Chapter 4

Each neighborhood aims, as far as possible, to govern itself, so subdividing its functions that even in these no interference with the individual shall occur that may be avoided. Adjoining neighborhoods next form a district and as such control certain common interests. Then a greater group, of several districts, unite in the canton. Finally takes place the federation of all the cantons. At each of these necessary steps in organizing society, the avowed intention of the masses concerned is that the primary rights of the individual shall be preserved. Says the "Westminster Review": "The essential characteristic of the federal government is that each of the states which combine to form a union retains in its own hands, in its individual capacity, the management of its own affairs, while authority over matters common to all is exercised by the states in their collective and corporate capacity." And what is thus true of Confederation with respect to the independence of the canton is equally true of canton with respect to the commune, and of the commune with respect to the individual. No departure from home rule, no privileged individuals or corporations, no special legislation, no courts with powers above the people's will, no legal discriminations whatever--such their aim, and in general their successful aim, the Swiss lead all other nations in leaving to the individual his original sovereignty. Wherever this is not the fact, wherever purpose fails fulfillment, the cause lies in long-standing complications which as yet have not yielded to the newer democratic methods. On the side of official organization, one historical abuse after another has been attacked, resulting in the simple, smooth-running, necessary local and national stewardships described. On the side of economic social organization, a concomitant of the political system, the progress in Switzerland has been remarkable. As is to be seen in the following chapter, in the management of natural monopolies the democratic Swiss, beyond any other people, have attained justice, and consequently have distributed much of their increasing wealth with an approach to equity; while in the system of communal lands practiced in the Landsgemeinde cantons is found an example to land reformers throughout the world.

THE COMMON WEALTH OF SWITZERLAND.

Unless producers may exercise equal right of access to land, the first material for all production, they stand unequal before the law; and if one man, through legal privilege given to another, is deprived of any part of the product of his labor, justice does not reign. The economic question, then, under any government, relates to legal privilege--to monopoly, either of the land or its products.

With the non-existence of the exclusive enjoyment of monopolies by some men--monopolies in the land, in money-issuing, in common public works--each producer would retain his entire product excepting his taxes. This end secured, there would remain no politico-economic problem excepting that of taxation.

Of recent years the Swiss have had notable success in preventing from falling into private hands certain monopolies that in other countries take from the many to enrich a few. Continuing to act on the principles observed, they must in time establish not only equal rights in the land but the full economic as well as political sovereignty of the individual.

_Land and Climate._

Glance at the theatre of the labor of this people. Switzerland, with about 16,000 square miles, equals in area one-third of New York. Of its territory, 30 per cent--waterbeds, glaciers, and sterile mountains--is unproductive. Forests cover 18 per cent. Thus but half the country is good for crops or pasture. The various altitudes, in which the climate ranges from that of Virginia to that of Labrador, are divided by agriculturists into three zones. The lower zone, including all lands below a level of 2,500 feet above the sea, touches, at Lake Maggiore, in the Italian canton of Ticino, its lowest point, 643 feet above the sea. In this zone are cultivated wheat, barley, and other grains, large crops of fruit, and the vine, the latter an abundant source of profit. The second zone, within which lies the larger part of the country, includes the lower mountain ranges. Its altitudes are from 2,500 to 5,000 feet, its chief growth great forests of beech, larch, and pine. Above this rises the Alpine zone, upon the steep slopes of which are rich pastures, the highest touching 10,000 feet, though they commonly reach but 8,000, where vegetation becomes sparse and snow and glaciers begin. In these mountains, a million and a half cattle, horses, sheep, and goats are fed annually. In all, Switzerland is not fertile, but rocky, mountainous, and much of it the greater part of the year snow-covered.

Whatever the individual qualities of the Swiss, their political arrangements have had a large influence in promoting the national well-being. This becomes evident with investigation. Observe how they have placed under public control monopolies that in other countries breed millionaires:--

_Railroads._

One bureau of the Post-Office department exercises federal supervision over the railroads, a second manages the mail and express services, and a third those of the telegraph and telephone.

Of railroads, there are nearly 2,000 miles. Their construction and operation have been left to private enterprise, but from the first the Confederation has asserted a control over them that has stopped short only of management. Hence there are no duplicated lines, no discriminations in rates, no cities at the mercy of railroad corporations, no industries favored by railroad managers and none destroyed. The government prescribes the location of a proposed line, the time within which it must be built, the maximum tariffs for freight and passengers, the minimum number of trains to be run, and the conditions of purchase in case the State at any time should decide to assume possession. Provision is made that when railway earnings exceed a certain ratio to capital invested, the surplus shall be subjected to a proportionately increased tax. Engineers of the Post-Office department superintend the construction and repair of the railroads, and post-office inspectors examine and pass upon the time-tables, tariffs, agreements, and methods of the companies. Hence falsification of reports is prevented, stock watering and exchange gambling are hampered, and "wrecking," as practiced in the United States, is unknown.

