A MODEL OF PATRIOTISM.

ON August 1st every year the Swiss celebrate their national fete day. The day is to them what July 4th is to the United States and July 14th to Prance ; it is the day when they recall the victory of three small States against the House of Habsburg. The struggle with the Austrians of course

went on for centuries, and was tempered with phases of friend- ship, but the year 1291, which is the subject of veneration on the national fete day, was the beginning of Swiss independ- ence. A correspondent described in the Times of Tuesday the character of the celebration. We were much struck by the emphasis laid on the delicacy and reticence of the rejoicings. There was nothing official ; there were no public banquets ; no striking parades ; no fuss, noise, or boasting. And yet the patriotism of the Swiss is one of the most effective patriotisms in Europe. The Swiss serves his country as a soldier with more cheerfulness and more intelligence than any citizen in Europe, but he does not need to keep his patriotism up to the mark with any of the Dutch courage of vainglorious rhetoric.

The Swiss did not imitate their glorified militia from some other country. They invented it for themselves. The whole heart of the country is put into it. Many of its superior officers may be hotel-keepers in Lucerne, Geneva, or Bale, but the problems of war are the recreation of their leisure. Rifle-shooting is the bobby and pastime of the whole youth of the country—it is what cricket or football is to us—and when a young man has served his time in the elite of the Army he receives his rifle as a present from the State, is proud of it and takes as much care of it as a sportsman in England takes care of his gun. Not long ago the Swiss were asked by means of a poll of the people whether they were willing to accept a. Bill which laid on them a longer period of service and the burden of more military expenditure. By a great majority they answered " Yes." The result of a poll of the people is fre- quently a negative. Here, if ever, one would have expected a negative. Surely this extraordinary incident is worth pon- dering.

The correspondent of the Times says that it is the "free- dom from official organization which gives such a personal character to the festivities of August 1st." In town and village nothing happens till the evening. At eight o'clock the bells in every belfry in the land are set ringing, and at dark bonfires are lit upon the hills and young and old sing, " 0 Monts Independents," which goes to our time of " God Save the King." The correspondent quotes M. Philippe Monnier, the Swiss novelist, who died three weeks ago, as writing of this simple celebration of bells and bonfires : " It is spontaneous like a scrap of happiness which has its birth one evening in a family. Its only origin is the unpremeditated harmony of heart and spirit." Again Monnier says :—

" One must not always say "Pattie, patrie.' It is a profana- tion. The feeling for one's country is an exceedingly delicate feeling, which has its shyness and its reserve, its silences and its exquisite discretion. It belongs to the ineffable. A divine emotion, a movement of worship, it is in the depths of the heart, in the secret places of the conscience. With us it is something beyond expression and incapable of being formulated. When an orator apostrophizes it in the tribune decorated with a flag the image of it takes flight in terror, for it is nervous of fine language. But when a tiny people gathers by itself on the slopes of a field, when it listens in the silence to the deep voice of the bells, when it watches the splendid flames rising in the night and spontaneously, without wishing, without knowing, begins of its own accord, in spite of the airs it hardly grasps, in spite of the words it barely understands, to sing with all its heart and voice, then the mystery, sheltering close in the folds of the soul—the fugitive image—finds its home and sometimes consents to stay."

M. Monnier may have read the chapter in Mr. Sipling's " Stalky and Co." called " The Flag of their Country." There Mr. Kipling describes the horror, the unexpressed and inexpres-

sible shame and sense of outraged modesty; which lays hold of the boys when the well-meaning but fatally gushing member of Parliament addresses the school on patriotism—a school largely composed of the sons of men who had served, and, perhaps, died, in the Array and Navy. Mr. Kipling describes the audience, the speaker, and the speech :—

