ower to compel the federal government
to take under consideration proposed modifications of the
constitution, to prepare projects relating to them, and to submit
these projects to the ultimate decision of the people. When the system
was established many persons seriously feared that the way had been
thrown open for frequent, needless, and revolutionary change, by which
the stability of the state would be impaired. Such apprehension,
however, has been proved groundless. During a score of years only nine
popularly-initiated amendments have been voted upon, and only three
have been incorporated in the fundamental law. One of the three,
adopted in 1893, prohibited the Jewish method of slaughtering animals,
and was purely a product of the antisemitic movement. The other two
were adopted in 1908. One authorized for the first time legislation by
the federal authorities upon subjects relating to the trades and
professions; the other prohibited the manufacture and sale of
absinthe. A number of other more or less sweeping amendments, it is
true, have been proposed, but all alike have failed of adoption. Thus,
in 1894, perished a socialistic scheme whereby the state was to
obligate itself to provide employment for every able-bodied man, and
in the same year, a project to pay over to the cantons a bonus of two
francs per capita from the rapidly increasing returns of the (p. 433)
customs duties.[635] Similarly, in 1900, failed two interesting
projected reforms relating to the federal electoral system. One of
these provided for the introduction, in the various cantons, of the
principle of proportional representation in the election of members of
the National Council. The other provided for the election of the
members of the Federal Council, not, as at present, by the General
Assembly, but by direct popular vote, the whole mass of electors
voting, not by cantons, but as one national constituency. In June,
1900, both of these electoral proposals were rejected by the
legislative chambers, and in the ensuing November the people ratified
the rejection. In 1903, there was defeated in the same way a proposal
to base representation in the National Council, not upon the total
population of the country, but upon the Swiss population alone. In
1909-10 the proportional representation project was revived, but with
a negative result.[636]

[Footnote 635: C. Borgeaud, Le plebiscite du 4
novembre 1894, in