the conservative juste-milieu, and Troxler, who is now Professor of Philosophy in the University of Berne, because his party thought him too self-willed and extravagant to co-operate with him. In the canton of Berne the brothers Schnell had headed the mouvement against the government in 1830; their political career since that time is very characteristic of Switzerland, and displays the unsteadiness of her present affairs. Inconstant in their political creed, passionate and obstinate, wanting true talent, but shrewd and cunning, the Schnells were omnipotent at one period only to fall into political nullity at another, from which they once more rose to power and influence to sink again; they are counteracted by Neuhaus, a firm radical of distinguished qualities. In the cantons of Lucerne, Vaud and St. Gall, Casimir Pfyffer, Monard and Baumgartner are regarded as men of eminence. The latter, a decided nationalist, is the most prominent of the liberals, and is respected even by the aristocrats for his sound sense and steadiness of character.

The new governments of most of the regenerated cantons, especially those of Zurich, Berne, Lucerne, Argovia, Thurgovia, Vaud and Basel-country, earnestly promoted such measures as they thought would promote the welfare of the people. The latter cannot complain of having only changed men, not measures, and of having been disappointed by their new rulers. The governments were, on the contrary, rather too eager in reforming the whole political condition of the separate cantons. We will take Zurich, the very canton whose radical government was overthrown two years ago, as an example how the new rulers used their power; and enumerate the most important measures which were the consequence of the revolution of 1830. The state of the finances, kept in secret before that year, was laid open to the country; the old taxes which pressed on the middle and lower classes were abolished and a property- and income-tax introduced, by which the burthen of the expenditure fell upon the rich and wealthy, and what is remarkable, the public officers became the most heavily charged for their income; the state domains were sold to the people on the most liberal terms, and tithes and ground-rents abolished; the surplus revenue

was applied in the best way by the creation of new roads in all directions through the whole canton, the erection of a new post-house, a new hospital, university-buildings, a house of correction, a new arsenal, a new bridge, and other public edifices; a severe control over the administration of trusts was introduced; the condition of the factory children was bettered by law, and the poor-law administration reformed; an excellent criminal code was published and the codification of the civil law prepared; the administration of justice was wholly reformed; the canton received a court of appeal, which soon gained the esteem of all Switzerland for its impartiality; the institution of procureur-général was introduced; the system of education was thoroughly reformed, by the establishment of an university, a normal school, secondary and primary schools. There is, indeed, hardly any example in history of a government having performed so much for the benefit of the people in so short a period as the Radical government of Zurich.

The great bulk of the people being invested by the constitutions with sovereign power, the strength of governments rests on the sympathy of the people. The radicals, who became predominant after 1830, therefore thought that to enlighten the people by instruction, was the best way of securing the new order of things. Switzerland is the country where the idea of improving the condition of mankind by education first emanated from such men as Rousseau and Pestalozzi. The radicals adopted that system with vigour. Zurich was foremost in efforts to improve the state of education, and other cantons followed her example. Two new universities in Zurich and Berne were founded, to which distinguished German professors were appointed. Collegeschools, normal schools, primary and secondary schools, were established in nearly all the regenerated cantons. In Zurich, all the schoolmasters of the whole canton who had been appointed under the former government were obliged to undergo an examination, and those who were found deficient were removed, but on competent pensions. Unhappily together with these radical reforms, a too open tendency was manifested to undermine the influence of the church. Both the Catholic

