as Minister from the United States, has well remarked, 'Switzerland is constantly solving, in her own way, some of the hardest problems of politics.' It will be well to see what certain of those solutions are. Possibly we may learn from them. But before proceeding further, let us glance briefly at the past career of the country, of which its existing institutions are the outcome. National freedom in Switzerland has its roots in a very far-off past. She has always been democratic since she found place on the map of Europe, and indeed long before. Six hundred and eighteen years ago the three Forest Cantons on the Lake of Luzern entered into the Perpetual Alliance which was the starting-point of the Swiss Confederation. But Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden were democracies for many previous centuries. In fact they had never been anything else. The German tribeif we may so speak-of the Alemanni, who were the ancestors of the people of those Forest Cantons, brought with them into Switzerland, in the third century, the immemorial liberties of their Teutonic forests, based on freedom, which was not necessarily equality, of person and of vote. The freemen, who had their dependents, and, in course of time, their slaves, were lords to themselves, and in their assemblies discussed and determined all matters of national importance. The officers who ruled their counties (Gau)* and subdistricts or hundreds (Mark), were apparently chosen by themselves; and so was sometimes their chief who led them to battle (Herzog). The land was, on the whole, regarded as the common heritage of the inhabitants of the district, though, here and there, portions were held in special occupation and tenancy from the community, and, less frequently, portions were recognised as belonging to private owners, subject, however, to public claims. When feudalism arrived, it of course made itself felt in the three Forest Cantons, as elsewhere in the Holy Roman Empire, of which they formed part, and throughout Europe; but the inborn love of freedom, the old tradition of liberty, survived in spite of it. Proprietorship in the soil assumed a more individual character, and the lordship of counties and hundreds became hereditary in different families Hence arose complications. Whole districts were granted in fief to abbeys and cloisters, thus receiving the immunities which the Church then enjoyed, and experiencing the milder rule of the monastic officials. Still the popular assemblies never fell into disuse. However contracted their power, they kept alive the forms of freedom into which new life was shortly to be breathed. In the first half of the thirteenth century the three Cantons obtained from Frederick II the boon of immediate attachment to the Holy Roman Empire as imperial fiefs, governed by imperial advocates, thus escaping the possible tyranny of feudal lords. But Rudolph of Habsburg, who in 1273 was elected German King, did not renew to Schwyz and Unterwalden, as he did to Uri, the charters by which this privilege was conferred, wishing, it would seem, to add these States to his own ancestral domain. He died in 1291. Seventeen days after his death, the three Cantons, feeling the need of drawing close together to defend their common interest, entered into the Perpetual League, out of which so much was to come. These hardy peasants of the mountainous districts bordering the Lake of Luzern were the protagonists in the struggle to free their country from foreign rule. But they were quite unaware of it. Independence of outside domination was not among the objects of the Perpetual The name survives in Thurgau and Aargau. League.* Its first object was the preservation of their old direct connexion with the Empire. But it also provided for the maintenance of their immemorial local rights. Thus the Confederates solemnly agreed that they would not receive any judge who was not a native of their valleys, or who had purchased his office. They further agreed that all disputes among the three Cantons should be settled by arbitration, the decision of the arbitrator being, if necessary, enforced; and that in case of an attack upon any one of the three Cantons, by any Power, the other two Cantons should come to its aid. But all existing feudal claims and the rights of the overlords they respected. It would be impossible here, nor is it necessary for the present purpose, to follow in detail the struggles of the Habsburgs, after the death of Rudolph, to join the Forest Cantons to their hereditary possessions. Swiss chroniclers and historians have attributed the overthrow of Austrian power in their country to the excesses of the bailiffs sent there by Rudolph's son Albert, and the belief has been enshrined by Schiller in his most delightful play. The Swiss are unwilling to give up the story of William Tell, and so am I. But there is no documentary evidence to support it, or indeed to prove the existence of the Austrian bailiffs. Nearly a quarter of a century passed away before the Confederates (Eidgenossen' they were termed; comrades bound by an oath) were called upon to defend jointly their common interests. A quarrel between Schwyz and the Abbey of Einsiedeln, of which the Habsburgs were stewards, led to an invasion of the Forest Cantons by the Austrians under Duke Leopold, who was utterly defeated in the memorable battle of Morgarten-the Swiss Thermopyla it has been called-on the 15th of November 1315. On the 9th of December, in the same year, the Confederates proceeded to Brunnen to renew * Die alten Rechte, wie wir sie ererbt Von unsern Vätern, wollen wir bewahren, Wer einen Herrn hat, dien' ihm pflichtgemäss. In these lines of 'Wilhelm Tell' Schiller has admirably expressed the ethos of Swiss conservatism. It is not the stupid conservatism of the savage, but the conservatism which (in the words of Burke) knows that 'prescription is a blind form of reason'-and often the best form, we may add. by oath, and also to enlarge, the Pact of 1291. In the next year the Emperor Lewis of Bavaria declared the three Cantons free from the overlordship of the Dukes of Austria. In 1332 Luzern sought and obtained admission to the Confederation, in 1351 Zürich, in 1352 Glarus and Zug, and in 1353 Bern. This Confederation of eight Cantons received no additions until the year 1481. The second half of the fourteenth century is full of its efforts to defend its liberties against Austria, the most memorable incidents being the battles of Sempach in 1386 and of Näfels in 1388, in both of which the Swiss were victorious. It has been said that what Platææ was of old to the Greeks, Sempach was to the Swiss; and the story of the heroic action of Arnold von Winkelried, which is alleged to have determined the victory, lives in Swiss imagination side by side with the story of William Tell. The victory of Näfels-it is still solemnly commemorated every year by the people of Glaruscompleted the work of Sempach, and thenceforth the Austrian claims were a vain shadow. But the name of Sempach is glorious in Swiss history, not only for the brilliant feat of arms whereby Swiss liberties were vindicated, but also for the Convention known as the Sempacherbrief. It was at Zürich in the year 1393 that the document was drawn up by the deputies of the eight Confederate States. It prohibited the waging of war unnecessarily; it contained certain stipulations concerning military organisation; it provided for the immunity of churches and convents, and of women, unless they fought themselves or by outcry gave help to the enemy. It derived its name from the fact that the battle of Sempach is several times mentioned in it, as exhibiting examples of the evils against which it was directed. It is notable as the first agreement in which the Confederated States all acted together for a common aim; also for another reason. Dändliker, in his History of Switzerland,' observes, with pardonable pride, The Confederation which, in the nineteenth century, established the Convention of Geneva for the protection of the wounded, had already in the fourteenth century, for the first time in the world's history, endeavoured to mitigate the barbarities of war.'* * Vol. i, p. 633. · |