SWITZERLAND. 



829 



one laws and passed fourteen resolutions sub- 

 ject to ratification by popular vote, of which 

 .fifty-three laws and twelve resolutions were 

 suffered to go into effect without any appeal 

 to the people.* Of the eight acts and two 

 resolves which were subjected to a plebiscite, 

 five acts and one resolve were vetoed by the 

 people. These were the military tax pro- 

 jects of 1876 and 1877, the bank-note project 

 of 1876, the proposed amendment of the Con- 

 stitution to allow the emission of national bank- 

 notes in 1880, and the proposed electoral law 

 in 1877. Those which were ratified by the 

 popular vote were the civil list law in 1875, 

 the factory law in 1877, the Alpine Railway 

 subvention law in 1879, and the resolution in 

 relation to the restoration of the death-penalty 

 in 1879. 



After the murder of the Czar, in St. Peters- 

 burg, earnest representations were made by 

 the Russian Government, with the object of 

 inducing Switzerland to curtail the right of 

 asylum extended to Russian revolutionaries, 

 many of whom were resident in Geneva, Zurich, 

 and Basel. A fanciful story, printed by the 

 French socialistic journalist, Rochefort, of rev- 

 elations which he pretended or supposed he 

 had received from Russian Nihilists in Switz- 

 erland, represented the refugees in Switzer- 

 land as the authors and directors of the plot 

 for the assassination of the Russian Emperor. 

 An investigation of the Swiss authorities failed 

 to 'establish any connection between them and 

 the assassins in Russia, and showed that they 

 had not communicated by telegraph with 

 Rochefort. The threatened restriction of the 

 rights of asylum and of assembly was the occa- 

 sion of meetings and public protests in the 

 cities where the social- democratic element was 

 numerous. The Federal Council determined 

 on a more restrictive course, but met with lit- 

 tle support in the new policy from the local 

 governments. In Geneva placards, protesting 

 against the execution of the female Nihilists 

 in Russia, were posted, with the official per- 

 mission of the police department. One of the 

 prominent Nihilist refugees, Prince Krapotkin, 

 who had long been domiciled in Switzerland, 

 was expelled by order of the Federal Council. 

 The agitation against the restriction of the 

 right of asylum was more than counterbal- 

 anced by a contrary agitation, prompted by 

 the fear that the independence of Switzerland 

 was compromised by the attitude of the radical 

 elements, and by hostility to the spreading doc- 

 trines of socialism. The Socialists of Europe 

 had made preparations for a congress, to bo 

 held in Zurich on the 2d of September. Many 

 thousands of the citizens of Zurich signed pe- 

 titions for the prohibition of this convention. 

 It was forbidden by the cantonal government, 

 and an appeal to the courts, based on an arti- 

 cle in the Constitution, guaranteeing unre- 



* The referendum is a provision In the constitution of 

 1874, giving a certain number of electors the riirht to require 

 a popular vote to bo taken upon any act passed by the Fed- 



stricted rights of assembly and free discussion, 

 proved fruitless. The Bernese authorities like- 

 wise refused permission for the Socialist dele- 

 gates to meet in Bern. A few of them event- 

 ually came together, secretly, at Chur, went 

 through their order of business in form, and 

 appointed a congress in Paris in 1883. 



In negotiations with the French Govern- 

 ment with regard to connecting the Swiss 

 railroads with a new French line through 

 Savoy by a branch from Geneva to Annemasse, 

 the subject of the guaranteed neutrality of 

 Savoy carne under consideration. In former 

 diplomatic discussions between the two states 

 this matter has been avoided as a delicate ques- 

 tion.* France endeavored to obtain a recog- 

 nition from the Swiss plenipotentiaries of her 

 right to fortify her frontier in the neutralized 

 territory, but, failing of this, dropped the mat- 

 ter as one of no practical importance, since 

 Switzerland's protest against the annexation 

 of Savoy and claims to that province have 

 practically no moral, physical, or logical basis. 



The Swiss army is composed of the elite, or 

 the portion of the militia which is in regular 

 training, consisting of young men between 

 twenty and thirty-two years of age, and the 

 Landwehr, consisting of those between thirty- 

 two and forty-four years of age, who have 

 passed through the regular drill. The Land- 

 wehr have hitherto been called out for annual 

 inspection only, but according to the present 

 regulations they are obliged to train for a num- 

 ber of days each year. The total legal stre'ngth 

 of the Swiss army is 215,000; its effective 

 strength, according to the report for 1881, was 

 202,479 men ; in the elite, 105,425, being a few 

 thousands above the legal quota ; in the Land- 

 wehr, 97,054, or about 14,000 short of the legal 

 quota. A commission appointed to devise a 

 system of defensive works approved in their 

 majority report of a single central fortress near 

 Zurich, where the troops could be concentrated 

 rapidly, instead of the burdensome system of 

 frontier fortifications. 



The population of Switzerland, according to 

 the decennial census which was taken in the 

 night of November 30, 1880, was 2,831,787, as 

 compared with 2,655,001 in 1870, 2,510,794 in 

 1860, and 2,390,116 in 1850. The largest in- 



eral Legislature. The appeal to the people must bo made 

 within a stated period. The same democratic conservative 

 check upon legislation was adopted into the constitutions of 

 eleven of the cantons. 



* The Vienna Treaty of 1S15 extended over the Sardinian 

 provinces of Chablais and Fauclgny, and the territory north 

 of I 'fines and beyond Kavergcs to the Lake of Kourgot and 

 the river Klx'ine. tho truarantco of the neutrality of the Swiss 

 dominions subscribe to bv all the powers. The treaty pro- 

 vided that whenever hostilities broke out or were impending 

 between neighboring states, tho Kin): of Sardinia should with- 

 draw all his troops from these provinces, and that the Swiss 

 Confederation might occupy them temporarily for the pre- 

 vention of the invasion or transit of foreign forces. 'Franco 

 after her annexation of Savoy found no occasion before tho 

 present to repudiate this remarkable guarantee of a divided 

 sovereignty, though the Swiss at the time of the Sardinian 

 war had shown a disposition to magnify it into a ground for 

 annexing the provinces themselves, and have stnro in.itod in 

 academic discussions on the fall force of the obsolete stipula- 

 tions. 



