Switzerland has no small influence on the affairs of Europe, as well by its situation as by its warlike genius. There is much of history, but still more political anomaly, written in the very conglomerate map of Switzerland. It is a land of unfulfilled destiny. The eye traces its great water-courses into the most important countries of civilized Europe, and recognizes the lines down which potent influences, social and political, are to descend. Its political boundaries do not coincide with those of nature; they are erratic, the result of wars and political vicissitudes. On the one hand, France shoots out spurs of her territory into Switzerland, and Switzerland, on the other hand, by the force of circumstances, has overlapped Italian ground, taking in Ticino south of the main chain of the Alps, which is Italian in climate and flora; a large part of the Grisons is east of the Rhine, and of the ranges separating it from Tyrol; while Schaffhausen and a couple of villages in the Canton of Basel are altogether on the north side of the line, the German town of Constanz is to the south of the line. Again, if a Swiss wishes to pass from the Rhine valley to Geneva by the south bank of the lake, he must cross French territory in order to do so. The southwest frontier of Switzerland stops at Geneva, instead of extending to the Jura, which forms its natural frontier. Military writers have pointed out that the easiest route for an investing force from Germany would be through Switzerland; and similarly for a force from France, over the Jura, by Zurich, to the Rhine at Schaffhausen. “That a power which was master of Switzerland could debouch on the theatre of operations of the Rhone, the Saône, Po, or Danube; from Geneva an army could march on Lyons, from Basel it could gain the valley of Saône by Belfort, from Constance the Danube could be reached; Italy could be invaded, and the lines of defence of that country against France and Austria turned.”117

This potential position of Switzerland, a prominent point of moral and political contact between powerful and somewhat antagonistic powers, on the one side confining the limits of the German empire, and on the other setting bounds to the French republic, naturally gives rise to many speculations. The gamut of these is frequently run by the newspapers; Germany making overtures for a treaty undertaking to protect Switzerland’s neutrality; France negotiating for the occupation by Switzerland of the Chablais and Faucigny districts, in Upper Savoy, in accordance with the treaties of 1815 and 1830, thus preventing the intervention of Italy as against France; then the right of Switzerland to occupy certain districts of Savoy, in case of war, is held by the German authorities to have been settled by the Congress of Vienna and needs no further discussion; on the other hand, it is alleged that this right was subsequently denied by Napoleon III., after the annexation of Savoy to France; and as a culmination, Germany makes a serious proposition to Italy for the partition of Switzerland, but Italy declines the offer, preferring to have a little neutral and friendly republic than a great military empire as her neighbor; the proposition is submitted to France in turn, and also declined, as the greater portion of Switzerland being Teutonic in race and tongue, France could get but a small fragment and Italy a still smaller. The theory is also advanced of making Switzerland, Alsace-Lorraine, Luxemburg, and Belgium into a sort of federated block of neutral territory, the inviolability of which all the rest of Europe should solemnly pledge itself to accept. Regardless of these diplomatic tergiversations Switzerland continues to be governed according to the choice of its own people, and not according to the bon plaisir of foreign powers. The sort of negative which the Swiss government practises, and which is what the position of the country specially requires, is displayed both in the theory and execution of the Swiss federal system, and by a great prudence in foreign policy. Its policy since the beginning of the sixteenth century has been neutrality. The object of the Congress of Vienna in guaranteeing the neutrality of Switzerland was primarily strategical; it was also felt to be essential that steps should be taken to prevent any one power from gaining possession of the line of the Alps upon the breaking out of a fresh war.118 The appreciation of this danger was strongly expressed by the First Consul of France, in an address issued in 1803, wherein he announced: “I would have gone to war on account of Switzerland; I would have sacrificed a hundred thousand men, rather than allowed it to remain in the hands of the parties who were at the head of the last insurrection; so great is the influence of its geographical position upon France. The interests of defence bind Switzerland to France; those of attack render it of value to other powers.” Switzerland bears relations to the great powers of contemporary civilization, in some respects, even more remarkable than those which the little strip of soil along the Jordan, at the meeting of the continents, bore to the civilizations of antiquity. Like that of Palestine, its situation, while affording small temptation to aggression upon its neighbors, is supremely advantageous for defence, for isolation from foreign influence; and yet, at the same time, for the exercise of effective influence outward upon the coterminous nations. To these advantages it adds another, in its polyglot facility of communication with the most important nations of Europe. Preserving its ancient character, content within itself, constituting a confederated republic, which, by its good order and industry, morals and laws, rivals in age the oldest monarchy with its stability of self-government,—the greatest of these monarchies cannot afford to despise its friendship. Not only securing and protecting its own liberty, but it has been the arbiter of the fate of other people. It has given examples of those qualities by which men may be so ennobled that they are respected even amid their comparative poverty and weakness; heroes, though too few to be feared by the weak, they are too brave to be insulted by the strong.

