Chapter XVI: The Swiss Allmends (2)

In these days, however, all this has been changed. By the aid of the new means of transportation and communication, and by the substitution of machinery for manual labour, the motive power for which Switzerland has in abundance, and can now turn to excellent account, the people are becoming rich. Capital has accumulated, and is still further accumulating rapidly. Families, therefore, can be supported without the common use of the land--and in most cases better without it than with it. And besides, if its common use be maintained, it will prove, when capital exists in abundance, a hindrance to the greatest possible production of food for the people. In short, the existence of capital has now brought about conditions which render the system of commonable land no longer the best. That will be its doom. No system that has been assailed by such conditions has ever been able to maintain itself. It will be no defence of it to say that it has hitherto been a good and workable system, and that the long ages of its existence have proved it to be so. This is what might have been said, and doubtless was said, with truth but without effect, of every system, not only of agronomy, but of everything else that was ever established in the world. This is the logic of sentiment, of habit, of custom, of tradition; and of those who think that they have interests distinct from and superior to the interests of the rest of the community; and of those who cannot understand what is understood by the rest of the world. It is, however, no match for the logic of facts, and of the general interest--the public good. That must ever be the strongest logic as well as the highest law. If, then, it is about to be overturned by capital, notwithstanding its long history and all that may be said on its behalf, we may infer that it was the absence of capital which brought it into being and maintained it down to the advent of capital.

Let us take the case of these Forest Cantons. In order to understand their position in respect of this matter, we must not limit our view to their present condition; we must go further back; our survey must include a wider range. Some centuries ago they were much secluded from the world. At that time there was, in comparison with what we now see in them, very little cultivable land reclaimed. Means of communication by wheeled carriages had not yet, in most places, been so much as thought about. The people therefore were thrown almost entirely upon their own scanty local resources. With hardly any means for getting supplies from without, with very little land for cultivating cereals, and in the days before maize and potatoes, their chief reliance was upon their cows. It is very much so even at this day. But in those days the reliance was all but unqualified. Their cows supplied them not only with a great part of their food, but also, through the surplus cheese, with tools, and everything else they were incapable of producing themselves from the singularly limited resources of their secluded valleys. The Switzer was then the parasite of the cow. There were no ways in which money could be made: there were no manufactures, and no travellers, and so there were no innkeepers to supply travellers, nor shopkeepers to supply the wants of operatives, manufacturers, and travellers; and there were none who had been educated up to the point that would enable them to go abroad to make money with which they might return to their old homes: neither they nor the world were then in a condition to admit of this. The adoption of foreign military service for a livelihood, which was a common practice at this period, was a proof of the poverty of the country, and did not at all contribute to enrich it; for the savings from their pay, brought home with them by those who returned, could never have compensated for the cost of bringing up those who through the practice were lost to the country. If the general population had not had the means for keeping cows, they would not have had the means for living. The problem, therefore, for them to solve was, How was every family to be enabled to keep cows? Under the conditions of those times the family that could not have kept cows must have ceased to exist.

The local conditions were very peculiar. Small prairies might be formed in the valley bottoms, and by quarrying the rocks, levelling, surface-soiling, and irrigation, they might in some places be carried a little way up the mountain sides. But if the grass of these prairies were to be consumed by the cattle in the summer, there would be no provision for them in the coming winter. As, then, the prairies could not be fed in summer, what was to be done with the cattle at that season? The mountain pastures, which could not be cut for hay, enabled them to meet this difficulty. The cows of the village community might during the summer be kept on these mountain pastures, and this would admit of the bottom and the irrigated prairies being reserved for making hay, which might support the cows in winter and spring. This, therefore, must be the plan. Everyone must have the right of sending his cows up to these summer pastures. Everyone in summer then would be able to devote himself to keeping up, perhaps to enlarging a little, his prairie land, and to making and storing up hay for winter. But this would depend on a sufficient amount of summer pasturage being kept common. Common property is not generally well looked after, or made the most of: but this is true of Alpine pasturage in a less degree than of other kinds of commonable land, because it does not depend for its produce upon care and labour, as a commonable cornfield or a commonable vineyard would; nor is it easily exhausted, for it is at rest throughout at least two-thirds of the year. It is very different with prairie, that is to say, made and cultivated grass land: its first formation--it is all made land--and the maintenance of its fertility sufficient for the two or three crops of hay taken yearly from it, and the making and storing up of this hay, require an amount of attention and labour it would be vain to expect as a general rule without the stimulus of private property. If common labour were attempted in a matter of this kind, most men would endeavour to throw as much as possible of the work on their neighbours; and as to improvements of the common property, what would then in theory be everybody’s business, would in practice be nobody’s: the labour would be both less in amount, and less enterprising. Clearly the best system with respect to the prairies was that they should be pretty generally private property. The mountain pastures were already formed. They were the gift of nature. They could not be very much improved. Under any treatment they would continue to exist. Not so with the prairies. They could not have been created without a vast amount of labour, and they could not be maintained without its continuance. And so it came to be the established rule, that the natural summer pastures should be common, and that every burger should have as many cows kept upon them in the summer as he had himself kept during the previous winter with the hay he had made from his labour-created and labour-maintained prairies; or, if as yet he had no prairies, with the dried leaves and coarse stuff he had been able to collect from the common forest.

