III. FEDERAL CHANCELLERY.

Article 105. A Federal Chancellery, at the head of which is placed the chancellor of the Confederation, shall perform the duties of secretary for the Federal Assembly and the Federal Council.

The chancellor shall be chosen by the Federal Assembly for the term of three years, at the same time as the Federal Council.

IV. FEDERAL COURT.

Article 106. There shall be a Federal Court for the administration of justice in Federal Matters.

There shall, furthermore, be a jury for criminal cases. (Art. LL2.)

Article 107. The members and alternates of the Federal Court shall be chosen by the Federal Assembly, which shall take care that all three national languages are represented therein.

CHAPTER III. AMENDMENT OF THE FEDERAL

CONSTITUTION.

Article 118. The federal constitution may at any time be amended, in whole or in part.

Article 121. Partial revision may take place either by popular initiative or in the manner provided for the passage of federal laws.

The popular initiative shall consist of a petition of fifty thousand Swiss voters for the adoption of a new article or for the abrogation or amendment of specified articles of the constitution.

(In the preparation of this text assistance has been received from the translation made by Professor A. B. Hart and issued in "Old South Leaflets", No. 18, and from that of Professor E. J. James, Philadelphia, 1890. Walter Fairleigh Dodd). The constitution is not given in full, but only its more prominent features. See Modern Constitution by Walter F. Dodd for entire text.

THE LANDSGEMEINDE.

"This institution which resembles the old New England town meeting, is a survival of the primitive Teutonic folk-note, and still exists in two cantons and four half-cantons."

"On a Sunday morning in May, the Landamman, or Chief Magistrate of the Canton, accompanied by attendants, dressed in the black and yellow livery of Uri, and bearing the huge horns of a wild bull, starts for the meadow, followed by all the people. When the procession reaches the spot, the Landamman takes his seat at a table in the center of the field, while the men fill the space around him, and the women and children stand upon the rising ground beyond.

"The measures to be proposed are brought forward, freely debated and voted upon by the citizens, and finally the officers are elected for the ensuing year.

"The form of the proceeding is similar to that of the New England Town Meeting and must have the same value as a means of political education."-A. Lawrence Lowell, Vol. II, page 222; Adams, page 130-32.

In the Landesgeminde Cantons, all powers are exercised by the assembly of citizens, meeting at fixed times in veritable Champs de Mai. Any member of the Landesgeminde has the right to present any bill. This is the first and most essential of his prerogatives. It is restricted simply by the necessity of presenting the petition in time to get it upon the order of the day (Memorial), which must be published in advance. Sometimes a small number of signatures is required.

In 1869, the Grand Council of Zurich ceased to exist, or at least ceased to possess legislative power and the people declared in their new constitution that they would exercise the power themselves, with the assistance of a cantonal council (Kantonsrath). This sanction of the principle of direct legislation was not followed by the introduction of the Landesgeminde. Such an institution cannot be suddenly created. In order to realize the great industrial and agricultural canton the advantages which the citizens of the forest canton were seen to possess recourse was had to the obligatory referendum and the right of popular initiative. It was provided that the laws whose preparation was given to Kantonsrath, should all be submitted to the people for approval, and that the right to propose new ones or to move the abrogation of existing provisions should belong to the voters as well as their representatives."-Charles Borgeaud, Constitutions in Europe and America, 1895.

SWITZERLAND THE PORCUPINE OF EUROPE.

Lieut. Frederick Kuenzli, late of the Swiss army, gives the following account of the Swiss military system: Switzerland does not want war, and, therefore, created a system of defense that keeps her immune from attack by a neighboring nation.

Germany, France, Italy and Austria know that the Swiss system and Army is not only theoretically a good defensive system, but also a practical one, or else what would keep the millions of French and Italians from going through Switzerland and hitting at the most vital parts of Germany? Or what, if not the Swiss Army, keeps the Germans from hurling their armies by the good roads of Switzerland to France and Italy? That none of the four nations at war that hem in the little Alpine republic dares to make Switzerland the link to get at the other, like unfortunate Belgium was made, is a tacit admittance of the practical merit of Helvetia's military system and army.