In Europe, powers of apparently inconsiderable greatness have usually brought about its most decided changes, or at least have most influenced its historical course. Thus did Venice in the times of the Crusades, and Switzerland during the Burgundian and Italian wars; as Holland at the commencement of the eighteenth century gave a new form to Europe, so did Sweden predominate in the seventeenth century, and in the earlier half of that age surpass France herself in splendor. It seems to be a capital necessity of great states to have something placed between them that may relieve the severity of their mutual friction; an arm of the sea; an impassable mountain; a small neutral state, one not strong enough to play a great part in foreign politics, but, with a modest policy, absorbed in domestic affairs; any of these may be of great importance to limit and moderate the dangerous currents of great politics. This was illustrated by the action of Austria, after the partition of Poland and the consequent juxtaposition of Russia, offering to restore its part of Poland for the purpose of reconstituting that kingdom. The present age in Europe differs entirely from that of the Middle Ages. Then the general tendency was to small states, now it is to large ones. Then there existed a number of petty monarchies and republics; the unity of the Roman empire was ideal rather than actual. The tendency to form larger states began with England, and is seen on the continent after the latter part of the fifteenth century, and has not yet reached its limits. Everywhere there is a tendency to the formation of large and important states, speaking for the most part one language throughout their whole territory. It is promoted by the quickened impetus of trade and commerce, increased military and financial resources, improved and extended communication, and by the entire development of modern civilization. This progress towards the establishment of extensive and consolidated nationalities is conspicuously found in the present German empire. Though in no sense a restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, it is a real restoration of the ancient German kingdom, and the Kaiser fairly represents the German kingship from which the thirteen ancient Cantons gradually split off. Russia is practically the only Slavonic state; Italy comprises nearly all the Italians, except a few resident upon the head and eastern side of the Adriatic Gulf; France has by her losses in the Franco-Prussian war become more French, since neither Alsace nor Lorraine is inhabited by people of the Gallic race; Spain and Portugal comprise the entire Spanish Peninsula; Austria is a great mongrel state and represents no national aim, but is composed of fragments of various nationalities. The national question in the British Islands is not settled, and may end in separation or more probably in the formation of a federation. The smaller semi-independent principalities of Servia, Roumania, Bulgaria, East Roumelia are simply materials out of which a second Slavonic state may at some time be formed, perhaps under the authority of Russia. The natural fate of Holland is absorption into Germany; of Belgium, absorption into France. Turkey—how this cumberer of the earth can be disposed of without kindling a general European conflagration is a question that puzzles the wisest statesman. This unification might be made to play a beneficial part in checking war and improving the European situation; but so far it has merely essayed a science of combination, of application, and of deception, according to times, places, and circumstances. In the process of absorption there has not been shown much disposition to take questions of ethics into consideration in dealing with weaker peoples; even self-interest seems at times to be a less strong motive than the desire to annoy one’s neighbors. Bentham somewhere proves that there is such a thing as “disinterested malevolence;” and if it exists at all, it is certainly to be discovered in the action of these great European powers. Many of them present vicious systems of military and coercive governments; vast empires resting upon bayonets and semi-bureaucracy, an anachronism and an incubus upon the true development of national life. All these great powers are monstrous outgrowths of warlike ambition and imperial pride in different degrees and under different conditions. On nearly every battle-field great questions of dynastic and national reconstruction have hung in the balance; military operations have been the decisive factors. Huge military systems are abnormal, the morbid results of the spirit of war and domination, of national selfishness and revolutionary violence. The game of kings has become the impact of armed peoples. The Congress of Vienna settled the affairs of Europe upon a basis which endured with but few changes for almost fifty years; the great treaty of Berlin of 1878, in form an act of restitution as well as of peace, has become as dead a letter as the treaty of Paris of 1856. Principles of older date and less questionable validity than treaties patched up with premature jubilation obtain; and the solemn irony of Prince Talleyrand, that “non-intervention is a diplomatic term, which signifies much the same as intervention,” has become axiomatic. It is no exaggeration to speak of Europe as an armed camp, with the dogs of war pulling heavily on their chains. Armies of men stand scowling into one another’s eyes across a fanciful frontier, marked by a few parti-colored posts. In spite of all European assurances of “cloudless political horizons” and “luxuriant international olive-branches,” the perfection of armaments and the augmentation of already enormous armies go faithfully on. Every one who visits Europe must be amazed at the military influence that everywhere dominates, especially on the continent. “Above the roar of the city street sounds the sharp drum-beat of the passing regiment; in the sweet rural districts the village church-bell cannot drown the bugle peal from the fortress on the hill. France sinks millions in frontier strongholds, Russia masses troops in Poland and on the Pruth, Austria strengthens her fortresses in Galicia, and Germany builds railways to the Rhine and bridges to span its yellow flood.” There is no European peace, except that peace described by Hosea Biglow, which was “druv in with bag’nets.” Montesquieu, the upright magistrate, who, living under despotic rule, nevertheless insisted that by the Constitution of France its king was not absolute, sought in the records of history to discern the tendency of each great form of government, and has left his testimony that “L’esprit de la monarchie est la guerre et l’agrandissement; l’esprit de la république est la paix et la modération” (“the spirit of monarchy is war and aggrandizement; the spirit of a republic is peace and moderation”).