If these mountain pastures had been allowed to become private property in those times when the people were parasites of the cows, the few who had got hold of them would have been very rich, and those who had failed to secure a share in them would have been quite starved out. They would not have been able to have kept cows through the winter, because in the summer they would have been obliged to put them on their little bits of prairie ground, and so could not have reserved their produce for winter.

And in the days anterior to accumulations of capital, this, which is a great point, worked fairly for all. All were placed on about an equal footing. Whatever differences of condition there might have been then, resulted mainly from differences of industry. But these were differences which had play within very restricted limits; for the field for industry had little extent and no variety. The community said to its members: ‘Do what you may your struggle for existence must be hard. It cannot possibly be maintained without cows; and you will not be able to keep your cows in the winter without their having been taken off your hands and off your prairies during the summer; for, throughout the whole of that season, you must be attending to your prairies, and to their produce, which must be reserved for winter. In order that this may be done, the mountain pastures shall be treated and used as common property; so that during the summer the cows of all may be kept upon them. Each shall have the right of sending up to them in the summer as many cows as he had kept from the produce of his prairies through the previous winter.’ As no family could reclaim and keep up more of this prairie land than was sufficient to provide hay for a few cows--an industrious and prosperous family might do this for five or six, a less industrious and less prosperous for two or three--the people were all placed by this system very much on a footing of equality. The system was both necessary and fair. It originated in the nature of the country, and in its then economical conditions; and, in turn, it created the Swiss life and character. It was evidently a form maintained down to our own times, under peculiar circumstances, of the semi-pastoral stage. The common pasturage was the same in both; and the prairies, held as private property and cultivated for hay, were analogous to the enclosed fields, held as private property and cultivated for grain, of that stage. The shifting severalties also of garden-ground, to which we shall come presently, were genuine incidents of it.

I will show presently how, under the altered conditions of the times, the old system of common pasturage has now become both unnecessary and unfair. To the existing circumstances of the country it is not at all adapted; and so, according to the law which makes them sovereign in human affairs, it must die out: but of that anon.

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We now come to the second part of the common property of these Cantons--the forests. Under the conditions of the past it was as necessary that there should have been common forests as it was that there should have been common summer pastures. Wood, with the exception, here and there, of turf, and which followed the same rules, was in Switzerland the only fuel. In times when men did not live much, or at all, on wages, and wood was the only fuel, it was necessary that all the members of the community should have the right of taking so much as would supply their absolute wants from the contiguous forest. This also, therefore, must, at all events so far, remain common property. That it should have been so was quite imperative in Switzerland, on account of the length and the severity of the winter. If any members of the community had been excluded from the right of fuel, they would have died of cold. Suppose that these forests had been allowed to become private property: two evil consequences would have ensued; a large part of the existing population would forthwith have been deprived of the means of obtaining fuel; and as a private owner might do with his own what he pleased, his necessities, or greed, or bad judgment, might bring him to cut down, at one time, a large portion of the forest, or might prevent his taking the care necessary for maintaining it in a serviceable condition for the generations that would follow him. These difficulties were overcome by keeping the forest in the hands of the community, and distributing, on a plan which would be fair to all, the amount of fuel that would be necessary for each. It thus became the interest of all to see that the forests were not wastefully used, and were properly maintained; and a regular supply, which was the great point, of what was indispensable was secured for all.

