EUROPE’S U.S.A.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 August 1938, Page 9

EUROPE’S U.S.A.

PEACEFUL SWITZERLAND SETS EXAMPLE NEUTRAL STATE IN MIDST OF TURMOIL. MANY NATIONALITIES WITHIN BORDERS. Switzerland is a small-scale United States, the only one in Europe. With a population only about half that of Greater London it has 25 cantons each a State in little to itself. In them Germans, French, Italians, and the Rom-ansch-speaking Swiss dwell in complete friendliness side by side. They discuss their domestic politics in their cantons, where the local government of the people by the people is watertight, and they refer matters affecting Switzerland as a whole to their elected Federal Assembly, a sort of House of Commons and House of Lords in one. If there is any question on which the decisions of the Federal Assembly do not receive the approval of any influential number of the cantons then a referendum of the whole of the Swiss people can be called for. The voice of the people then answers Yes or No to the Federal Assembly. These methods of self-government, reinforced by the discussions in the cantons of more than 3000 local councils, make every Swiss, whether he speaks German, French, Italian, or any other language, a politician and a critic on the hearth.

NO HELP NEEDED. It has worked so well and continues to work so well that though Switzerland is surrounded by Germany (and till lately by Austria), the tiny principality of Liechtenstein, Italy, and France, the Swiss never hold out a hand to any of them for interference in their affairs. Nearly three million are Germanspeaking and are in the majority in 19 out of the 25 cantons; the French speakers come next with majorities in five cantons. They number 840,000 and the Italians 250,000. There are many foreigners of other nationalities, but so far as anyone can make out, whatever, their spoken language, they are Swiss in thought, spirit, and determination to work out their own future within the barriers of their Alpine heights. How well content they are with their life and liberty is shown by their re-' luctance to exchange it with the conditions any other land has to offer. The number of emigrants from Switzerland falls every year. In the last few years they have only just topped 1000 a year.

SIX CENTURIES OF STRUGGLE. Their liberty was won and consolidated by a struggle over more than six centuries. In the beginning it was the shaking off of dependence on the Austrian Hapsburgs. Bits of Germany, Italy, and Burgundy drew together for defence against a common foe; and to this period belongs the tale of William Tell. Following this was Swiss opposition to the encircling grasp of the Holy Roman Empire. Freedom was at last won, Switzerland as a confederation becoming first a group of allies, and at last standing as one till French influence intervened. Napoleon interrupted the even flow of its progress; but at last Switzerland, its position agreed upon by all the European nations concerned, became acknowledged as the country and the people owing allegiance to none. This was in the middle of the 19th century.

A FOCUS OF PEACE.: Since then it has been a No Man’s Land in Europe, where none may intrude. At the same time it is the'meet-in-place to which all may come by invitation, . and its city of Geneva has become a focus of peace. By the Lake of Geneva Russeau and Voltaire and the historian Gibbon have dwelt and worked, as well as many another who might be named a Citizen of the World. That title belongs to Switzerland itself. The little country is a Citizen of the World in its outlook, its independence, and its impartiality. It might be wondered why a country so pleasant and so romantically beautiful should, after its long struggle for freedom, have remained immune from the greedy possessiveness of powerful neighbours. The reason is two-fold. Each of its neighbours prefers to keep it as a barrier between itself and its possible enemies; and none thinks it worth the risk of a conquest which would certainly be fiercely disputed by the next neighbour and by the united Swiss people themselves. The secondary reason for leaving Switzerland alone is that her chief possession is her own untiring industry. She has neither gold nor much other metallic wealth, nor coal, nor oil. She hqs her pastures and her tilled lands, and a fifth of her people are employed on them. She has forests, and she has mountains which everyone wants to see but none desire to hold. But with her bees and her cows Switzerland can boast of a wealth well applied to education and industry. She has waterfalls, and utilises them to provide power for her railways and her factories, of which there are nearly 10,000 employing half a million people. Happy country which envies none which quarrels with none, and which sets an example to Europe of what can be done without war or threat of war. Switzerland would be the last to regard herself as a Utopia, but in this warlike Europe she appears very like an advance guard of civilisation.