so it would be in biennials or quadrennials. The simple question is, is the election worth the expense? My answer is, yes; and it would warrant a much larger expense if the end were not to be gained otherwise. The community finds its voice only in elections. Legislatures are its only representatives; laws its only expression. The annual election is also an important school for the education of voters, and is worth all it costs, either in money or in time devoted to "agitation."

THE INITIATIVE IN SWITZERLAND,

W. D. MACCRACKAN, A.M.

Condensed for THE LITERary Digest from a Paper in
Arena, Boston, April.

THE WRITER of this article is the author of "The Rise of the
Swiss Republic," published last summer by the Arena Com-
pany, and which was reviewed in THE LITERARY DIGEST,
Vol. V., No. 16. He has spent much time in Switzerland, and
has made a very thorough study of her institutions.
THE
THE Iniative may be defined as the right of a voter, or body
of voters, to initiate proposals for legislation, The
amendment incorporated into the Federal Constitution of the
Swiss Confederation on the 7th day of July, 1891, makes this
right applicable :

"When fifty thousand voters demand the enactment, abolition, or alteration of special articles of the Federal Constitution." * A Federal law to regulate the practical application of this principle was passed on the 27th of January, 1892.

It is to be noticed that, although the Initiative is made to apply only to constitutional amendments, the line of distinction between statute law and common law is so loosely drawn

desired reform. This would be extremely difficult under our present system of entire disfranchisement of minorities in the matter of representation. But if, perchance, the representative be secured, and the Bill introduced, it may not even be noticed, much less discussed.

Two other courses are open-petition and bribery. The second of these I dismiss, as useless to those who are striving for clean government. Petition is often resorted to; but the signatures of the sovereign people are rarely treated seriously by politicians, when attached merely to requests, and unaccompanied by a direct command.

The privilege of petition must not be confounded with the right of the Initiative. The latter is a demand made upon the Government by a body of voters to discuss a certain project and to return it to the people for final approval or disapproval. The authorities are obliged to take it into consideration, or to draw up a Bill of their own incorporating the same principle. At present seventeen Swiss cantons out of twenty-five have incorporated the Initiative in some form into their constitu

tions; and as the Federal Government has now followed, it cannot be long before the entire Confederation will be governed upon the same principles.

The Swiss statesmen have solved one of the great political problems of the ages: how to enable great masses of people to govern themselves directly. Ever keeping in view the system of the popular assembly, which is ideally perfect and is eternally grounded in the very nature of man, they invented the Initiative and the Referendum, and grafted them upon the representative system; thus rescuing the essence, the vital principle of the popular assembly (or "town meeting") from perishing miserably before the exigencies of modern life. For in its last

The Initiative is the necessary carollary of the Referendum, by means of which laws framed by the representatives must be submitted to the people for final acceptance or rejection. Both institutions are mediums for the expression of the popular will, from different points of view. The Referendum is a passive force: it says merely "aye" or nay," and is essentially judiciary in character. The Initiative, on the other hand, is an active, creative force; it supplies the progressive element in the process of legislation, while the Referendum acts as a critical, controlling check upon the adoption of laws. Taken together, these two institutions form the most perfect contrivance for the conduct of self-government. They create a sort of political pendulum which carries certain expressions of the public will directly from the people to the Legislature, and back again to the people for their verdict.

In the United States how can a question in which many voters are interested, but which has not yet entered the domain of "practical politics," be brought into the channels of legislation? The most obvious method is by electing a representative pledged to lay before the House a Bill incorporating the *" Proposals may be made in the form of general suggestions or of finished Bills.

If such a proposal is made in the form of a general suggestion, and the Federal Houses are in favor of it, they must elaborate an amendment in the sense demanded by the initiators, and lay it before the people and the cantons for acceptance or rejection. If the Federal Houses are not in favor of the proposal, the question of whether there is to be an amendment at all must first be voted upon by the people; and if the majority of the Swiss citizens who vote pronounce in the affirmative, the Federal Houses must elaborate the amendment in the sense demanded by the people.