The rule generally observed in the distribution of the produce of the common forests was, that each family should have an allowance of fuel, and of timber for repairs, in proportion to the size of his dwelling house and byre; so many solid klafters for the former, and so many hewn timber trees, generally fir, for the latter. In the days before accumulations of capital, when, through the condition of each being mainly the result of his own industry and actual manual labour, all were kept pretty much on an equality, this method of distribution was fair enough. Its principle was analogous to that which was observed in the use of the common pastures.

Under the circumstances of time and place the maintenance of common property in the forests was a matter of life and death. In these valleys at that time there were no ways of earning the means for buying fuel. The people had in summer to be attending, each to his little bit of prairie land, to his hay-making, and to his little plot of corn; and in winter he must still be at home, looking after and tending his cows, and doing the many things requisite for the maintenance of his family; and which, under the circumstances of the time and place, would not have been done at all if not done by himself.

What has now been said about the mountain pasture and fuel fully explains the disabilities laid on residents who had come in from other cantons, or communes. They were excluded from political rights, and from participation in the common property, not out of any mean and unreasonable jealousy, but because the common property was barely sufficient for the existing burgers--population always increases up to, it might be more truly said down to, the means of subsistence--and increase of numbers would have destroyed the action and benefits of the system: the only system then and there possible.

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We still have to consider a third kind of commonable land--the garden-ground. This was, originally, as necessary as the other two kinds. It would amount for each to shares of an acre or two. It completed the support of the family. It was an indispensable supplement to the cows and the fuel. And even in these times, when money can be earnt in many ways, the quarter, or half, of an acre, in some places still the whole acre, which can be assigned to each member of the commune, has some advantages. It enables the family to secure a sufficient supply of cabbages, onions, haricots, flax, hemp, potatoes, and occasionally, a serviceable amount of wheat or maize. Formerly there was no other way for the household to procure these articles: though, indeed, in these days, this obvious advantage is sometimes counter-balanced by greater, but less obvious disadvantages. The old rule was that every commune should have a certain amount of _terre laborable_; and that this should, at stated periods, say every year, every five, ten, or twenty years, as might be the local arrangement, be reportioned among those who would themselves cultivate their lots. The community must have hands and hearts to protect it, indeed even to enable it to be a community; and these hands and hearts must have the means of living; and if all the _terre laborable_ had been allowed to fall into the condition of private property, many would have been deprived of a necessary ingredient in the means of living. And here again, if _Beisassen_ had been admitted to a participation in the communal garden-ground, the aim and object of the system would, so far as that went, have been defeated. In many, probably in all communes, it was the rule that new comers might purchase the position and rights of burgers, when, but only when, the old burgers were in favour, unanimously, of their admission. This wise requirement of unanimity upon the question of the admission of a new burger secured the community against the action of a cause, which, if unrestricted, would certainly and rapidly have reduced the severalties of its members in this, and all other kinds of their common property, to insufficiently small dimensions. It is true that they have at last been overtaken by this inconvenience; but it has been brought about by the action of a natural cause which could not have been met and obviated in any way: for it has been the result of an increase of population; and that increase of population has been the result of an increase of wealth; which again, in turn, was the result of an increase of variety in the ways opened for obtaining a living. Our porter from Meiringen to Brieg, Jean Ott, a burger of Im Hof, has ten children. He obtains his livelihood by carrying travellers’ knapsacks. Those knapsacks therefore have ultimately been the cause of the existence of the ten children. The boys will all be burgers of Im Hof. Their existence will lessen the value of the severalties of the common property of Im Hof. In this way, everywhere, the severalties are being so reduced as to be no longer sufficient for the support of families. Thus they become only prophylactics, if that, against pauperism.

