proved acceptable to the majority on other grounds, have been bitterly opposed by strong minorities on account of their bureaucratic tendencies or consequences.

Bills have also often been defeated in a referendum simply because the country was generally dissatisfied with its representatives and rulers. "Those people in Berne need a lesson," such has repeatedly been the somewhat juvenile but very human argument of the average Swiss citizen voting against some unimportant and by no means objectionable measure. This was particularly noticeable in 1884 when the referendum was demanded by nearly 100,000 voters on four federal bills at once, none of which was clearly unreasonable, but all of which were vetoed by large majorities. 83

The referendum has furthermore worked against what one might call ideological legislation. Measures such as the "rightto-work" bill above referred to, which are grounded solely or mainly on abstract conceptions of justice, are almost certain to be defeated. The popular vote has time and again shown that the people are interested in the immediate practical benefits to be derived from a law much more than in the intrinsic excellence of its basic principle. It follows that a defeated bill may very well be taken up again by its authors, modified in some of its minor details and submitted shortly after to a new judgment with every chance of success. Such was the case in Zurich when in 1899 the people refused to contribute to the building of an art museum and reversed their decision seven years later. 84 Similarly the Swiss people vetoed a bill to introduce government ownership of railroads in 1891 and accepted an analogous measure in 1898.85 In 1900 the people, by a majority of nearly 200,000

83 This referendum was popularly styled the "four-hunched camel." One of the "hunches" was a bill to grant the Swiss embassy at Washington an additional yearly credit of $2000. Over 200,000 citizens thought it worth their while to vote against this act of lavish extravagance, which they suspected to be prompted by motives of personal favoritism. Curti, Resultate, etc., pp. 45-47.

84 Ibid., p. 14.

85 Ibid., pp. 48, 49, 56, 57. In the first vote there were 289,406 nays and 130,729 yeas and in the second, 386,634 yeas and 182,718 nays. The proposed price of the purchase, which was considered exorbitant in the first case, was the main reason for the negative verdict in 1891.

nays repudiated a sickness and accident insurance bill that had been carried in both Houses with only one dissenting vote.86 An amended insurance bill has been passed by the Federal Assembly in the summer of 1911 and is about to be submitted to a second popular trial. 87

The third tendency shown by the referendum is a strong dislike for extravagance or, better said, for its necessary consequence. The people are by no means averse to fine public buildings and cheap government service, but when it comes to footing the bill they are very apt to object. This has been the case in the cantons and in the larger municipalities, where property and income taxes prevail, more than in the federal government, which relies on indirect taxation for its expenditures. The unfavorable financial situation of several commonwealths and cities is to be ascribed, to no small degree, to the referendum and to the inconsistent use that is made of it. Expenditures are tacitly approved, light, water rates and the like lowered, but all attempts at a corresponding increase of taxes, especially on small and moderate incomes, are ruthlessly voted down.88 The result too often is a steady aggravation of public indebtedness, as in Basle and Geneva, or an unduly high rate of taxation on larger fortunes, with fiscal evasion as a logical consequence, as in Zurich and St. Gall.

It is time to conclude. I will not take up one after another all the standard arguments pro and con popular votes and discuss them academically as has so often been done. I will say, however, that, viewed in the light of Swiss experience, the apprehensions of those who predict that the initiative and referendum lead to social revolution are as unfounded as the fears of those who expect these institutions to work against all cultural se Curti, Resultate, etc., p. 57.

On February 4th, 1912, this bill was adopted by a popular majority of nearly 50,000 yeas.

88 Cf., Ibid., pp. 12, 13, 14, 21, 26, 30. Almost every month the daily press in Switzerland records some incident of this kind.

progress. 89 In Switzerland their result has simply been a legislation eminently characteristic of the national temperament. The Swiss have therein shown themselves as they are, a wellschooled, practical, unimaginative, thrifty and enterprising people, averse to high-flown political speculation, but awake to the possibilities of careful progress; jealous of their local autonomy, but not stubbornly loath to sacrifice it on the altar of national unity when general interest clearly demands a sacrifice; suspicious of all superiority and hostile to all social and economic privileges, but still more suspicious of and hostile to all policies which tend to destroy the privileges of superior wealth and ability by encroaching too boldly on the personal liberty of all; impatient of arbitary rule, but willing to submit to authority when imposed by the will of the majority and especially when backed by historical tradition; unsentimentally sympathetic to deserving poverty, but almost harshly unfeeling for thriftless indolence.