Owing to tunnels, cuts, and bridges, the construction of the Swiss railway system has been costly; Mulhall's statistics give Switzerland a higher ratio of railway capital to population than any other country in Europe. Yet the service is cheap, passenger tariffs being considerably less than in France and Great Britain, and, about the same as in Germany, within a shade as low as the lowest in Europe.

Differing from the narrow compartment railway carriages of other European countries, the passenger cars of Switzerland are generally built on the American plan, so that the traveler is enabled to view the scenery ahead, behind, and on both sides. For circular tours, the companies make a reduction of 25 per cent on the regular fare. At the larger stations are interpreters who speak English. Unlike the service in other Continental countries, third class cars are attached to all trains, even the fastest. On the whole, despite the highest railroad investment per head in Europe, Switzerland has the best of railway service at the lowest of rates, the result of centralized State control coupled with free industry under the limitations of that control. In the ripest judgment of the nation up to the present, this system yields better results than any other: by a referendary vote taken in December, 1891, the people refused to change it for State ownership of railroads.

_Mails, the Telegraph, the Telephone, and Highways._

The Swiss postal service is a model in completeness, cheapness, and dispatch. Switzerland has 800 post-offices and 2,000 dépôts where stamps are sold and letters and packages received. Postal cards cost 1 cent; to foreign countries, 2 cents, and with return flap, 4. For half-ounce letters, within a circuit of six miles, the cost is 1 cent; for letters for all Switzerland, up to half a pound, 2 cents; for printed matter, one ounce, two-fifths of a cent; to half a pound, 1 cent; one pound, 2 cents; for samples of goods, to half a pound, 1 cent; one pound, 2 cents.

There are 1,350 telegraph offices open to the public. A dispatch for any point in Switzerland costs 6 cents for the stamp and 1 cent for every two words.

The Swiss Post-Office department has many surprises in store for the American tourist. Mail delivery everywhere free, even in a rural commune remote from the railroad he may see a postman on his rounds two or three times a day. When money is sent him by postal order, the letter-carrier puts the cash in his hands. If he wishes to send a package by express, the carrier takes the order, which soon brings to him the postal express wagon. A package sent him is delivered in his room. At any post-office he may subscribe for any Swiss publication or for any of a list of several thousand of the world's leading periodicals. When roving in the higher Alps, in regions where the roads are but bridle paths, the tourist may find in the most unpretending hotel a telegraph office. If he follows the wagon roads, he may send his hand baggage ahead by the stage coach and at the end of his day's walk find it at his destination.

There are three hundred stage routes in Switzerland, all operated under the Post-Office department, private posting on regular routes being prohibited. The department owns the coaches; contractors own the horses and other material. From most of the termini, at least two coaches arrive and depart daily. Passengers, first and second class, are assigned to seats in the order of purchasing tickets. Every passenger in waiting at a stage office on the departure of a coach must by law be provided with conveyance, several supplementary vehicles often being thus called into employ. A postal coach may be ordered at an hour's notice, even on the mountain routes. Coach fare is 6 cents a mile; in the Alps, 8. Each passenger is allowed thirty-three pounds of baggage; in the Alps, twenty-two. Return tickets are sold at a reduction of 10 per cent.

The cantonal wagon roads of Switzerland are unequaled by any of the highways in America. They are built by engineers, are solidly made, are macadamized, and are kept in excellent repair. The Alpine post roads are mostly cut in or built out upon the steep mountain sides. Not infrequently, they are tunneled through the massive rocky ribs of great peaks. Yet their gradient is so easy that the average tourist walks twenty-five miles over them in a short day. The engineering feats on these roads are in many cases notable. On the Simplon route a wide mountain stream rushes down over a post-road tunnel, and from within the traveler may see through the gallery-like windows the cataract pouring close beside him down into the valley. On the route that passes the great Rhone glacier, the road ascends a high mountain in a zigzag that, as viewed in front from the valley below, looks like a colossal corkscrew. This road is as well kept as the better turnpikes of New York, teams moving at a fast walk in ascending and at a trot in descending, though the region is barren and uninhabitable, and wintry nine months in the year. These two examples, however, give but a faint idea of the vast number of similar works. The federal treasury appropriates to several of the Alpine cantons, in addition to the sums so expended by the local administrations, from $16,000 to $40,000 a year for the maintenance of their post roads.