The four parts then of the system we have been considering, the common summer pastures, the reclaimed appropriated prairies, the common forest for fuel, and for building and repairs, and the common _terre laborable_, hung together inseparably. Each was necessary under the circumstances of the character and natural formation of the country; and of the absence of accumulations of capital, and of anything else to give employment, the existence of which would have meant that there were other sources than land for supporting life. The Switzer--that is the governing fact--was the parasite of the cow. He could not have existed without it. But he could not have kept cows without their having been taken off his hands during the summer by their maintenance on the common mountain pastures. This was necessary for enabling him to form and maintain the prairie land, and to make hay from it. Otherwise the cows could not have been supported in the winter. But these prairies could not, as a general rule, have been formed without the stimulus of private property. Many families could not have existed unless they had had a supply of fuel from the common forest. An assured amount of garden-ground was almost as necessary as an assured amount of fuel.

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It will help us to understand how this system acted, and why it acted as it did, if we observe how the introduction of the new conditions has affected it. Switzerland, which was for many ages the poorest country in Europe, is rapidly progressing towards becoming, in proportion to the amount of its population, one of the richest. As I have already reminded the reader, no other country in the world, in proportion to its population, manufactures cotton and silk so largely. Again, it is said that 150,000 travellers pass every year through the single town of Interlaken. We will not take into account any but these; and we will suppose that those who stay in the country some months as well as those who stay some weeks, and those who are careless, as well as those who are careful, about their outgoings, spend each, on an average of the whole, 35_l._ This will amount to 5,250,000_l._ As to Swiss investments in foreign securities, from what inquiries I have been able to make I have come to the conclusion that they are very considerable. This is nothing less than making foreign countries tributary to them. The interest paid on these investments is so much tribute. It is just as much a tribute as that which the Jews paid to the Romans, or which the Khedive is at this day paying to the Porte. How it came about in any one of these cases that the payment had, or has, to be paid, is practically, of no importance: what is essential, as far as the matter before us is concerned, is the fact of the payment. The money goes to Switzerland. Russians, Americans, French, Italians, Germans, are in this way working for, and are being taxed for, the Swiss. English, Dutch, and Danish funds do not pay interest enough for them. There is therefore no longer any point in the Frenchman’s sarcasm, ‘We fight for honour, but you fight for money.’ Nor in the Switzer’s rejoinder, ‘It is only natural that each of us, like the rest of the world, should fight for what he has not got.’ The Swiss have at last come to be so prosperous, and to have so many other means of making money, both at home and abroad, that they would not in these days risk their lives in foreign military service for a franc a day.

What we now have to observe is, that this influx of wealth has, to a great extent, rendered the old system of common pasturage both unnecessary and unfair. While it has been abrogating its necessity, it has been reversing its action. In these days a man keeps an hotel, or a shop; has a bank, or a factory; or in some way or other makes a good deal of money: perhaps it was made abroad, and he has returned home with it. He will now keep a dozen, he may even keep two dozen cows. He will be able to do this, because he will keep them out of the profits of his business, or from the interest of accumulated capital; and not, as was alone possible formerly, by his own labour and that of his family. If he were reduced to that means for keeping them, their number would be reduced to four or five. And this rich man is a burger, and therefore he is entitled to send them all up to the common pastures. If he have more than two dozen, all still may be sent. At the other extremity of society many are called into existence by the existence of the rich. These will be supported by wages. And these wages they will not get unless they work regularly. But if they work regularly for wages, they will not be able to spend the summer in collecting winter provender for cows. Nor in winter, if they had provender, could they devote their time to cows. These men, therefore, though burgers, equally with the rich, will be unable to turn their rights in the common pastures to account. Their rights thus fall into abeyance. And in many places the population has so increased that there is no longer common pasturage enough for those who do keep cows. Some half-dozen rich burgers, then, may alone have more cows than the pastures, which remain common, would be able to maintain, or an increase in the number of burgers who are able to keep a few cows each, may have brought things to the same point. And either of these cases may be coincident with the inability of a large proportion of the burgers to keep any cows at all. Increase, then, of wealth, and consequent increase of population, have altogether altered the action and defeated the purpose of the old system. In those communes in which the rich are in the majority--a state of society which, strange to say, does exist in some--the old rule is rigidly maintained: every burger is still entitled to send up to the common pastures all the cows he kept through the winter. In places, however, where wealth has so increased the number of cows that there is no longer sufficient common pasturage for all, each burger sends up a _pro ratâ_ proportion of his herd, say a third, or a half. In such cases, by the very maintenance, as far as possible, of the old, originally fair rule, the poor, some partially, some utterly, are excluded from the use of their property. As Dr. Bekker observed to me, it is the literal application of the saying, that ‘to them who have shall be given, and they shall have abundantly; but from them who have not shall be taken away what they appear to have.’ In many places it has become the practice, and it is one which the force of circumstances is rapidly extending, to let the common pastures. The question then arises, of what is to be done with the proceeds? In the case of the communal alpes they may be applied to the payment of local rates; or they may be divided among the burgers, who may receive each an equal amount, or an amount proportionate to the number either of his cows, or of his family.

