ed. Says the "Westminster Review": "The essential characteristic
of the federal government is that each of the states which combine to
form a union retains in its own hands, in its individual capacity, the
management of its own affairs, while authority over matters common to
all is exercised by the states in their collective and corporate
capacity." And what is thus true of Confederation with respect to the
independence of the canton is equally true of canton with respect to the
commune, and of the commune with respect to the individual. No departure
from home rule, no privileged individuals or corporations, no special
legislation, no courts with powers above the people's will, no legal
discriminations whatever--such their aim, and in general their
successful aim, the Swiss lead all other nations in leaving to the
individual his original sovereignty. Wherever this is not the fact,
wherever purpose fails fulfillment, the cause lies in long-standing
complications which as yet have not yielded to the newer democratic
methods. On the side of official organization, one historical abuse
after another has been attacked, resulting in the simple,
smooth-running, necessary local and national stewardships described. On
the side of economic social organization, a concomitant of the political
system, the progress in Switzerland has been remarkable. As is to be
seen in the following chapter, in the management of natural monopolies
the democratic Swiss, beyond any other people, have attained justice,
and consequently have distributed much of their increasing wealth with
an approach to equity; while in the system of communal lands practiced
in the Landsgemeinde cantons is found an example to land reformers
throughout the world.

THE COMMON WEALTH OF SWITZERLAND.

Unless producers may exercise equal right of access to land, the first
material for all production, they stand unequal before the law; and if
one man, through legal privilege given to another, is deprived of any
part of the product of his labor, justice does not reign. The economic
question, then, under any government, relates to legal privilege--to
monopoly, either of the land or its products.

With the non-existence of the exclusive enjoyment of monopolies by some
men--monopolies in the land, in money-issuing, in common public
works--each producer would retain his entire product excepting his
taxes. This end secured, there would remain no politico-economic problem