NATIONALIZATION OF SWISS BAIL WAYS. 615 



special organizations and offices. Further, great advantages would 

 be gained in the matter of support and supervision of the lines, the 

 security of the traffic, easier adjustment of time schedules, and inter- 

 national relations, if a single administration was created. The local 

 service would be ameliorated, for a single administration would be 

 able to give the unproductive lines advantages realized on the pro- 

 ductive ones, while private companies would naturally serve the pro- 

 ductive lines first, and do no more than was indispensable — often, 

 indeed, than the least provided for in the concessions — for the sec- 

 ondary lines. 



To the advantages derived from consolidation would accrue those 

 arising from administration by the state, which would look to 

 securing a working advantageous to the whole public, while to private 

 companies the advantage of stockholders would always be sought 

 first. It would be able to effect desired reforms in rates, making them 

 uniform where they were now various, often to a considerable degree, 

 with inconvenient complications arising. 



The necessity of gradually extinguishing the capitalized obliga- 

 tions of the railways was insisted upon. By about the middle of the 

 next century the countries around Switzerland would be in possession 

 of unincumbered systems, provisions to bring such a result about 

 being already in operation in France, Prussia, Austria, etc. Switzer- 

 land ought to follow the example of these nations, else it would then 

 find itself in an inferior position as to them. They would be able, 

 among other things, to make great reductions in their tariffs, which, 

 if Switzerland could not meet them, would expose it to disastrous 

 competition. The extinction of the railroad debt should be attended 

 to now. If it was put off till the next time purchase would be pos- 

 sible, or till 1913, there would be no possibility of completing the 

 enterprise before the middle of the century. It was further held to 

 be necessary to rid the railroads of the foreign influences to which 

 they were subject because of so large a part of their stock and 

 obligations being held by capitalists abroad, a condition politically 

 mischievous and humiliating to the country; and the flow of money 

 out of the country in dividends to these alien holders would be 

 stopped. 



Other arguments were addressed to particular classes, especially 

 to the men employed on the lines, to whom the particular advantages 

 of state service over private were held out in all their tempting 

 aspects. 



The law of repurchases having passed, October 15, 1897, the 

 opposition to it canvassed all the cantons in order to obtain the 

 thirty thousand signatures required by the Constitution of the re- 

 public to secure its reference to a direct vote of the people. Consid- 