But to each of these methods, and I believe to every conceivable method of appropriating the proceeds, valid objections may be made. If they go in reduction, or whole payment, of rates for schools, roads, churches, fountains, police, &c., then the rich are eased in a far greater degree than the poor; who, according to the original principle of the system have an equal right in the common property with the rich; its use having been, at the time of its institution, so regulated--this was possible under the circumstances of those times--as to enable all to participate in it; and, too, to participate in it pretty equally. Riches have supervened, and have, as things now are, made this impossible. But as those who are now poor may some day become rich, their rights are still, contingently, equal to those of the rich. Or, if the proceeds are divided among the _usagers_ in equal amounts, or in proportion to the number of cows owned, or of the family--and these methods of distribution are often resorted to in places where the population has quite outgrown the common pastures--the benefit to each burger will be very small. In the equal _per capita_ distributions idleness will always be rewarded, without industry being ever encouraged. And in the proportionate distributions it will generally happen that those who want help most will get the least, and those who want it least will get the most; which difficulty will be further aggravated by the fact, that in these days many of those who want it most are least deserving of it. Again, all these methods of distribution exclude the new burgers; and such exclusions are in direct contradiction to the ideas, the sentiments, and the requirements of modern societies.

In those cases in which common pastures belong to sections of the burgers of a commune, that is to say, to corporations, for instance, to the burgers of a particular hamlet, or to certain families, either with or without a definite object to be promoted by the use, or the proceeds, of the common property, or in some way or other by those who hold it, it is found that the same disturbing action, as in the case of the communal property, though not quite to the same degree, has been introduced by the influx of riches. Some get rich, and some get poor; which in the case of these corporations also, renders the system unmeaning, and even noxious. And riches lead to an increase of population which renders the share of each corporator of little value.

The fact is that the old system is utterly inapplicable to the new conditions into which society has advanced. It was intended for that state of things, modified by the strong peculiarities of Switzerland, in which land is the only means of supporting life. Life may now be supported by capital, either invested or employed, a means which admits of indefinite extension, or by the labour and skill of those whom capital employs. This has deprived the old system of its character and utility; and even in many places made its action prejudicial to the interests both of individuals and of society. Its object--that of supporting life--can now be better attained by other arrangements, and also by other means.

Still the great principle to be dealt with in these days is identical with that which had to be dealt with originally. It must, however, be applied under the circumstances existing now, as it had to be under the circumstances existing then. It is the principle that the land of the country ought to be so held as to ensure the production of the greatest amount of food, possible under the conditions of the time, for the people of the country. Any arrangement which now excludes from the land the application to it of capital, the great modern agent of production, contradicts this principle. The old system therefore of holding the land in common contradicts it. It has also to be considered now, how what must be done for carrying out the paramount principle, can be done on a footing that is fair to all. A system which excludes a large part of the population from the chance of becoming owners of land contradicts this requirement. That is to say, the old system, which was in its day beneficial to the community, and fair to all, is now the reverse of beneficial to all, and the reverse of fair to all. Those who are now under the necessity of attempting to work it are beset with much the same kind of difficulties in which a general would find himself involved, if he were obliged to attempt to carry out a campaign with the commissariat and the tactics of the Homeric age. Much would be lost, much would be hindered, and the attempt, after all, could not be anything but unreal and mischievous; or their antiquated methods and position may be compared to what would be those of a colony of Esquimaux, who, having been settled in the genial climate, and amid the abundant resources, of a temperate region, were endeavouring to maintain inviolate the practices and the ways of living that had been necessary in their old Arctic home.