An armed truce is preserved out of mutual terror; if tranquillity exists, it is not the repose of reasonable, kindly powers, but the crouching attitude of relentless rivals dreading the enemy whom they hate, and afraid of the destructive weapons which support modern warfare, making the “mowing down” no longer figurative, but horribly literal. Sheer force holds a larger place than it has held in modern times since the fall of Napoleon; and the will to take, without better reason than the power to hold, is naked and undisguised. One of the most melancholy forms which this aggression has taken, and seems destined to occupy so much of the future energies of imperialism, is the partition and exploitation of the vast African continent and the defenceless islands of the Pacific. It is done in the name of “civilization,” and called l’occupation des territoires sans maître. In the Pacific Ocean the work has been nearly completed, Samoa and Hawaii remaining as almost the last abodes of aboriginal sovereignty. Colonial extension and annexation is a veritable European Pandora’s box; war is constantly threatened for the sake of localities whose very names were previously unknown, and whose possession would seem of no practical importance. Since Dido tricked the Numidian king in her survey and purchase of a site for Carthage,119 the world has been in constant trouble upon the subject of boundaries, and a very large proportion of the wars between nations, like lawsuits between individuals, have arisen over disputed boundary lines. The cry of “fifty-four forty or fight,” the national watchword of the United States in 1846, has found an echo in every age. Between England and Russia smoulders the Central Asia and Turkish empire question; between England and France the matter of Egyptian occupation; Italy and France have their quarrel over Tunis and Tripoli, and the Mediterranean generally. Then there is the crux of the Balkan peninsula, where Austria and Russia glower at each other across the Carpathians; this Eastern question is opened as often as the temple of Janus, and, like that temple, its opening means war. So it goes; when pushed under at St. Petersburg, alarm makes its appearance in Paris; and when silenced on the Rhine, it causes itself to be heard among the Balkans. Russia lowers across Europe from the east, patiently waiting, and not fearing central European alliance, confident some day, by natural expansion, of overshadowing all eastern Europe, and gathering at will and in its own good time all the Slavonic people under its suzerain guardianship. France casts a dark shadow from the west, while the “furor Teutonicus” and the “furie Française” flourish perennially in the blood-feud which has Alsace-Lorraine for its bitter badge.120 France looks with natural uneasiness at the iron circle in which the unity of Germany and Italy is circumscribing her influence and expansion. The tremendous struggle with Germany, with its crushing defeat and the provinces torn away, left a wound that will not heal, but with its gloomy memories and poignant regrets, with its latent but unfailing suggestion of revenge, too frequently guides her policy. While a united Germany made short work with the French emperor, it left France exasperated, and probably in a less unsound condition than at any previous moment since 1789.