"If the proposal is made in the form of a finished Bill, and the Federal Houses are in favor of it, the Bill must be laid before the people and the cantons for acceptance or rejection. In case the Federal Houses are not in favor of it, they can prepare a Bill of their own, or move the rejection of the proposal, and then submit their own Bill or motion of rejection along with the original Bill to the vote of the people and the cantons."

this: a given number of voters propose legislation, through the medium of the Government, to the whole body of voters; the act being identical with that of the voter who rises in the popular assembly to propose a motion to his fellow voters.

Beside the elementary simplicity of this method of legislation, the stateliness of a House of Commons or the pomp of a House of Lords, the military displays of the Reichstag or the oratory of the Chamber of Deputies seem tawdry and tricky makeshifts. The very smartness of our House of Representatives and the much-vaunted (but fast-vanishing) respectability of our Senate seem empty shams, unfit for freemen to acknowledge, much less admire. For it is only in uncertain accents and with faltering purpose that the will of the sovereign people is made known in those imposing, but deceptive bodies.

-

some cantons the In those cantons There are the obli

The Referendum in Switzerland. Many misconceptions exist about the Referendum as it is used in Switzerland. In These ought to be corrected. Referendum does not exist at all. where it exists, it is of three kinds. gatory Referendum at Zurich, Berne, Lucerne, Soleure. Bâle-campagne, Grisons, Argovie, Thurgovie; the facultative Referendum, that is, one taken upon the demand of a certain number of electors, at Lucerne, Bâle-ville, Scaffhouse, SaintGall, Tessin, Vaud, Neufchâtel, and Geneva; the partial Referendum, relating solely to some points named by the law, in Valais. In other cantons there is something resembling in a measure the facultative Referendum. In no canton, however, is the annual Budget ever submitted to the Referendum. Berne, formerly submitted to vote of the people a Budget for four years, but that system is abolished. Democracy, pure and simple, by the Landsgemeinde, without representation, still exists at Uri, in the two Unterwaldens, the two Appenzells, and at Glaris. Besides these cantonal provisions, there is in the Federal Constitution a Referendum which dates from 1864 only. This Referendum, as finally passed in 1874, is a facultative one, the Constitution providing that Federal

laws shall be submitted for adoption or rejection by the people, if a demand therefor is made by 30,000 active citizens or by eight cantons. This Federal Referendum has been but sparingly used. From 1874 to the end of 1891, it was tried nineteen times, in twelve of which only was the result against the law. Of these twelve, three were afterwards presented with new modifications, and passed without any interference on the part of the people. In Switzerland one finds this limited kind of Referendum, so sparingly employed, useful. In great countries, however, where public affairs are intricate and more or less mixed up with those of foreign States, the Referendum seems likely to have a disastrous effect, whether the population be intelligent or an ignorant and barbarous mass. -Professor C. Hilty, of the University of Berne, in Revue de Droit International et de Legislation Comparée, Brussels.

SWEDISH-NORWEGIAN CONFLICTS.
KNUD BERLIN.

Translated and Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper in
Tilskueren, Copenhagen, February.

. I.

THE NORWEGIAN-SWEDISH QUESTION is coming to the front in European politics. The bloodless conflict has hitherto brought Norway many advantages.. The Swedish policy of gaining time by allowing Norway her smaller claims has proved a false movement, for the Norwegians have gained ground and strength by each new move, and now feel strong enough to demand and to exact independent foreign representation, and, that gained, the end of the now hated union cannot be far off.