The administration of the common forests is, under existing circumstances, hampered with similar difficulties, though not quite to the same extent. Their produce for fuel, for building, and for repairs, was distributed in accordance with the size of the house. Now, however, there are large mansions, and very small tenements; and, if the old rule of distribution be maintained, the owners of the large mansions, who can very well afford to pay for their fuel, will receive half a dozen or more klafters of fuel, and timber in proportion, while the owners of small tenements may be receiving only one klafter of fuel, and timber in proportion to that. In some places, where the population has largely increased, the produce of the common forests is all sold, and the proceeds are applied to the maintenance of the destitute, or to some other public purpose.

As to the garden-ground, the increase of population has in many places reduced the share of each _usager_ to an almost uselessly small plot of ground: the occupation of which must often prove a real detriment, by indisposing him to turn to some trade or employment, by which he might readily obtain the competency, with the hope, or appearance only of which, his few rods of land are now mocking him.

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M. Emile de Laveleye, a learned writer, in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_, on the social and political relations of agriculture, thinks that he has discovered in the old Swiss system a remedy for the social and political maladies under which France has long been suffering. He advocates its adoption. Of course the adoption of anything of the kind is impossible. This is a matter in which the arrangements of the time can be engendered only by the circumstances of the time. As well might he advocate a reversion to bows and arrows as a scheme for enabling Europe to get rid of its costly armaments; or to domestic distaffs and looms as a remedy for the evils of the factory system. In these matters there can be no reversions. Even in Switzerland, where exceptional causes, the character of the country, and centuries of dearth of capital, so long maintained the system we have endeavoured to describe, and which he would fain endeavour to reproduce in France, it is seen by the more intelligent part of the nation that now, even in its remote and secluded valleys, in consequence of the increase of population and accumulation of capital, it is going, and must go. The holding of land in common they acknowledge to be, as things now are, an evil, and to be no longer capable of defence. The old ideas cannot now be carried out, the old objects cannot now be secured, by the old methods. Society has now needs, and has assumed a form, and has within it an agent, which renders some other arrangement more conformable to existing conditions, more workable, and more productive of the elements of moral and intellectual, as well as of material well-being; and, too, more fair for all. Those among the Swiss themselves who are in a position to take a view of the whole subject, now recognize what time has established among them--that land is no longer, as formerly, the only means of maintaining a family; that in the case of many it is not the best means; that more can be made of it that is to say, that it can be made to produce more food, which is the equivalent of its being made to support a greater number of families, by its being allowed to pass into the hands of private owners possessed of capital, than by its being kept as the common property of communes, or of corporations; and by its acquisition being made by the way of the results of any kind of industry, equally open and possible to all. They regret the difficulties which stand in the way of the removal of those antiquated shackles which now limit its uses and produce, and which do this mischief, ridiculously, in the name of equality; as if the perfection of equality were to exclude rigidly the majority of the community from all chance of ever acquiring any share in the property of the land. In this matter, the true equality for these days is to make the ownership of the land--the chief instrument of production, and participation in the produce of the land, as far as possible equal to all by the thousand ways of the thousand forms of industry society now requires. What is now wanted is that all should have the chance of such an education as would properly qualify each for some form of industry, and enable him by perseverance, thrift, and cultivated intelligence to turn it to good account. This would enable all, and each according to his merits, which should be the first aims of society in the era of capital, to participate in the produce of the soil. Make the produce as abundant as possible, and at the same time make that, as far as possible, common to all, in proportion to the exertions, which mean the intellectual and moral merits, of each. Of these times these are the requirements, which so far from being promoted, can only be thwarted by the system of common land, or by that of the minute division of the land. Both of these systems carry us in a thoroughly wrong direction.