Germany, with the huge mass of Russia on one side and the lithe strength of France on the other, must sleep in armor; during any respite from the partisans of la revanche on the one frontier or a murmur of Panslavism from Moscow, Germany confronts serious problems with her congeries of states. It remains to be seen how Germany will get on without the large, comprehensive, incomparable skill and the mettle of unyielding determination with which the Iron Chancellor laid all international questions under tribute to the Vaterland. This continental entanglement points to England as holding the balance of power; jealous of Russia’s encroachments in the east, jealous of Austria, jealous of the power of Germany, worried with a certain uneasiness that “the circles of the morning drum-beat” may be broken, England finds in this situation much food for contemplation and conjecture. All European movements, especially on the part of the Great Powers,121 profess to have no other object than to preserve their “political equilibrium” or the “balance of power.” Excepting the wars of religion, most European wars of the last three centuries have sought justification in this pretext, which is but another phase of the boundary question. Up to a very recent date the English Parliamentary grants for supplies needed to support the army were expressly recited to be made for the purpose “of preserving the balance of power in Europe.” The “European Concert,” with its brood of auxiliaries, in the modus vivendi, status quo, and entente cordiale, interlarded with numerous pourparlers, separating re infecta, is not the harmonious institution its musical title would indicate; but disagreements are constantly arising as to who shall be chef de musique and who shall play second fiddle. It is a mere decorous synonyme for “European discord.” When not having in view a general scheme of spoliation, it is looking to the carving out the shape, the conditions, and the destinies of the remaining small states, with a cynical indifference as to the weal or wish of the populations. European powers are simply racing in the absurd and ruinous rivalry for the mightiest battalions and the heaviest budgets. Under the plea of si vis pacem para bellum each one is striving to steal a march upon its neighbors, absolutely blind to the obvious fact that with each fraction of accelerated speed in one all the rest perforce quicken their pace. The danger of this much misused axiom, which advises the securing of peace by preparing for war, brings a crushing burden of apprehension; it involves conduct that betrays designs of future hostility, and if it does not excite violence, always generates malignity with a sly reciprocation of indirect injuries without the bravery of war or the security of peace. From such a condition some chance tide rather than any chosen course may any day cause a rupture. Nations drift into war, and peace is rarely disturbed by serious matters. The commercial necessities of Europe cannot much longer bear the severe strain of this unnaturally swollen and crushing militarism, a conscription so ruthless which demands one inhabitant out of every hundred and takes one producer out of every twenty, transferring him from the ranks of tax-payers to the ranks of tax-consumers. This strain must be lessened or it will infallibly snap; the people are merely the soldiers of an army, they are drilled rather than governed; the workman is getting tired of going to his labors carrying a soldier upon his back; the masses are coming to regard appeals to their patriotism as full of bitter mockery, being mere appeals to kill their