466 POPJjLAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



and wliicli practically reaffirmed previously existing conditions, 

 Switzerland became a federated republic, whose proper and offi- 

 cial designation is the " Helvetic Confederation," consisting of 

 twenty-two Cantons or States ; although the division of three 

 cantons into two demi-cantons makes the total number of federa- 

 tive units twenty-five. The several Cantons elect a Federal As- 

 sembly {Nationalrath) and a States Council {Stdnderath) in which 

 are vested the parliamentary government of the country. The 

 first consists of a hundred and forty-five members chosen every 

 three years in the ratio of one for every twenty thousand of the 

 population, the election being direct, with the right of participa- 

 tion by all citizens who have attained the age of twenty years. 

 The second is composed of forty-four members, two from each 

 Canton irrespective of its size, the mode of their election and 

 the term of their membership being left exclusively to the 

 respective Cantons. Clergymen are disqualified as candidates, 

 though they are eligible for election to the Federal Assembly. 

 The chief executive authority is deputed to a Federal Council 

 {Bundesrath) of seven members, elected for three years by the 

 Federal Assembly, and who during their term of service can not 

 hold any other office in the Confederation or cantons, or engage in 

 any calling or business. The President and the Vice-President of 

 the Federal Council are the first magistrates of the Confederation. 

 Both are elected by the Federal Assembly for the term of one 

 year and are not eligible for the same office until after the ex- 

 piration of another year. The salary of the President is three 

 thousand dollars per annum. His prerogatives are very limited. 

 He has no rank in the army, no power of veto, or independently 

 to name any officials. He can not enforce a policy, declare war, 

 make peace, or conclude a treaty, and the name of their President 

 for any one year is even said not to be familiar to the mass of 

 the Swiss people. 



The Constitution of 1874 declares, that the Confederation has 

 for its object to insure the independence of the country against 

 foreign control, to preserve the tranquillity and the rights of the 

 cantons, and to increase their common well-being. The Confed- 

 eration has alone the right to declare war and conclude peace, as 

 well as make alliances and treaties with foreign states, especially 

 commercial treaties. But the cantons reserve the right of nego- 

 tiating with foreign states any treaty affecting general adminis- 

 tration, local intercourse, and police, so long as such treaties con- 

 tain nothing injurious to the Confederation or to the rights of 

 other cantons. The Confederation may not support a standing 

 army, but every male citizen between twenty-four and forty-four 

 years of age is bound to military service and drill. Those between 

 the ages of twenty-four and thirty-two are designated as the regu- 