So soon as facts oblige us to see these points, the existing system, so far as it is opposed to them, is demonstrated to have become antiquated and false. It begins therefore to be undermined, and to totter to its fall; no matter how unquestioned, varied, and great the services it was capable, under other circumstances, of rendering, and had rendered, to society. It was for the sake of those circumstances that it existed. When they are gone the reasons for its existence have gone with them. As it, itself, formerly superseded some other system, so must some other system now supersede it. This is the law of nature. In such matters gratitude for what once did good service, respect for the past, the charm that memory flings about old arrangements, have nothing to do with the settlement of the questions in debate, except in the way of securing ample time for their complete discussion. The governing consideration must always be, What under existing circumstances will be best for society? That is to say, in this particular case, What, as things now are, will give the community the best supply of food, and in such a manner as will be fairest and best for all, all the wants of society that are affected by the ownership and the produce of the land having been duly attended to? These are the old questions, which, from the beginning, advances in the conditions of society have reopened again and again, and which have been resettled again and again, always in conformity with the existing conditions of the epoch. They are questions that have relative as well as absolute elements, and which therefore, like that of government, and of almost everything belonging to the domain of human affairs, can never be settled once for all by the aid of some abstract theory. The circumstances, however, and events arising out of the circumstances, which are what force them into debate, always, sooner or later, force upon us a corresponding settlement of them.

A word more. Property, which, as we have seen, existed from the beginning, because it is an incident of life, is not theft. On the contrary, the worst theft is that of the highest property. And the highest property a man can have, and that, too, of which, in these days, the political and economical well-being of society requires that he should have as unrestricted use as of his capital and of his labour, is his capacity for moral and intellectual improvement; the point has now been reached at which these ideas are beginning to form themselves in the general mind; and the theft of this capacity is in a sense committed against those who are debarred from the opportunities, now possible, for its culture and development. We are beginning to see that it is a kind of theft to hinder a man from attaining to what, while it would be of advantage to him, is fairly within his reach; and, if this be just what would make him most truly a man, and enable him to discharge his duties to society as well as to himself, the theft is very far from being an insignificant one. It is, in fact, the very theft against which the Christian Church has all along been, or ought to have been, the protest of humanity: this was its _raison d’être_: though very naturally, but quite wrongly, so soon as it came to be an hierarchical organization, that part of the protest that had reference to what was intellectual was hushed, and, from obvious motives, knowledge and reason were thenceforth denounced. But so far it had falsified its purpose, abdicated its position, and ceased to be a Church, having become in its stead only an hierarchical organization. Society it is that is now unconsciously committing this theft, against which it is the highest duty of the true Church to protest. And it is society only, acting in its organized form, and through its accredited agent, the state, that can effectually make the restitution; and so far as the state attempts to do this, that is to say, to make the moral and intellectual improvement of the community its aim, it becomes the ally of the true Church.

The progress of society may be measured by the degree in which it enables larger and larger proportions of its members to enter upon a serviceable possession of this, their highest property. It will have attained a very high degree of progress when it shall have given to every member of the community opportunities and means for doing this: everyone will then have some chance of being able to turn his mental endowments to some account, to stand alone, and to take care of himself. That each should have this chance is now as necessary for society as it is for the individual. When the old Swiss system was established it was the material life only of small, poor, uncommercial communities that had to be thought about. Its originators therefore made such a portion of their land common as would be sufficient for this purpose. That arrangement only, then and there, could give the means for material existence; and no other kind of existence was or could have been at that time taken into consideration. All beyond this the Church took charge of, and attended to in accordance with its own ideas and in its own fashion. But now man can live a higher life; and for the requirements of his material life the possession, or direct participation in the use of land is not necessary: indeed, a better material life can, in many cases, be lived without its possession or use than with it. But these new conditions require that a man should be enabled to turn to good account his moral and intellectual capacities: they it is that must now be so cultivated as to enable him to obtain a livelihood by their exercise in the new world in which his lot has been cast.

This is what the present Swiss system of education aims at doing for every man in the country. Their old agrarian system gave to each, when that was what was necessary, a share in the common land. Life with them has now risen into a higher stage. It has moral and intellectual possibilities, which are also requirements, formerly not needed, nor dreamt of. The Swiss recognize this, and give to each opportunities for participating in the knowledge and moral training, as they conceive it, now possible. Having already freedom and political equality, they were able to rise to the idea of humanity. Their old agrarian system, too (morally it had acted in the very opposite direction to ours with its necessary supplement of a communistic poor law) had made industry, thrift, honesty, and foresight traditional and instinctive among them. There was therefore nothing to obscure their perception of, or weaken their desire for what ought to be done under the altered circumstances of the times. Formerly, in conformity with the possibilities and requirements of the age, the community had made some material provision for all; as much as it could, and as fairly as it could; and which would be enough, if turned to the best account by the industry of the individual, for a competent living in the fashion of those days. Time has rendered those arrangements antiquated and inapplicable. This landed provision cannot any longer be made for all. There are too many people and not enough land for that. But contemporaneously with this increase of numbers, which is the same thing as relative decrease and failure of the old landed means for living, a great variety of other means have been opened on all sides; and the stage upon which these may be turned to account has been expanded in the case of each from a small mountain-locked valley to, practically, the whole world. For these reasons, just as their old agrarian system made land, so their new educational system is making intellectual training, and some amount of moral training (though already they have much of that) common to all. The powers these confer are now in a sense common pastures, upon which all may keep flocks and herds; common forests, from which all may get fuel and building materials; and common garden-ground, by the cultivation of which all may supply their minor wants.