neighbors or distant races that they and their children may be more permanently enslaved at home. A universal revolt is inevitable against exactions so intolerable, idiotic, and inhuman. If those alone who “sowed the wind did reap the whirlwind” it would be well, but the mischief is that the madness of ambition and the schemes of diplomacy find their victims principally among the innocent and the unoffending. The cottage is sure to suffer for every error of the court, the cabinet, or the camp, like the torrent which originates, indeed, in the mountain, but commits its devastation in the vale. If there is no check on this increasing demand upon the lives and property of the masses, “this devouring mischief of militarism which is consuming the vitals of Europe,” the mightiest potentate may find that he has to face a combination of the toiling and suffering classes against which all his weapons will be futile. “Great,” says Carlyle, “is the combined voice of men, the utterance of their instincts, which are truer than their thoughts; it is the greatest a man encounters among the sounds and shadows which make up this world of time.” There is no constitution and no despotism which could stand against it for a moment. The modern emperor is only an apparition in comparison with the imperial muscle and bone of his ancient prototype; no longer he is regarded as the “deputy elect of the Lord,” whom the “breath of worldly men cannot depose.” A revolt, political in its aims but economic in its origin, will take place; an economic revolt tending to change the economical conditions of the masses and a political revolt tending to modify the very essence of the political organization, demanding that these vast armies be disbanded, the swords turned into ploughshares, and the victory of the industrial over the military type of civilization be established. A revolution toward the final abolition of feudalism with its arbitrary privileges for the few and its excessive burdens for the many, toward the fuller participation of the people in the work of government and their more efficient protection in the enjoyment of the fruits of their labor. Otherwise the dilemma is a sad one,—to remain a colossal arsenal or become a wild field of devastation; war would mean destruction of human life and of the elements of national prosperity beyond precedent. Whether these immense armaments will be peacefully discontinued or war ensue as the only solution, and if so, what will be its effect on the map of Europe, are all momentous questions beyond the ken of man. The powers leagued together in the Triple Alliance may, if favored by the wealth and maritime power of England, serve as a potent guarantee for the maintenance of peace. This European drama is unfolding its actions slowly, so that no one can tell what it will bring forth; constantly new novelties are being introduced upon the stage with an increasing number of hints of stranger things to come. The prominent persons in the play, though preserving a romantic air of mystery, manage constantly to throw off a multiform mass of suggestions, speculations, and visions. What is developing astonishes the mind while it fascinates the imagination, for it seems to be nothing less vast and portentous than the passing away of the whole existing order of things almost without notice, certainly without comprehension. What proportions this gigantic, this politico-social movement will assume, how much of what is old it will leave standing, what the new order will be like, these are questions which Europe’s brain has not yet fairly grasped, much less tried to answer.

