6110 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



cil did not accept this view, and preparations were begun for exercis- 

 ing the right of purchase in 1898. The federal chambers in 1892 

 commissioned the federal council to consider measures looking to 

 this end — that is, to prepare legislation that would give the con- 

 federation advantages in the transaction. In 1895, a law was passed 

 requiring stockholders to register six months before voting in the com- 

 pany meetings. This, it was thought, would reduce the vote of the 

 foreign stockholders, but it had the opposite effect, for the small 

 Swiss holders would not take the trouble to register, while the large 

 holders abroad did. The same law gave the confederation and the 

 cantons the nomination of representatives who should have power 

 to vote in the companies' directories. In the same year a bill was 

 introduced requiring the railroad companies to present exact accounts 

 of the condition of their lines and their management, with a pro- 

 vision suppressing the special tribunals provided for in some of the 

 charters for the arbitration of differences between the state and the 

 companies, and giving their jurisdiction to the federal tribunal. The 

 purpose of this law of accountability was to meet the stipulation in 

 the charters of the railroads that the state, in buying them in, should 

 pay the companies twenty-five times the value of the net annual 

 revenue of the roads as determined by the average of the preceding 

 ten years, while it should in no case be less than the capitalized value 

 of the plant of the company. It was sought to secure more accurate 

 determinations of the " net annual revenue " and the " value of the 

 plant " on which the amount paid on purchase was to be based. This 

 bill was fought both by the adversaries of purchase and by those who 

 insisted that the transaction should be carried through according to 

 law and without violation of the rights that had been acquired by the 

 existing proprietors of the railways. The latter objected that it 

 modified all in favor of the state clauses of the charters — bilateral 

 contracts that bore the signature of the state. The partisans of the 

 bill denied that the concessions were of the nature of a bilateral con- 

 tract. They held that a railway concession was a law, an act of the 

 sovereignty of the state which created, it was true, acquired rights, 

 but which the state could always modify so long as it did not violate 

 the acquired rights; and that the proposed law of accountability vio- 

 lated no right. The majority of the chambers took this view, and 

 the act was passed March 27, 1896. A referendum was called for, and 

 the act was approved by the people after an exciting campaign, 

 223,228 electors voting aye, and 176,577 no, out of a total of 714,- 

 033 entitled to vote. 



The acceptance by the people of the law of accountability opened 

 the way for ultimately buying in the lines. Wliile some persons 

 probably voted for accountability who did not really favor purchase, 



