CONSERVATIVE DEMOCRACY IN SWITZERLAND.
[TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPECTATOR.")
SIR,—In your article of last Saturday on " Conservative Democracy in Switzerland," you remark on the seemingly singular fact that Swiss writers generally have their works published elsewhere than in Switzerland. For this anomaly there. is a very good reason. The Confederation has no laws for the protection of literary property, nor of property in inven- tions. Hence, when a man makes a book, he brings it out, in the first instance almost necessarily, in Leipzig, in Paris, or in Berlin. This peculiarity explains the apparent rarity of Swiss authors ; for when a book is printed in France or Germany, it is naturally supposed to have been written by a Frenchman or a German, as the case may be.
Your observations on the Conservative effect of the Referendum are both true and timely, inasmuch as the popular veto is gener- ally considered, outside Switzerland, as something almost wildly democratic. This device, which makes the nearest approach po :Able in a large community to the system of legislation by the entire adult male population, as preached in the primitive Cantons, is being gradually introduced into the Swiss " Romande " (meaning " French Switzerland," a term, however, which the Swiss among themselves never use), as a local institution ; and so thoroughly is its Con- servative tendency recognised that, as in the case of Geneva an'l Neuchatel, only the other day, an amendment of their re- spective Constitutions in this sense was opposed by the Ultra- Democratic party, on the ground that the vote populaire fueO- t-tkwas an undemocratic measure, and supported by the Conser- vative.4 as an efficient check on hasty legislation, and adopted by a large majority of the people. The political institutions of Switzerland, in the main, are essentially Teutonic, and, as in the instance I have quoted, the Teutonic idea in politics tends to prevail ; but the social ideas which are most gaining ground are, perhaps, those of France and the Swiss Romande.—I am
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