IN

N 1824, on the 10th of November, when the oath of fidelity had been taken by the new King, the first elected by the Swedish-Norwegian Union, the president of Norway's Storthing said that there could be no danger to the Union if both Kingdoms remembered that the honor and advantages of the one would also be those of the other, that if both would consent to sacrifice something when necessary, the day of union would be remembered as a blessing and celebrated as a feast-day. Time has proved the vanity of these words. The Union has been an unhappy one. The ties have become looser every year; hard words have been spoken; threats have been uttered, and the compact has been cursed. The time for reconciliation is long past, and the opportunity for restoration of the "marital' union is lost. The fate of the Union hastens to a decision. Norway, which has been fretting ever so long under Swedish supremacy, wants to go out of the Union and proclaim her independence.

This is the situation and history of the conflicting and unhappy union. The Swedes claim that, in the Kiel Peace transaction, the Danish King ceded Norway "with full right of possession and sovereignty" to the Swedish King; that the latter, undertaking only to recognize Norway's special privileges, could have continued a system of absolute government in Norway if he had desired so to do; for that was the system of government in Denmark, the sovereign of Norway. But the Swedish King did not continue the Danish system; he voluntarily resigned "the absolute " rule, and subscribed to the Constitution, which Norway in the meantime had adopted for herself. In other words, he ignored the sovereignty of the Danish King and recognized the Norwegians as independent and able to treat for themselves. If the Norwegians now disown that transaction, then the Swedish King, according to written International Law, has a right to enforce the stipulations of the Peace Treaty at Kiel, for Norway has never, according to International Law, been recognized as an independent State, able, on its own account, to enter upon any legal transaction with any other State.

Norway never recognized the Treaty of Kiel as binding for herself, and the popular opinion has always been that the Treaty of Kiel, whereby the Danish King "ceded" Norway, was a mere nominal transaction as regards Norway. The

unwritten law of nations recognizes Norway's right to determine her own fate and future.

So far as to the theory. Practically, Norway did not voluntarily seek union with Sweden. She accepted it, as Sars has so often said, as the least of two evils. Had she refused, Sweden would have made war upon her. What Norway really wanted was the realization of the Eidsvold Constitution and the government of Christian Frederik, the King of her own choice. The sore point is that Norway had to give up her own plans and submit to Sweden. This quiet, though enforced, submission to union is a wound never thoroughly healed, but still breaking open from time to time, when Norwegians begin to feel that they have grown strong, and have attained true national power.

In the introduction to the "Act of Union" it is stipulated that the Union is for "union in war and peace and for a King in common." It is, therefore, a "real union," not a "personal union"; it does not come to an end with the death of the 'King. But the "real union" is limited. In the "Act of Union" nothing is mentioned as common for both countries excepting the King, and war and peace" affairs; but long practice has caused both countries to have the same Ministers abroad and the same Consuls. Norway now demands separate Ministers and Consuls.

The first point of conflict between the two countries was the national flag; the next was Norway's demand for a national order of decoration. After much trouble she carried her point in both cases. Another question was, which of the two countries should be named first. Oscar I. decided that Norway should be mentioned first in all transactions relating to Norway, and vice verså for Sweden. Almost everywhere Norway has carried her demands, and the salient point is that these conflicts represent an emancipation struggle, the final purpose of which is total separation.

The present conflict about Consuls will probably be the beginning of the end of the Union, though the separation is not likely to take place without the shedding of blood.

E

SOCIOLOGICAL.

A WAR AGAINST WARS.

JOHANNES H. WISBY.

Condensed for THE LITERARY DIGEST from a Paper in
Social Economist, New York, March.

VERY duty we omit obscures some truth we should have known," Ruskin says, and the world seems really beginning to understand this practically. We slowly rise from words to action. We have been saying that war is murder, and now effort is made to abolish it. Many ridicule and decry these efforts, and military men regard it as a fanatical design, the imagery of mistaken philanthropy. "I admit," says the military skeptic, "that it is sad because of such loss of life, but war is necessary." We are inclined to think that this idea is rather a mouldy fragment of the temple of barbarism than a fundamental part of the fabric of our civilization. Since 1815 there have been over seventy cases of successful arbitration for the adjudication of international controversies.

