IMPOVERISHED SWITZERLAND.
(To vas EMT°. OF rue “arsernres."
Ste.,—I have before me your issues of January 23rd, January 30th, and February 6th, and have watched the correspondence between Professor J. W. Adamson and Mr. H. Stuart Thomson under the heading "Impoverished Switzerland." Both these gentlemen, as yourself in your editorial comment, give evidence of an extremely kind interest in my country, which I hope it may continue to justify. There would be a way, in direct relation with the present war, to show sympathy with the men of Switzerland who hurried home, from all parts of the world where waves the British flag, to the defence of Swiss neutrality. The official returns show that quite forty thousand men—fully trained soldiers and officers—came to swell the Army units, sacrificing in that way their situations, offices, employments, and business. Many left their wives and children without any means of support, even borrowed money and sold their furniture to reach Switzerland by devious courses on the troubled surface of the globe, remaining sometimes more than three weeks on the way and spending nil the cash they could get in hand.
Many of those men are now being granted leave to return to the places where they have their friends, family ties, and responsibilities. But most of them will find that their occupation is gone. Those have to start afresh, having sacrificed position and livelihood for the sake of country. Their places in the units of the Army are being filled by volunteers who, having lost their occupations as civilians in Switzerland itself in consequence of the war, are quite ready to fall into the places of the men we are sending back to their foreign homes, as sheer humanity demands.
The wish I would express—if I dare—is that the Swiss soldiers returning to their homes within the British Empire, and who, by producing their livret militaire for inspection, can show how promptly they answered the call of country, may be restored as sympathetically as possible to their former means of livelihood or to some equivalent occupation. I venture to think that this would be the wisest manner in which those could offer assistance who wish to befriend the Swiss, and also the most dignified attitude in which the Swiss could be placed who should accept marks of kindness from people who would reward in this case above all things devotion to one's country and self-sacrifice in serving it —I am, Sir, dm, The University, Geneva, Switzerland. F. F. ROWSE.
[The record of Swiss patriotism with which Professor Roget furnishes us warms the heart, but it does not surprise us. We expected nothing leas from the men who maintain the mountain outpost of liberty. We sincerely hope that all persons here or in the Empire who have had Switzers in their employment will note and act on Professor Roget's sugges- tion. May the ties between us and the Swiss never be relaxed! —En. Spectator.]
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