[Footnote B: Vincent.]

_The Initiative and the Referendum._

It will be observed that the basic practical principles of both the
communal meeting and the Landsgemeinde are these two:

(1) That every citizen shall have the right to propose a measure of law
to his fellow-citizens--this principle being known as the Initiative.

(2) That the majority shall actually enact the law by voting the
acceptance or the rejection of the measures proposed. This principle,
when applied in non-Landsgemeinde cantons, through ballotings at polling
places, on measures sent from legislative bodies to the people, is known
as the Referendum.

The Initiative has been practiced in many of the communes and in the
several Landsgemeinde cantons in one form or other from time immemorial.
In the past score of years, however, it has been practiced by petition
in an increasing number of the cantons not having the democratic
assemblage of all the citizens.

The Referendum owes its origin to two sources. One source was in the
vote taken at the communal meeting and the Landsgemeinde. The principle
sometimes extended to cities, Berne, for instance, in the fifty-five
years from 1469 to 1524, taking sixty referendary votings. The other
source was in the vote taken by the ancient cantons on any action by
their delegates to the federal Diet, or congress, these delegates
undertaking no affair except on condition of referring it to the
cantonal councils--_ad referendum_.

The principles of the Initiative and Referendum have of recent years
been extended so as to apply, to a greater or lesser extent, not only to
cantonal affairs in cantons far too large for the Landsgemeinde, but to
certain affairs of the Swiss Confederation, comprising three million
inhabitants. In other words, the Swiss nation today sees clearly, first,
that the democratic system has manifold advantages over the
representative; and, secondly, that no higher degree of political
freedom and justice can be obtained than by granting to the least
practicable minority the legal right to propose a law and to the
majority the right to accept or reject it. In enlarging the field of
these working principles, the Swiss have developed in the political
world a factor which, so far as it is in operation, is creating a
revolution to be compared only with that caused in the industrial world
by the steam engine.

* * * * *

The cantonal Initiative exists in fourtee