How, from a purely religious point of view, can war be considered necessary, if the laws of State and Government are modeled upon the laws of God, the Gospel of peace? Never with a word or an allusion does Christ recommend war. His own placid, divinely balanced temperament is an historical as well as a religious protest against war, and His words accord with his example-" They that take the sword shall perish with the sword." Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God."

The civilization of the present needs a reëstablished Christianity, and a rehabilitated Christianity, to reinstate the Gospel

as originally preached. Surely, were the war-god divested of his blazonry and his smoke-wrapped tumult, and given the envenomed stiletto and the shrouding cloak of the assassin, the shoes of silence, and the death-rattle of the slain as his only visible and audible incitements, the magnetizing power of his eyes would die away, and the people would recognize themselves idolaters and put the god to death.

Another thing which overpowers the imagination is the traditional splendor of military processions. The bold, stirring music, the brilliant uniforms, the clashing sabres, the measured march, the waving banners, the resplendent helmets, suffice to delude the beholder and frequently prevail in his choice of a calling. Even women listen with tradition-hardened hearts to the thunder of battle, though their own sons may be gone,

never to return.

War is no more necessary for nations than is murder for individuals. If war is, as some maintain, a necessary evil, it is necessary only for evil purposes. Are we truly imbued with the spirit of humanity if we maintain that evil must be perpetuated to insure the progress of the race? We now regard dueling as an uncivilized means of settling personal misunderstandings or wrongs, but place armies opposite each other, let them mutilate and slaughter one another, and people call the struggle glorious. The mania of homicide is heroism.

The military officer of to-day retorts " But war makes nations brave, self-reliant, alert. It rouses a lofty spirit of self-sacrifice, it imbues the soldier with a glow of patriotism, it brings into action forces and qualities which would perish in the valley of perpetual peace." The bravery developed by war, it may be confidently asserted is declining. That cannot be true patriotism which will lead men to murder and incendiarism. The qualities and forces brought into action by war have never been of a nature to accomplish anything but evil deeds, and what Von Moltke apparently overlooked when he talked about the "educational value of war" is the licentiousness and profanity prevalent among soldiers and sailors. Statistics prove that a decrease in the male population invariably increases licentiousness; and what can be more ruinously effective in this direction than war?

It certainly takes time to shunt the mind off the track of inherited ideas, and this serves to support the opinion that the peace movement will be universally diffused, not by the vicissitudes of revolution, but by the steady progress of moral evolution. It is a struggle between sword and pen, between muscle and brain, between animalism and humanitarianism, between barbarians and practical Christianity.

Two observations suggested the writing of the book, the purpose of which is to indicate, in a general way, the direction in which we are drifting in political and social life. The first of these observations was that America is rapidly filling up, and will soon be constrained to restrict immigration. Turning next to South America, and seeing how little the white immigration prospers there, and then looking further afield to where the European races have formed colonies from which the natives cannot be displaced, or where the Chinese follow and swarm upon the pioneers, Mr. Pearson was led to the conclusion that "The lower races are increasing upon the higher, and will some day confine them to a portion of the temperate zone."

The American continent has room for an enormous popula

tion of the higher races, which may be expected to flourish in vast industrial communities, and though a vast, increasing negro population is taking hold of the Southern States, there is no native race to reckon with in America. In Southern Australia, too, where the climate is all that could be wished, and where also the native races have “ died out" before the approach of the white man, there are magnificent opportunities for the continuance and development of the higher races. But everywhere in Asia and Africa the prospect changes. There is, firstly, a vast difference of climate and, secondly, the neighbourhood of great populations to whom the climate is congenial, who are too hardy to die out before the approach of the white man, and who are daily taking lessons in the arts of advancement, and of the means of getting rid of intruders.