The introduction of the "Infantry Drill Regulations of the United States Army" reads: "Success in battle is the ultimate object of all military training, success may be looked for only when the training is intelligent and thorough.'

Thorough and intelligent military training is exactly what the Swiss training system offers to her male population, and the efficient and uniform way in which the young Swiss is educated to defend his property, his liberties and pursuance of happiness, must bring success if he is put to the test. Switzerland tries to make her sons well-disciplined soldiers and good marksmen. Thanks to the training in schools, cadet corps and preparatory courses, 70 per cent. of the Swiss that enter the service are already physically well-trained men and competent marksmen. To acquire discipline the young man is made to grow into it by a system of physical training that forms a part of the school education. The great educator, Henry Pestalozzi, pointed the way for physical exercises that were to correspond to the physiological and natural development of the boy. In his educational operations Pestalozzi always regarded the child as an indissoluble whole, an organized unit, endowed with manifold faculties of body, mind and heart, and thought that the development of the one was inseparable from the true evolution of the others and must be mutual.

The best form of the needed physical exercises for boys and in the meantime a great help to learn discipline, was found to be the exercises as contained in the military drill regulations of the Swiss Army. Therefore, the whole physical training of the Swiss boy in school, which begins at his tenth year and extends to the year he leaves school has as a basis the "Infantry Drill of the Army." There is only one manual, only one primer for the whole physical training in school and that is edited by the Swiss War Department. Needless to say that such a uniform, thorough drilling for six years, followed by instructions in cadet corps and preparatory courses makes the young man a very promising soldier. When he enters service as a recruit he is thorough

ly acquainted as to the individual work he has to perform in his team, the work has become his second nature and automatically he executes the commands that are so familiar to his ear. He is a willing receiver for all advice and training that make him a finished soldier, efficient to take the field with hundreds of thousands of his comrades, all burning with the common spirit "One for all, all for one."

Along with the physical training in school goes the military training in cadet corps, when the boy is trained to become a hardened marcher and a good shot. The cadet wears a uniform and has a miniature model of the regulation rifle. He goes through the same instructions and rifle practices as the soldier and observes the standard exercises of the army.

Every Swiss soldier in his civil life is compelled to be a member of a rifle club, under the supervision of which he has to undergo a yearly rifle shooting test, consisting of six times six or thirty six shots with a minimum of 75 per cent. hits and 60 per cent. points. Such an ordinance compels every village and town to have a field range in which the cadet and the man in preparatory course can practice to his heart's content.

This, the preparation of the boy from his tenth to his twentieth year, is the system that can readily be transplanted to our country. The compulsory service system is something that for dozens of reasons we cannot adopt as a whole. History, geographical position, a groundstanding population of 4,000,000 enabled Switzerland to create a system that could not be introduced in a reasonable time to 100,000,000 of a migrating population.

Let us have a larger standing army and "a citizenry trained and accustomed to arms" by a voluntary system and all the demands for our land forces of national defense are fulfilled.

To say that the military training in school along the lines of the Swiss system fosters martial spirit to the sacrifice of other lines of endeavor is ridiculous, as Switzerland today is a veritable hive of industry and commerce, and has as well means to protect those pursuits from destruction by an invading foe. When did we hear from Switzerland that the profession of the civil life of the inhabitants was ever in danger of being dominated by the desire of a frivolous war? Who wants to say that our boys in public school are overburdened with hours of school? Five hours a day for 180 days a year should certainly not forbid three more hours a week for their country's good and "for mere health's sake, if nothing more," as Woodrow Wilson says.

The above is the statement of a trained Swiss soldier who is is now a loyal citizen of the United States.