rnment.

The constitution of 1848 was the work of a combination of centralist
elements which acquired the general designation of Radicals. Opposed
to the Radicals were the federalist Moderates. Between 1848 and 1874
controlling influence was maintained steadily by the Radicals,
although during the decade 1850-1860 there was a fusion of parties in
consequence of which there existed through many years an extremely
intricate political situation. Gradually there emerged a three-fold
party grouping, which has survived uninterruptedly from the era of the
constitutional revision of 1874 until our own day. The three parties,
as aligned now through more than a generation in the National Council,
are: (1) the Right, or Clericals; (2) the Left, or Radicals; and (3)
the Centre, or Liberals. To these, in very recent times, must be added
a small but growing group of the Extreme Left, comprising
ultra-democrats and socialists.

*479. The Parties of To-day.*--The basis of segregation of the Right is
primarily religious. The party is thoroughly clerical, and it has for
its fundamental object the defense of the Catholic church and the (p. 435)
interests of the Catholic population. In the Catholic cantons it
occupies the field almost alone, and everywhere it is the most compact
and zealous of the parties, although even it is not without a certain
amount of division of opinion and of policy. The Left, or Radical
party, has always represented a combination of widely varied shades of
radicalism and democracy. Its greatest strength lies in the
predominantly Protestant cantons, and it is distinctly anti-clerical.
Large portions of the party have ceased long since to be really
radical, although on one side there is an imperceptible shading off
into the ranks of the advanced democrats and socialists. Through many
years the party has been lacking notoriously in cohesion. Between the
Conservative Right and the Radical Left stands the Centre, or the
Liberal group, lacking most notably of all in unity, but preserving
the traditional Swiss principles of personal freedom in defiance of
the tendency of the state in the direction of paternalism. The
Liberals are not strong numerically, but they comprise men of wealth
and influence (largely conservative Protestants), and in the shaping
of economic policies, in which they are interested principally, they
sometimes exercise a powerful influence. During the years immediately
following the constitutional