There is a strong continental opinion that in the event of war Switzerland can hardly hope to successfully maintain the position assumed by it in 1870; that it occupies too small a space in the great chart of European political and military calculations to have much weight attached to its views. With less confidence in treaty guarantees than in the maxim of Cromwell, whose Ironsides were taught to “put their trust in God and keep their powder dry,” Switzerland will heed the advice given in the reply of the German chancellor, when asked in 1870 to what extent Swiss neutrality would be observed, said, “to the extent to which you yourselves respect the device of the Scottish Order of the Thistle, ‘nemo me impune lacessit.’” Switzerland can no longer rely upon its mountain wall, which for so many ages, combined with other geographical advantages, formed a safe breastwork against the invader. Nature herself seemed to have thrown her arms around Helvetia to protect her from the invader; and by encompassing her with inaccessible mountains, tremendous precipices, and stupendous masses of eternal ice, to make her, as Frederick the Great of Prussia described the lords of Savoy, “kings by virtue of their locality.” The craggy escarpments, bastioned with horrid precipices, parapeted and battlemented with eternal snow, were the ramparts of the cradle of her liberty; they played a great part:

Then Switzerland was self-contained, and enemies could not get at it. It could say with the Psalmist, “I will lift mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help.” “We did not fear,” said the shepherds of Uri, “the armies of France; we are four hundred strong, and if that is not sufficient, four hundred more in our valley are ready to march to the defence of the country.” In the same spirit wrote the Council of Bern, “A handful of Swiss is a match for an army; on our own soil, with our mountains behind us, we can defy the world.” The Helvetic Confederacy made the greatest and most powerful nations of Europe tremble in the fifteenth century; but Switzerland is no longer defended by natural frontiers; its two great cities, that of Geneva on the one side, and Basel upon the other, lie open to the invader, and the occupation of two or three points upon its railway system (which but for its army could be easily reached) would paralyze its defence; the strength with which nature had endowed Switzerland under the old condition of things has been wellnigh cancelled by the grand appliances of modern science, wealth, and organization. Modern Switzerland is now no stronger than any other part of Europe. Defence no longer can be intrusted to natural ramparts, the Alps, and mountaineers, led by the sound of the horn, and armed with the bow of Tell. The strength of Switzerland is exactly proportioned to its armed force; numerical strength preponderates in military fields, and victory attends the largest army. This implies no impeachment of Swiss courage and patriotism; that love of country, wrought into a great and noble sentiment, which summons to its aid every better portion of human excellence; that exalted power which gives vigor and efficacy to our exertions as citizens, which strengthens our constancy and animates our valor, which heightens our contempt of danger and inflames our impatience of oppression. There is no safer criterion of the virtue and happiness of a people than the height to which their attachment for their country is raised, and the difficulties which they are prepared to encounter in rescuing it from danger or exalting it to glory. As patriotism is always more intense in small states, where union for the purposes of self-preservation is more indispensably necessary, so the same institutions which have engaged the affections of the Swiss will likely inspire them with the courage and wisdom requisite for their defence. Switzerland will be prepared in event of a rearrangement of the map of Europe, by which it is likely to be effected, to demand a voice in the general summing up. Even to the diplomatist, who, wanting to reach an understanding, must have something behind it to command attention and respect, and exclaims, “Don’t trouble me with your arguments, tell me with what force you will back them,” Switzerland is not without an answer. The republic is not unprepared for war, as already shown in the chapter on the army; every man in shop and field would start into a soldier at the bugle’s call; a soldier armed, equipped, and ready for the march. Great sacrifices are willingly made in order to keep on foot an admirable democratic army. All the adjuncts for making this army a mobile factor in the field are under the Swiss system complete and in thorough working order. It could put into the field and maintain effectively 200,000 men, to prove that Switzerland was not a “mere geographical expression,” but a very formidable entity. The Swiss General Dufour, in a letter addressed to the French minister of war, just before the war broke out in 1870, after giving the size of the Swiss army, added: “Beyond all these defences we can count upon the national spirit in the heart of every citizen; a resolution to protect our independence and neutrality, let the storm break on us from whatever side it may.” What 200,000 brave Swiss sharpshooters might do defending their liberty in those mountain fastnesses no European army would care to learn by close experience. Their stout hearts and hardy arms will be ever ready, as in preceding ages, to vindicate against countless hosts their personal liberty and the independence of their country.

The Swiss government is not unaware that its neutrality may at any time be endangered; that a small state is always in danger when it stands in the way of the arms or the ambition or the greed of the great ones, that if its territory offers a convenient route for the rival armies, they would not hesitate to brush away its neutrality, in spite of all guarantees, as the Allies did in 1814. Accordingly for years past the government has been quietly but steadily preparing to defend the country in such an event. The plan, so far, consists in the fortifications of the summit of St. Gothard; the plateau of Andermatt commands not only the base of the St. Gothard, but the valleys, and whoever is able to hold it can prevent any passage across Switzerland from south to north. Since 1885 nearly 10,000,000 francs have been spent on the strengthening of this commanding position; forts have been placed so as to confront each of the four roads by which alone the stronghold can be passed, and it is thought that a large force of troops make it convenient to be cantoned in the vicinity, ready to make the most of the facilities for repelling intrusion when the occasion requires. They certainly could offer stubborn resistance to any junction being effected between portions of the German and Italian armies. The military Alpine roads, Furka, Ober-Alp, and Axenstrasse, are all kept in good condition by liberal appropriations.

