, it is obligated to apply all law, by
whatever proper authority enacted.[642]

[Footnote 641: Art. 112. Ibid., II., 286.]

[Footnote 642: On the Swiss federal judiciary see
Vincent, Government in Switzerland, Chap. 15; Adams
and Cunningham, The Swiss Confederation, Chap. 5.]

*484. The Civil Code.*--In 1898 the nation, through the means of (p. 439)
a referendum, adopted the principle of the unification of all cantonal
legal systems, civil and criminal, in a set of federal codes. Through
more than a decade the task has been in progress, drafts being
prepared by experts and submitted from time to time for criticism to
special commissions and to public opinion. Early in 1908 the Assembly
adopted an elaborate Civil Code which in this way had been worked out,
and January 1, 1912, this monumental body of law was put in operation.
By it many long established practices within the individual cantons
were abolished or modified; but the humane and progressive character
of the Code won for it such a measure of public approval that there
was not even demand that the instrument be submitted to a referendum.

PART VI--AUSTRIA-HUNGARY (p. 441)

CHAPTER XXIV

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY PRIOR TO THE AUSGLEICH

*485. The Dual Monarchy.*--The dual monarchy Austria-Hungary, comprising
a sixteenth of the area, and containing an eighth of the population,
of all Europe, is an anomaly among nations. It consists, strictly, of
two sovereign states, each of which has a governmental system all but
complete within itself. One of these is known officially as "The
Kingdoms and Lands represented in the Reichsrath," but more familiarly
as Cisleithania, or the Empire of Austria. The other, officially
designated as "The Lands of St. Stephen's Crown," is commonly called
Transleithania, or the Kingdom of Hungary. By certain historical and
political ties the two are bound together under the official name of
the Oesterreichisch-ungarische Monarchie, or Austro-Hungarian
Monarchy.[643] In the one the common sovereign is Emperor; in the
other, Apostolic King.

[Footnote 643: This designation was first employed
in a diploma of the Emperor Francis Joseph I.,
November 14, 1868 (see p. 459).]

"If," says a modern writer, "France has been a laboratory for
political experiments, A