With lower postage than any other country, the net earnings of the Swiss postal system for 1889 were $560,000. This, however, is but a fraction of the real gain to the nation from this source. Without their roads, railroads, stage lines, and mail facilities, their hotels, numbering more than one thousand and as a rule excellently managed, could not be maintained for the summer rush of foreign tourists, worth to the country many million dollars a year. The finest Alpine scenery is by no means confined to Swiss boundaries, but within these lines the comforts of travel far surpass those in the neighboring mountainous countries. In Savoy, Lombardy, and the Austrian Tyrol, the traveler must be prepared to put up with comparatively antiquated methods and primitive accommodations.

Yet, previous to 1849, each Swiss canton had its own postal arrangements, some cantons farming out their systems either to other cantons or to individuals. In each canton the service, managed irrespective of federal needs, was costly, and Swiss postal systems, as compared with those of France and Germany, were notoriously behindhand.

_Banking._

While the Confederation coins the metallic money current in the country, it is forbidden by the constitution to monopolize the issue of notes or guarantee the circulation of any bank. For the past ten years, however, it has controlled the circulation of the banks, the amount of their reserve fund, and the publication of their reports.[H] The latter may be called for at the discretion of the executive council, in fact even daily.

[Footnote H: A vote, October 18, 1891, made note-issuing a federal monopoly.]

There are thirty-five banks of issue doing business under cantonal law. Of these, eighteen, known as cantonal banks, either are managed or have their notes guaranteed by the respective cantons. Thus, while banking and money-issuing are free, the cantonal banks insure a requisite note circulation, minimizing the rate of interest and reducing its fluctuations. The setting up of cantonal banks, in order to withdraw privileges from licensed banks, was one of the public questions agitated by social reformers and decided in several of the cantons by direct legislation.

_Taxes._

The framework of this little volume does not admit so much as an outline of the various methods of taxation practiced in Switzerland. As in all countries, they are complex. But certain significant results of direct legislation are to be pointed out. In all the cantons there is a strong tendency to raise revenue from direct, as opposed to indirect, taxes, and from progressive taxation according to fortune. The following, from an editorial in the "Christian Union," February 12, 1891, so justly and briefly puts the facts that I prefer printing it rather than words of my own, which might lie under suspicion of being tinged with the views of a radical: "With the democratic revolution of 1830 the people demanded that direct taxation should be introduced, and since the greater revolution of 1848 they have been steadily replacing the indirect taxes upon necessities by direct taxes upon wealth. In Zurich, for example--where in the first part of this century there were no direct taxes--in 1832 indirect taxation supplied four-fifths of the local revenue; to-day it supplies but one-seventeenth. The canton raises thirty-two francs per capita by direct taxation where it raises but two by indirect taxation. This change has accompanied the transformation of Switzerland from a nominal to a real democracy. By the use of direct taxation, where every man knows just how much he pays, and by the use of the Referendum, where the sense of justice of the entire public is expressed as to how tax burdens should be distributed, Switzerland has developed a system by which the division of society into the harmfully rich and wretchedly poor has been checked, if not prevented. In the most advanced cantons, as has been brought out by Professor Cohn in the 'Political Science Quarterly,' the taxes, both on incomes and on property, are progressive. In each case a certain minimum is exempted. In the case of incomes, the progression is such that the largest incomes pay a rate five times as heavy as the very moderate ones; while in the case of property, the largest fortunes pay twice as much as the smallest. The tax upon inheritances has been most strongly developed. In the last thirty years it has been increased sixfold. The larger the amount of property, and the more distant the relative to whom it has been bequeathed, the heavier the rate is made. It is sometimes as high as 20 per cent. Speaking upon this point, the New York 'Evening Post' correspondent says: 'Evidently there are few countries that do so much to discourage the accumulation of vast fortunes; and, in fact, Switzerland has few paupers and few millionaires.'"

Until 1848, each canton imposed cantonal tariff duties on imported goods, and, as is yet the case in most continental countries, until a few years ago the larger cities imposed local import duties (_octrois_). But the _octroi_ is now a thing of the past, and save in one respect the cantons have abolished cantonal tariffs. The mining of salt being under federal control, and the retail price regulated by each canton for itself, supervision of imports of salt into each canton becomes necessary.

The "Statesmen's Year Book" (1891) gives the debts of all the cantons of Switzerland as inconsiderable, while the federal debt, in 1890 but eleven million dollars, is less than half the federal assets in stocks and lands. In summing up at the close of his chapter on "State and Local Finance," Prof. Vincent says: "On the whole, the expenditures of Switzerland are much less than those of neighboring states. This may be ascribed in part to the lighter military burden, in part to the fact that no monarchs and courts must be supported, and further, to the inclinations of the Swiss people for practical rather than ornamental matters." And he might pertinently have added, "and to the fact that the citizens themselves hold the public purse-strings."

_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 circumstances 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 constitution then substituted 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 municipalities 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 Assembly 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 asserted 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.