CANTONAL SYSTEM

Evening Star, Issue 23123, 24 November 1938, Page 15

CANTONAL SYSTEM

SWITZERLAND'S GOVERNMENT The secession of a portion of Sudeten German territory to be' incorporated in the Reich and the establishment of cantons in other Sudeten districts have been mentioned as part of the plan for the settlement of_ the Czech problem, says Percy Cater, in the London 1 Daily Mail.” What are cantons? How does government on the cantonal system work ? We'need look no farther than Switzerland. Switzerland is the racial ganglion of Europe. Within its borders flows the speech of Germany, of France, and of Italy, and that odd derivation of Latin, the Romansch cousin tongues of which you can hear in Rumania. From the dawn of time men’s wanderings have been conditioned by the run of the mountain defiles _ and the courses of great rivers. ’ Switzerland, accordingly, was bound by nature to be the gathering ground of the Continent. It might have been expected that a country amassed from so many sources, bounded by nations so sharply raceconscious as Germany, France, and Italy, from which its people came, would have been torn, throughout history, by the conflicts of rival patriotisms. Yet such is not the case. For nearly seven centuries, since 1291, when the Swiss forest cantons of Uri, Schwyz and Unterwalden formed the Edwiger Bund—the famous “ Everlasting League ’ to throw off the Austrian yoke, the Swiss federation. of cantons, with the slightest intermissions, has been united in the determination to maintain its nationhood and independence. MINGLE HAPPILY. To-day, within the Swiss State, men and women whose speech is German, French, or Italian, part from those communities whose tongue is the Romansch, whose arts and literature proceed largely from the stock from which they distantly derive, mingle happily in their mountainous home, owning a single allegiance to that Switzerland to which they all belong. The German language predominates overwhelmingly Practically 72 out of every 100 people in this miniature nation of 4,000,000 souls speak it. About 20 people in 100 speak French, about six Italian, and one person in 100 talks in Romansch, which nevertheless, was officially recognised last year as. the fourth official language of Switzerland. From the start the cantons have strenuously insisted on local independence. The French, whose revolutionary tide washed over the Swiss border, much against the will of the Confederation, presented the Swiss with the Helvetian Republic. But its centralisation ran counter to the whole Swiss history and genius, and in 1803 Napoleon was glad to restore, by the Act of Mediation, the cantonal system. To-day the cantons number 22, or, more properly, 25, including the halfcantons formed as a result of local differences. The modern Federal Constitution of Switzerland dates from 1848, when Switzerland, formerly a confederation of separate States, became a single federal unit. The Constitution was revised in 1874, with a bias toward greater centralisation, on the lines of Germany and Italy, but even to-day the cantons maintain the widest possible measure of independence. In the hands of the federal authority are the issues of peace on war, the questions of defence, foreign affairs, railways, postal communications, and Customs. But the function of the State is largely supervisory. Each canton has its own law courts, can impose taxes, carries out its own measures of social welfare, maintains its roads. The Federal Government has few direct executive tasks. Even the army is managed chiefly by the cantons, and the Federal Court has largely to leave to the cantonal organisations the execution of its judgments. Five cantons, those of Upper and Lower Unterwalden, Inner and Outer Appenzell and Glams, still have their open-air parliaments. The people meet once a year, or oftener, on a Sunday, elect their leaders, make their own laws. The other cantons each have a “ Grand Council,” which transmits its views oft national topics to the Swiss

Parliament in Berne, and choose a resw dent who is one of the canton representatives in the capital.' The Swiss Parliament, the Federal Assembly, comprises 44 deputies, two from each canton’s Grand Council—this section being called the Council of the States—and _ 187 representatives of the whole nation (thesistional Council elected in the proportion of one for every 20,000 voters). The Cabinet, styled the Federal Council, is the executive, and consists of seven members elected for three years by the Federal Assembly, Its chairman is the President of the Swififl Confederation. EXTENDED TERRITORY. There are some ironies about Switzerland if one contrasts if with other parts of the' world at various times. In the first place, while the history of Austria shows many nationalities grouped forcibly under & single mon* arch, but straining to assert their nationhood—the Great War showed the fulfilment of this, with consequences ' which, as we now see so critically, are not necessarily final—the story of Switzerland is that of diverse races banding together for mutual succour and a constant attempt to fuse inharmonious sections into a national, whole. ~ , . The referendum, which seems to excite stubborn objections elsewhere, is used as a matter of routine by the Swiss to check and guide all federal legislation. . And perhaps most important paradox of all, at a time when many claim that Czechoslovakia would lose her natural defences by the concessions of the Sudetenland, Switzerland, as the association of new cantons has extended her territory, has been able to pour over the bounds set by Providence and geology, south of the Alps, north of the Rhine, east of the Rhine basin, and west of the Jura. _ . Set amid Great Powers, Switzerland has decided to stand aloof for ever from European conflicts. Four centuries ago she made up her mind. The Peace of Paris in 1815 guaranteed her 41 perpetual neutrality,” and just as she had kept out of the ThirtyYears’ War she stood dear of the Franco-Prussian W T ar and the Great War. Permanent neutrality is indeed nee poliev, perhaps the prime necessity or her existence. The Treaty of _ Versailles recognised her special position,' she was absolved when she joined the League of Nations in 1920 from taking part in military sanctions, and recently from participating in economic sanctions either. - Since this last step Germany and Italy have both undertaken to respect her neutrality at all times. . This warrior-land—history holds nothing more exciting than the bold forays by which the cantons secured their independence, despite all the surge and clash of princely prowess—has maintained its place by hugging itself to itself, standing aloof from the conflicts which raged around.And her. people, speaking the tongue* of so many other lands, are 'united ill one citizenship—Swiss.