" Now the reserve of a boy is tenfold deeper than the reserve of a maid, she being made for one end only by blind Nature, but man for several. With a large and healthy hand, he tore down these veils, and trampled them under the well-intentioned feet of elo- quence. In a raucous voice he cried aloud little matters, like the hope of Honour and the dream of Glory, that boys do not discuss even with their most intimate equals; cheerfully assuming that, till he spoke, they had never considered these possibilities. He pointed them to shining goals, with fingers which smudged out all radiance on all horizons. He profaned the most secret places of their souls with outcries and gesticulations. He bade them con- sider the deeds of their ancestors in such fashion that they were flushed to their tingling ears. Some of them—the rending voice cut a frozen stillness—might have had relatives who perished in defence of their country. [They thought, not a few of them, of an old sword in a passage, or above a breakfast-room table, seen and fingered by stealth since they could walk.} He adjured them to emulate those illustrious examples; and they looked all ways in their extreme discomfort. Their years forbade them even to shape their thoughts clearly to themselves. They felt savagely that they were being outraged by a fat man who considered marbles a game. And so he worked towards his peroration— which, by the way, he used later with overwhelming success at a meeting of electors—while they sat, flushed and uneasy, in sour disgust. After many, many words, he reached for the cloth- wrapped stick and thrust one hand in his bosom. This—this was the concrete symbol of their land—worthy of all honour and rever- ence ! Let no boy look on this flag who did not purpose to worthily add to its imperishable lustre. He shook it before them—a. large calico Union Jack, staring in all three colours, and waited for the thunder of applause that should crown his effort. They looked in silence. They had certainly seen the thing before—down at the coastguard station, or through a telescope, half-mast high when a brig went ashore on Braunton Sands ; above the roof of the Golf Club, and in Keyte's window, where a certain kind of striped sweetmeat bore it in paper on each box. But the College never displayed it ; it was no part of the scheme of their lives ; the Head had never alluded to it ; their fathers had not declared it unto them. It was a matter shut up, sacred and apart. What, in the name of everything caddish, was he driving at, who waved that horror before their eyes."

All Englishman of delicacy must have felt hot with dread lest a festival like Empire Day—which is a splendid and desir- able institution when properly managed (for even reverence

for such a symbol as the national flag needs to be taught)— should fall under the control of vulgar persons without restraint or humour, who would turn the thing into a ridiculous and humiliating circus.

Now, is it not, as we said, worth pondering that the Swiss, who make more cheerful sacrifices than any nation in Europe, should be so restrained in doing public honour to the motive

which inspires them P To them it is more important to act than to talk. Being a truly " sovereign people,"

they accept the only admissible democratic principles that there should be no undertaking of war without personal re- sponsibility, and that the duty of defending the State is one of the essential obligations of citizenship. It passes our understanding why it should be difficult to induce any political party in Great Britain to admit the same logic and consent to the adoption of a scheme which would put an end to the present system of taxing—for that is what it amounts to-- those who wish to fulfil the rudimentary duty of defence.

Political rights and the obligation of defending the country ought to be interdependent. Such an interdependence is delight- fully and quaintly illustrated in Switzerland in those cantons (Uri, Unterwalden, Appenzell, and Glarus) which have preserved their ancient assemblies—remnants of the original Teutonic councils of the people. The burghers of each canton assemble themselves together on a certain spring day in the open air to choose a. committee of government. You may see the burghers walking to the meeting place with their swords at their sides and their umbrellas in their hands. Could either the sword or the, umbrella be displaced as an adequate emblem of the combined responsibilities of the complete citizen P We think not. Those who imagine that any Swiss army must only be meant for show forget, perhaps, that men who became mercenaries in the pay of other countries did so, after all, because they liked being soldiers ; and it is too often forgotten how gallant was the unsuccessful resistance of the Schwyzers and the tinter- waldners to the French. The name of Alois Reding, who for two months held the heights of Morgarten, is still an inspire• tion to the Swiss soldier. The willing sacrifice by the men of Switzerland to-day is bound to be matched in the women. We can imagine nothing better for the health of any society than that the women should see that the men are one and all devoted to the service of the State, but that their service is different from the service of women; that the differences of sex are expressed in the clear differences of service ; and that thus the perfect co- operation of men and women, the unity in disparity, is main- tained. We remember hearing a woman speaker say, "I know of only one woman's right. Every woman has a right to a man to defend her. Personally I should prefer that he were trained for the job." Wordsworth, we fancy, would be able to write with more emphasis than ever now the noble concluding lines of his description of the Helvetian maid in his " Three Cottage Girls."

" How blest (if truth may entertain Coy fancy with a bolder strain) The Helvetian Girl—who daily braves, In her light skiff, the tossing waves, And quits the bosom of the deep Only to climb the rugged steep ! —Say whence that modulated shout ! From Wood-nymph of Diana's throng ? Or does the greeting to a rout Of giddy Bacchanals belong ? Jubilant outcry ! rock and glade Resounded—but the voice obeyed The breath of an Helvetian Maid.

Her beauty dazzles the thick wood; Her courage animates the flood ; Her steps the elastic green-sward meets Returning unreluctant sweets ; The mountains (as ye heard) rejoice Aloud, saluted by her voice !

Blithe Paragon of Alpine grace, Be as thou art—for through thy veins The blood of Heroes runs its race !

And nobly wilt thou brook the chains That for the virtuous, Life prepares ; The fetters which the Matron wears; The patriot Mother's weight of anxious cares !"