tained any law passed by a cantonal
legislative body or by the Federal Assembly shall be submitted to
the voters. In certain cantons the Referendum is obligatory and
every law is thus submitted to the people. In practice the
Referendum has acted as a check to advanced legislation.

The Swiss have reason to fear the designs of Prussia. As late as
1856, Prussia and Switzerland were on the edge of war. Prior to
1815 Neuchatel acknowledged the King of Prussia as its overlord;
the Congress of Vienna, however, included this territory in the
Swiss Confederation as one of the Swiss Cantons. But Prussia, in
spite of this formal arrangement, with its usual disregard of
treaties, continued to claim Neuchatel.

In 1848 the revolutionary influence resulted in more democratic
rule in Neuchatel but the Prussian propagandist of that day was
at work and, in 1856, Count Pourtales' plot was discovered and
several hundred prisoners seized by the Swiss government. All
but a score were released. Frederick William IV of Prussia
demanded their instant pardon and release and ordered the
mobilisation of his army but, finally, through the intervention
of Napoleon III, the affair was settled, the prisoners released
by way of France, and the Prussian King renounced all rights over
Neuchatel.

The Kulturkampf of Bismarck, his contest against the Roman
Catholics, had its echoes in Switzerland and it probably was due
also to German influence that until 1866 full freedom was
withheld from the Jews.

The Red Cross had its origin in Switzerland and the Geneva
Conventions have done much to bring about the adoption of better
rules of war. The Geneva Cross is the badge of international
charity and help.

Switzerland always has opened her doors to the politically
oppressed. Over ten thousand revolutionists from Baden took
refuge in Switzerland in 1848. Austria, in 1853, as a reprisal
for the alleged actions of Italians in Switzerland in conspiring
against Austria, drove thousands of Swiss citizens from that part
of Italy occupied by Austria. Also in the Franco-Prussian war the
French General Bourbaki and his army of nearly one hundred
thousand men sought an asylum in Switzerland.

The army of Switzerland is a true citizen army--an army of
universal service--and it is due to the existence of this force
that Switzerland remains an independent state in the midst of
Europe.

To stand apart in Europe is the very essence of life for
Switzerland. It is