That native races must needs succumb to Europeans whereever they neighbour each other, is too wide and general a belief. Much depends on the quality of the native race, its numbers, its teachability in the arts of war and peace, and its superior measure of adaptability to climate. When these things are considered, it seems in the highest degree probable that China will limit. Russian expansion in Central Asia only as a prelude to still greater activity. The Chinese are spreading enormously in all the Malay countries, and most where they are under the protection of European settlements, which they are bound to supplant. Nothing," says Mr. Pearson, "but the most vigilant opposition of the Australian Democracies has kept the Chinese from becoming a power in that remote continent.” They have got a footing in South America, are spreading in the Pacific islands, and find their way freely to our African colonies.

On the subject of Africa, Mr. Pearson has a great deal to say which is very much to the point: the upshot of which is that the native races are not of the exterminable order, and, as in Natal, are increasing more rapidly than the European peoples; and this, he says, in consequence of the establishment of law and order. But the result, as Mr. Pearson points out, is that where the lower races stream in, the higher races begin to consider labour of all but the highest kind dishonourable; and from the moment that a white population will not work in its fields, mines, and factories, its doom is practically sealed." Its field of employment is reduced to narrow limits, and even here the native is rapidly being educated to com.pete with it. When that point is reached, the white race must move on."

According to Mr. Pearson's belief, that will be the fate of Natal, and of all the region between Natal and the Sahara. In short, when we set out to civilize races so eminently teachable as the Zulus, for example, we provide for our own extrusion. And so it is in every place where there are swarming populations capable and teachable. Their hostility is a matter of course, and nothing can be weaker or more foolish than assumptions to the contrary.

The drift of Mr. Pearson's argument is that the lower races under enforced law and order, increase faster than the higher, but the gist of his argument is that certain races which we regard as naturally inferior to Europeans are likely to increase very largely in comparison with the races which at present consitute what claims to be the civilized world; that we ourselves are the blind instruments of fate for multiplying those races; that while they increase in number they are taking lessons in science, in trade, and in war, and that as one great consequence of all this the European people will find themselves ousted from colonial enterprise in Africa and Asia, and gradually limited to a poor existence within their original confines. Mr. Pearson, however, believes in a growing preëminence of industrial conditions, and does not appear to consider that war will play any important part in determining the survival of the fittest. Indeed, he concludes, that with the rapid spread of the Black and Yellow Belt the habitual temper of mind in Europe would be profoundly changed. Depression accompanied by stagnation would replace the sanguine confidence of races now panting for new worlds to conquer.

"

Charity," for uş, means neighborly service"; "organization of charity," therefore, means" concerted action in neighborly service." The organization of charity, thus understood, involves two essential factors:

First, there must be a high and definite conception of human welfare, in so far as it can be affected by men's attempts to help their less fortunate fellows.

Secondly, there must be concerted action or division of labor in the light of this idea, and with a view to realizing it, between all persons and agencies that are attempting to do neighborly service.

"

In other words, it is the general principle of “organization' to work always on a plan, and that a plan based upon respect for character. Without such plan, there is great danger of interfering with other people's lives-a most grave responsibility-without a distinct conception of any good to be done them on the whole. Nothing undermines character so much as these chance interferences.

"Organization may be summed up as the transformation of a charitable chaos into an orderly and friendly neighborhood, in which rich and poor consult together and unite their resources with a clear, concerted idea, not only for the relief of individual cases, but especially for the control of general influences. When this is done, if there are still gaps in the array of institutions they may be filled up. But usually there are plenty of workers and plenty of institutions; yet, because the workers are untrained, and both workers and institutions are unorganized, little has been done that is beneficial, and everything that is injurious. When the same person is helped ignorantly by several different agencies, sometimes also by several religious denominations, the result becomes positively horrible: it forces the poor into fraud. It is all very well not to let your right hand know what your left hand does; but if your right is Presbyterian and your left Roman Catholic, and both are helping the same person, it becomes advisable that they interchange information.