and the Protestant clergy were roused, and it is from them that the most strenuous opposition to the liberal governments ensued. An association was organized by the Catholic clergy for the protection of their religion, which lost no opportunity of agitating the people against their new rulers. In Lucerne, the mere permission given to a German Protestant for an educational establishment put the whole Catholic clergy in commotion. In Soleure the people were induced to petition the grand council against reforms in the old system of education; and in Argovia, against the league entered into in 1832, by seven cantons, for the protection of their new constitutions. In the canton of Berne the Catholic clergy refused to swear allegiance to the government, and in Argovia also a number of Catholic priests refused to obey the orders of their government. The liberals, on the other hand, made their attack on the power of the Roman party; and seven cantons sent deputies to a conference in Baden, in Argovia, for the purpose of drawing up articles defining the rights of the state in ecclesiastical matters. These articles, known under the name of die Badener ConferrenzArtikel, purport nothing but what had been lawful before the Pope's bull of 1814, by which Switzerland was separated from her metropolitan union with France and Germany. They state that priests must acknowledge the supremacy of the state, and are bound to take the oath to the constitution, and not to publish any bull or other regulation of pope or bishop, without previous authorization from the government. When these articles were adopted by the grand councils of some cantons, open revolts broke out in the Catholic districts of Argovia and Berne, which were put down by military force. Another object for Catholic agitation was given by some cantons putting the administrations of the estates of the monasteries under the special superintendence and control of the government, a step regarded by the monks as the forerunner of secularization. There is scarcely one of the regenerated cantons with a Catholic or mixed population, in which public order has not been disturbed in one way or other by the plots of the Roman party, strenuously supported by the Protestant aristocrats and their organs in the press.

The small Catholic cantons are, since 1830, under the influence of Protestant Neufchatel, which canton possesses a very able and shrewd statesman in M. de Chambrier; before 1830, they were influenced by the Protestant government of Berne. The concord between the Roman party and the Protestant aristocrats ran some risks in consequence of the difference which existed between the Prussian government and the Catholic church. At least, the appointment of M. von Bunsen as Prussian minister to the confederation in the room of M. von Rochow, was received at the time with great dissatisfaction by the Swiss Catholics.

The Protestant clergy were not behindhand in throwing difficulties in the way of the radical governments, and their intrigues were successful in Zurich. This canton being one of the most important, the revolution by which the radical government was overthrown must be of great consequence for all Switzerland.

A nation cannot be trained to new ideas and feelings in the space of a few years. The general error of the radicals, both in Zurich and in other cantons, was, the belief that their authority would last till a new generation grew up under the influence of an enlightened system of education. For such an end a government requires strength and stability, two requisites which the new Swiss governments do not possess, because they are too dependent on the will of the very people for whom education is absolutely necessary. The people were made too much aware of their being the only source of all political power in the state; while the government of any canton which may be threatened with an insurrection is left without support from the confederation and the diet.

At the time of the foundation and rise of the confederation, Switzerland was surrounded by less mighty neighbours than she is now. Austria, France and the German states have concentrated their power in the sovereign and government, whilst the strength of the Swiss has decreased from the cantons having preserved their independence of one another. As the power of the governments of the neighbouring states has increased, so the national spirit has become more intense in those countries. Before 1789, the political

condition of Germany was nearly the same as that of Switzerland; but the number of states has fallen from some hundreds to thirty-eight in the present German confederation, and the Germans are now as penetrated by national sense and feeling as any other nation. In Switzerland, however, the number of independent members of the confederation has been augmented, and the national spirit which once animated the Swiss after their glorious wars in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries is now impaired. In the Swiss of the present day there is no feeling for a common country; they are prepossessed by the interests of the canton or the district to which they belong. This spirit pervades the governments of the single cantons as well as the people. The defects of the federal constitution are the medial source of all the evils under which Switzerland is suffering. The first thing she requires is a stronger federal union to secure independence of foreign influence, and to afford strength and stability to the cantonal governments, by giving them the support of a well-organized federal power. The governments of Austria, Germany and France have an interest in maintaining the anti-reform and aristocratical party, because every reform in Switzerland is looked upon as promoting democratical principles. The right of neutrality, which was forced upon the neighbouring powers by Switzerland herself, during the thirty years' war, was given to her as a boon in 1815; and such neutrality, under the guarantee of the great powers, will be illusory as long as Switzerland does not herself exhibit more national strength to maintain it. The cantons can raise a first and second contingent of 70,000 men, but they are of no use to the nation as long as each canton has its own will, and may oppose any federal measure, even with respect to regimental uniform, which would tend to establish a centralized national force for the defence of the country. The constitution of each canton is guaranteed by the confederation; but without a reformed federal compact, the guarantee under which the constitutions exist is as illusory as the guarantee of Swiss neutrality itself. The last revolution in the canton of Zurich would not have been carried if the authority of the Diet were real, and the present state of things in Zurich might be overthrown again after the lapse