Ever since 1830, when the religious refugees from France, England, and Flanders sought shelter there, and who, Sismondi relates, were wont to fall down on their knees and bless God when they came in sight of the Swiss mountains, the right of asylum has been a difficult question for Switzerland, occasioning constant diplomatic collision. In 1838 the demand of the French government for the expulsion of Louis Napoleon, which was declined by Switzerland, almost led to war, and it was probably only avoided by his voluntary departure. Switzerland has never flinched from this sacred and most embarrassing duty of hospitality to the oppressed. The influx of political fugitives from the despotic countries of Europe, seeking shelter from their pursuers, has involved it in many a bitter discussion with powerful neighbors, but it has stood firm in maintaining the sanctity of its principles and soil, in the face of their overwhelming force and domineering spirit. A determined rejection of foreign interference in its domestic affairs has been maintained, and when in 1847 the blockade or cordon was established, all access to the rebel district was forbidden to foreign agents. Under the constitution the federal authorities have the right to expel from Swiss territory any foreigners whose presence endangers the internal or external security of the Confederation. An asylum is offered to the members of all parties suffering political persecution, as long as they show themselves worthy of such consideration by peaceful conduct. The republic, however, grants them no asylum, if, while on its territory, they continue their intrigues and attacks on the existence and security of other states. It preserves a faithful regard for its international obligations, and, as an evidence of its firm determination to fulfil them, keeps a federal official, known as the Procurator General, whose duty it is to prosecute any foreigners, socialists, nihilists, and agents provocateurs, and other dangerous types, who abuse the hospitality of the country for the shelter and promotion of schemes endangering either its international peace or internal security. In July, 1890, Germany gave notice to Switzerland that the treaty between the two countries, regulating the “settlement of foreigners,” would not be renewed at its expiration, which occurs at the end of 1891. This question of asylum involves in its handling the utmost skill and judgment; anything like bravado or anything like servility would be equally out of place. A dignified and wise discretion is necessary to enable Switzerland to continue to offer a safe refuge to the proscribed victims of the endless political revolutions and counter-revolutions of the surrounding nations, but it is believed, complicated as it is with delicate entanglements of diplomatic relations, and suspicions of countenancing schemes of anarchy, it will continue to meet every exigency of the question with an honest and fearless policy.

If the acquisition of power has a certain tendency to weaken the ties of federal union, we should expect that a Confederacy, deprived by natural as well as adventitious circumstances of all pretension to political power, would for that reason possess in a superior degree the merit of stability. Everything that sets in motion the springs of the human heart, engages the Swiss to the protection of their inestimable privileges. Bold and intrepid; a frame fitted to endure toil; a soul capable of despising danger; an enthusiastic love of freedom; an abhorrence of the very name or emblem of royalty illustrated in ages of heroic and martial exploits, that with steadfast and daring enterprise built up a nation and a state; with these qualities they will, if the necessity comes, bear in mind the warning of their own Rousseau, “Ye free nations, remember this maxim, freedom may be acquired, but it cannot be recovered.” In the moment of peril the Swiss will be moved by the spirit of their brave old Landammann, who answered the Duke of Burgundy: “Know that you may, if it be God’s will, gain our barren and rugged mountains; but, like our ancestors of old, we will seek refuge in wilder and more distant solitudes, and when we have resisted to the last, we will starve in the icy wastes of the glaciers; men, women, and children, we will be frozen into annihilation together, ere our free Switzer will acknowledge a foreign master.”

There may be a deeper danger awaiting Switzerland, to which no spirit, however vigorous and resolute, can be commensurate—a danger from within and not from without. The nation which, by the adverse circumstances of numerical inferiority, poverty of means, or failure of enterprise, cannot sustain its own citizens in the acquisition of a just renown and material welfare, is deficient in one of the first and most indispensable elements of strength. A small state is apt to waste its strength in acts too insignificant for general interest, frittering away its mental riches, no less than its treasure and blood, in supporting interests that fail to enlist the sympathies of any beyond the pale of its own borders; glory and strength, like riches, finding themselves, and being most apt to be found, where their fruits have already accumulated. If from any source evil should come to this little republic, in the patriotic words of its latest historian, “Generations will point to the spot where it arose and flourished, and will say, Here once lived a free, self-governing people, a small but active republic, with remarkable institutions, with a famous and memorable history.”

POPULATION AND SOIL, CENSUS, 1888.

MONEY, WEIGHTS, MEASURES.

CENSUS OF 1888.

AREA—PRODUCTIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE LAND.

ORDER AND DATES OF THE ENTRY OF THE TWENTY-TWO CANTONS INTO THE CONFEDERATION.