Doles and overlapping, together with indiscriminate or careless administration of public or semi-public relief, form the down-grade to pauperism. Money is to be had by luck, medical relief from charity or the Poor Law, outdoor relief from the public funds if you are fortunate in your application; and so people become accustomed to " chance it"; not to manage well what they have, not to make provision for ordinary illness, let alone a time of slack work or old age. They form the habit of going to public or semi-public offices for what they might have provided for themselves. Nothing is so pathetic as the way in which they accept what is as a guide to what should be. But it is they who have to suffer. When thrift has not been practised and independence of character has been impaired, the end is the workhouse. The great provident institutions which are the creation of the British working class, and are quite unmatched in the world as proofs of character and administrative ability among the wage-earners, have no chance where unorganized charity prevails. Every English workman earning decent wages can secure himself a good allowance by joining one of the great friendly societies. The highest payment is about two pounds a year (Hearts of Oak), and secures eighteen shillings a week for six months, and a smaller allowance beyond that time. As a rule, one would not Lecture before the School of Applied Ethics, Plymouth, Mass.

help a man in mere illness who had not done this much for himself, unless, of course, he had saved in some equivalent way. But catch him before the mischief is done, get him to join some good club and stay in, and you have done well to save him from the last results of his improvidence.

Administering relief is a secondary part of the duty of a committee, and must be distinguished from "providing" it. It is plain that, as the committee becomes fused with the neighborhood, the relief work of the committee passes, as it ought, into the relief work of the neighborhood in consultation. Help should be given just as we give it to a friend or relation in a scrape or in misfortune. I do not believe in unction and ostentatious "sympathy," thougli in some trying cases the loving care of a good man or woman may make all difference. I should aim at a friendly, businesslike tone, giving no moral intention to the inquiries, but presupposing the duty of helping, if effectively possible, and simply urge that we must have the case all clear before us, if we are to find out what is to be done. I give an instance which illustrates the nature of thorough help, based on tliorough knowledge:

An apparently ill-nourished boy was receiving half-penny dinners at school. This was the broadcast help that we condemn too much, because too little. Inquiry showed the family most respectable people, but the father, a copper-worker, was disabled by chest-disease. The wife and one boy were earning something. More than twenty pounds was raised by the Charity Organization Society for this case, with the final result of setting up the family in a different line of work and saving it from pauperism. It cost money, thought, and trouble, but a family was saved. Dinners to the boy would have been useless while the family was sinking lower and lower.

Should Drunkenness be Punished as a Crime? The new Italian Penal Code has made some grave innovations in the matter of crimes and punishments. It has done away with capital punishment, and replaced it by hard labor during life. It has caused the erection of special asylums for alcoholic criminals. This last provision seems to me to be of more than doubtful utility. In the course of my observation as a magistrate, and in studying the various alcoholic criminals who have been brought before me, I have long since reached these positive conclusions: that drunkenness should be declared by the law punishable, as well as the crimes committed under its influence, when it was in the power of the delinquent to have avoided getting drunk; that drunkenness should be visited by a more severe penalty when the alcoholic excitement. was purposely brought about in order to strengthen the determination to commit the crime; that it should be punishable with extenuation by the magistrate, when it occurs in persons of weak intelligence, whose power of enduring alcoholic drinks is diminished by the inferiority of their cerebral organization. Drunkenness is inexcusable in persons who know that they cannot drink without danger. There is, in a word, no admissible excuse for drunkenness unless alcoholism has produced cerebral lesions, from which result a real alienation of mind. I believe that the innovations of the Italian penal system in regard to alcoholic persons may be dangerous, as much for the immunities which these innovations give to alcoholic persons as for the extreme latitude allowed to magistrates.-Camoin de Vence, in Bulletin de la Société de Legislation Comparée, Paris, March.

The Vast Importance of Properly-Collected Statistics.As differences of opinion increase between publicists of diverse schools and between statesmen of different parties, the need of recurring to methodical observation of social facts is felt more and more. A tree must be judged by its fruits. Results, collected with precision, furnish proof, sometimes of the excellence of certain social practices, sometimes of the badness of others. Statisticians are intrusted with the duty of enlightening both students and men of action in regard to