810 



SWEDEN AND NORWAY. 



SWITZERLAND. 



bring on a collision with the crown. The Radi- 

 cal party in Sweden has sympathized with the 

 Norwegians in this matter. All diplomatic in- 

 tercourse is conducted by the Swedish Minister 

 of Foreign Affairs, who is expected to consult the 

 delegation at Stockholm of the Norwegian 

 Council. Nearly all diplomatic posts abroad, 

 and even the consulships, are filled by Swedes. 

 The first demand of the Norwegians, that they 

 should be represented more equally in the con- 

 sular service because their commercial relations 

 are more extended and their mercantile navy 

 three times as large as that of Sweden, was dis- 

 regarded. The officials at Stockholm held that 

 Norwegians are generally unfitted by their politi- 

 cal associations and lack of training to represent 

 the Government abroad with dignity and effi- 

 ciency. Minister Stang arranged a compromise 

 with the Swedish Government, which promised 

 at last to give Norwegians a larger proportion of 

 the offices. When defeated on this question by 

 a majority of 4 in a full Storthing, he resigned. 

 The King, on his advice, sent for the mover of 

 the resolution, but M. Berner declined, recom- 

 mending that either the question should be de- 

 ferred a little longer by the formation of a cab- 

 inet of affairs, or that M. Steen, rector of the 

 gymnasium at Stavanger, who is the leader of 

 the Pure Left, should be intrusted with the man- 

 agement of the business. The latter course was 

 adopted on the advice of the retiring ministers. 

 M. Steen accepted the task of forming a min- 

 istry, with the understanding that proposals for 

 the modification of the Act of Union of 1814, 

 and other important reforms, should not be 

 brought forward until it could be seen by the 

 results of the general election in December, 1891, 

 whether the country approved the Radical pro- 

 gramme. He completed the list on March 4, re- 

 fusing to admit any representatives of the Mod- 

 erate Liberals, although he would be obliged to 

 depend on their votes for the conduct of all pub- 

 lic business, for they numbered 23 in the Storth- 

 ing, and the Pure Left 38, while the Conserv- 

 atives held 53 seats. The portfolios were as- 

 signed as follows : J. C. W. Steen, Minister of 

 State and Chief of the Department of Finance 

 and Customs : H. H. T. Nyom, Chief of the De- 

 partment of Public Works and of that of Revis- 

 ion of Accounts ad interim; V. A. Wexelsen, 

 Worship and Public Instruction ; O. A. Qvam, 

 Justice and Police; Lieut.-Col. 0. F. Hoist, Na- 

 tional Defense; W. Konow, Interior; Minister 

 of State at Stockholm, 0. A. Blehr ; Councilors 

 in the section sitting at Stockholm, C. Berner and 

 J. 0. Lange. 



The Radical or National party, which was 

 strengthened by the preliminary elections dar- 

 ing the year, added to its. programme the ques- 

 tion of extension of the suffrage, which has been 

 opposed by the hitherto dominant Agrarian 

 party. When the elections were concluded the 

 Radicals had gained the absolute majority. 



Congress on the Punishment of Crime. 

 The third congress of the International Associa- 

 tion for the Consideration of Questions relating 

 to Crimes and Criminals was held in Christiania 

 in August. It passed a resolution recommend- 

 ing the imposition of money fines in many cases 

 as a substitute for imprisonment or more violent 

 penalties. It was recommended further that, in 



assessing the fines, courts should adjust them to 

 the pecuniary means of offenders, fixing the 

 maximum very high and the minimum low ; 

 that the fines should be made payable in install- 

 ments, if the prisoners were unable to pay them 

 at once ; and that, when sentenced to imprison- 

 ment, a prisoner should have the option of pay- 

 ing a fine as a means of reducing the term. The 

 congress disapproved the proposition to convert 

 sentences into imprisonment in cases where crim- 

 inals were too poor to pay their fines. 



SWITZERLAND, a federal republic in cen- 

 tral Europe. The perpetual neutrality of Switz- 

 erland and the integrity and inviolability of her 

 territory were guaranteed by Austria, Great 

 Britain, Portugal, Prussia, and Russia in Novem- 

 ber, 1815. The Constitution adopted after the 

 war of the Sonderbund in 1848 created two legis- 

 lative chambers the National Assembly, repre- 

 senting the Swiss people as a whole, and the 

 Council of States, representing the cantons and 

 vested the executive authority in a Federal Coun- 

 cil of 7 members. Switzerland thus was trans- 

 formed from a league of republics into a federal 

 republic; and a further centralization was 

 brought about by the unification of the army and 

 the laws when the Constitution was revised in 

 1874. The Council of States, or Standerath, has 

 two members from each of the 22 cantons, each 

 independent part of the divided cantons of Basel, 

 Appenzell, and Unterwald sending 1 member. 

 The Nationalrat.h, or National Council, contains 

 147 representatives of the nation, chosen by uni- 

 versal suffrage in the proportion of 1 to every 

 20,000 inhabitants. Although the two bodies 

 have equal and concurrent powers, the popular 

 body has come to be the more important. Sit- 

 ting together, the two chambers form the United 

 Federal Assembly, which elects the Federal 

 Council and the Federal Tribunal. In debate 

 each representative uses his own language. Ger- 

 man, French, or Italian. In 1891 a bill was 

 passed ordering official reports of the legislative 

 proceedings to be printed in the future. The 

 Federal Council is elected by the Federal Assem- 

 bly or Bundesversammlung for three years. No 

 two men from one canton can be members of the 

 same Council, and when Deputies are elected 

 their seats in the chambers become vacant. The 

 attributes of the Council are to enforce the pro- 

 visions of the Federal Constitution, to execute 

 the acts of the Assembly and of the Tribunal, to 

 administer the finances, to examine laws passed 

 by the cantonal governments and to settle dis- 

 putes arising between them, and see that they 

 fulfill their obligations toward the Confederation. 

 Except in foreign affairs their duties are chiefly 

 ministerial, yet in shaping legislation they exer- 

 cise great influence both individually and as a 

 body. Each member of the Council presides 

 over one of the executive departments. The 

 president of the Confederation is one of the 

 members of the Council, who is elected by his 

 colleagues for one year to the position, which is 

 now simply titular, for it no longer gives the in- 

 cumbent the charge of the most important de- 

 partment of the Government. 



The communes of Switzerland preserve in a 

 large degree their ancient autonomy. The Feder- 

 al Constitution is a counterpart of the main 

 features of the political organization of the indi- 



