6i8 POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



Economical and financial arguments were also extensively used 

 by the opponents of purchase, and were brought forward with much 

 force in two pamphlets which created much sensation in the coun- 

 try — one by ex-President ISTuma Droz, and the other by Dr. J. 

 Steiger. The question was asked in these publications whether the 

 railroads, in the hands of the confederation, would yield a financial 

 return that would permit the realization of the hopes of improvement 

 in the service without risk to other interests of the confederation to 

 which the project of purchase had given rise. They reviewed the 

 propositions which the federal council had emitted on this subject, 

 and attempted to show that it had failed to take account of several 

 items which might tend to increase the expenditure side of the 

 budget. No allowance had been made for the expenses of improve- 

 ment and construction and completion of the lines, which had cost 

 the five companies thirteen million francs a year; or for the cost of 

 tunneling the Simplon and making the eastern extensions that were 

 promised; or for the loss of receipts that would be incurred through 

 the promised reduction of rates. It seemed a probable result of the 

 calculations made by the authors that the working-expense budget 

 of the federal railroads would have to bear a considerable deficiency, 

 which would not permit the extinction of the debt by the middle of 

 the next century, but would rather tend to increase it. In order, 

 therefore, to avoid too great annual deficits, the federal administra- 

 tion would have to work the railroads in a spirit of the strictest 

 economy, and instead of reducing rates might have to raise them. 

 There were no provisions in the law to prevent this, all propositions 

 to insert them having been rejected. 



MM. Droz, Steiger, and those who agreed with them held, there- 

 fore, that the purchase would be a bad financial operation for the 

 state. And, then, would it not be dangerous for a small country like 

 Switzerland to contract an enormous debt which it would be difficult 

 to extinguish and of which it might at most only pay the interest? 

 Might not the existence of considerable obligations, partly held 

 abroad, compromise the financial independence of the confederation? 

 "Why run these risks when the necessity of economizing might pre- 

 vent the confederation from fulfilling the promises of which the 

 partisans of purchase had been lavish in its name ? 



Some of the other arguments urged in the discussion were less 

 legitimate, and some appealed to prejudices which exist, it seems, in 

 Switzerland as well as in America, against corporations and foreign 

 bondholders. The campaign was one of the most exciting that had 

 been witnessed for a long time in the republic. During January and 

 February, 1898, public opinion was occupied with no other question. 

 Numerous public meetings were held in all the cantons, pamphlets 



