The Swiss have rejected their new Constitution by a majority
of about 5,000, and a cantonal vote of 13 to 9, and the project must therefore be abandoned. The idea of the reformers was to transfer to the Federal Government the control of the Army, of education, of criminal law, of inter-cantonal disputes, and of com- munal rights, and to arrange that any law of any kind proposed by five cantons and sanctioned by a plebiscite should be valid without further ado. This plan would have changed the Federal Government into a Republic one and indivisible, and interfered with local prejudices too seriously to be accepted. It went, in fact, far beyond the provisions of the United States' Constitution, and changed the Cantons from States into mere municipalities. It is believed that a new proposal will be made to centralise the Army alone, and that this, which is inevitable if the Swiss Army is to be a good one, will be carried without difficulty.
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