The initiative and referendum have sometimes been accused of making party government impossible. This criticism,—which would perhaps more justly apply to proportional representation, another novel electoral scheme which is making rapid progress in Switzerland,-is not borne out by Swiss experience. All that can be said, is that popular votes have somewhat strengthened the influence and self-confidence of minority parties.

It has also been claimed that they tend to weaken the elected legislators' sense of public responsibility by transferring the right of final decision on important measures to the people at large.90 Where the referendum is compulsory this may be true. Where it is optional however, I feel inclined to attribute the lowering of standards, which unfortunately seems to have

Such pessimists have not been wanting in Switzerland. Answering the popular "safety-valve" or "blood-letting" argument invoked in favor of direct legislation, Cherbuliez in 1843 expressed himself very deprecatingly on the subject of "those anticipating remedies which occasion the very evils they are meant to prevent," by "inoculating the masses with the virus of revolution." op. cit., vol. I., p. 89. Bluntschli was also very skeptical. Cf. his views in his Geschichte des schweizerischen Bundesrechts, (2 vols., 2nd ed., Stuttgart, 1875), vol. ii., p. 543.

Dubs, op. cit., p. 20. Droz, op. cit., p. 464. A. B. Hart, Actual Government (New York, 1906), pp. 79, 81.

taken place in Switzerland in the course of the last generation, to other causes, and especially to the anonymous, impersonal committee form of procedure which prevails in all Swiss legislatures. All law-makers are afraid of a popular veto and this may tend to make them, not reckless or careless, but on the contrary unenterprising and over-timid. Against this very real danger the initiative seems to be the best safeguard.

Among the many stock arguments in favor of direct popular legislation, I will mention but one, which Swiss experience has has undoubtedly shown to be sound, and that is the educational argument.

All political institutions that are democratic make for public enlightenment. Under the representative system however, discussions on public policy too often degenerate into disputes on personal merits. One votes for or against individuals rather than for or against ideas and the successful candidate is very apt to be the popular orator, whose genial appearance, winning ways, and often unscrupulous, demagogical methods please the people by flattering their prejudices and their passions. In the referendum, on the other hand, objective argument counts for much more. And everyone will agree that it is morally, as well as intellectually, better to vote at the dictate of one's reason rather than on the impulse of one's instincts. It has been time and again shown in Switzerland that a politician who has once gained the people's good will can repeatedly favor measures to which his electors object, without in the least thereby injuring his popularity.

91

A humorist, quoted by Professor Borgeaud, 1 once remarked: "The Swiss are a singular people; they disown their representatives and then they reelect them!" This illustrates what is perhaps less a singularity of the Swiss, than an inconsistency common to the whole human race.

Who, in the arena of politics as well as in the realm of romance, does not sometimes disown the choice of his natural sympathy, when he is reasonable? And who does not ratify that choice when he is passionate? And is any one ever

* In an article published in the Revue de Droit Public, 1896, p. 528.

quite reasonable and quite dispassionate in matters of personal preference?

To my mind the greatest advantage of the optional referendum resides in the fact that, on some momentous occasions in the life of a nation, it gives reason a hearing amidst the din and confusion of current politics.

It has not been my purpose to defend a cause, but to present the results of a practical experiment, and this I have sought to do, as impartially and concisely as possible.

I will say in conclusion that no community in Switzerland having once exercised the rights of initiative and referendum, has ever abandoned them.92 It by no means follows that these rights are absolutely just in their essence nor always and everywhere beneficial in their consequences. The view one takes of the subject depends on one's political standpoint and is biased by one's general social and ethical philosophy. The question of popular votes is, to my mind, simply a part of a vastly greater problem, the problem of democracy.

Those who, like Taine, believe that "a nation may perhaps say which form of government it likes, but cannot say which it needs," will not hestitate to condemn the plebiscite in every form.

The opportunists in politics,-and who is not, to a certain degree at least, a political opportunist,—will judge the tree by the fruit thereon, and the fruit by the standards of his tastes and interests.

But the sincere and thorough-going democrat, for whom popular sovereignty is more than a mere phrase, who holds that a nation is the only competent arbiter of its likings as well as of its needs, and who maintains that, as regards its own destiny, it has the right even to be wrong, cannot consistently repudiate institutions, whose sole purpose and whose main consequence, is to adjust political relations so that the untrammeled will of the majority may rule supreme.

In only two cases have popular votes been restricted. Berne in 1880 abandoned the compulsory referendum on the budget, and Zurich in 1899 somewhat limited the scope of its general compulsory plebiscit. Curti, Resultate, etc., pp. 4, 5.