They have endeavoured to apply the old principle to a new, a better, and a higher world. The identity of principle, and the differences of application, are analogous to those that exist between the caterpillar and the butterfly. In both life, with its imperative requirements of food, air, light, warmth, &c., and its essential principles of assimilation, circulation, &c., is the same. But in the caterpillar this life has to be maintained by, and spent upon a leaf. Everything therefore is adapted to this condition. Its powerful jaws, its vigorous stomach, its restricted powers of locomotion, the tenacious hold of its feet, its sluggish disposition, its dull colours, are all referable to the leaf, that is to say, to its habitat and means of living. So with the butterfly. Its life is to be spent in the air, and among the flowers, and upon the honey distilled from the flowers. Hence its large powers of locomotion, its beautiful colours, its lively temperament, its sensitive antennæ, its fastidious stomach, its flexible proboscis. Everything in it has been readapted to the new conditions. So, too, with the Swiss. While they were in the earlier stage of their national existence, what was needed for each was a little bit of land, a cow or two, a spade, a manure basket, and a wife to carry it. This was their caterpillar stage. They are now passing into the butterfly stage. All their arrangements and provisions therefore have now to be reaccommodated to the new conditions in the required fashion. They must now be endowed with the capacity for collecting and turning to account capital, the distilled essence of all property, without which even the land cannot be made much of now. This life does not require the tough hide, the strong sinews, the gross stomach, the adstriction to a single spot, of the old life; but on the contrary, a vastly enlarged mobility both of body and mind, a readiness for turning anything to account, and for entering on any opening. They must be quick in thought and quick in action. If they cannot find what they want at home, they must be able and disposed to go to seek it elsewhere--here, there, anywhere. They must have scientific and technical knowledge; must be capable of appreciating new facts, and of taking large views; must be patient and painstaking; must have the power of working mentally for distant objects; must have an instinct of submission to law, both to the laws of society, which aim at justice to all, and at order, and to the laws of nature, submission to which enables a man to use effectually his own powers, and to turn to account the powers of nature. These are moral and intellectual qualities. And it is with these that the Swiss school system, like that of their North German neighbours, would fain endow the whole people.

FOOTNOTES:

[1]

Inde, ubi prima quies, medio jam noctis abactæ
Curriculo, expulerat somnum, quum femina primum,
Cui tolerare colo vitam tenuique Minervâ,
Impositum cinerem et sopitos suscitat ignes,
Noctem addens operi; famulasque ad lumina longo
Exercet penso; castum ut servare cubile
Conjugis, et possit parvos educere natos--_Æn._ viii. 407-413.

I take the liberty of rejecting the ruling of Heyne, and of the late Professor Conington, that ‘impositum’ is the regimen of ‘tolerare.’ (1) It is not necessary. (2) ‘Impositum’ gives importance and meaning to ‘cinerem,’ which would be too meagre without it. It does also, as it were, balance ‘sopitos.’ (3) It brings before the eye the pictures of the way in which the fire had been made up over night, to keep it alive till the morning, and of the way in which in the morning it is resuscitated. Where wood is the fuel, the ashes are heaped up, for the night, over the live coals. This excludes the air. In the morning, the heaped up ashes are removed, and the fire fed. Everyone has seen this done in Italy, and elsewhere. Virgil had seen it done; and this is what he describes.

I also suppose that ‘ad lumina’ means at the first dawn. The good woman herself rises before dawn, ‘noctem addens operi.’ But it would be hard, and unnatural, to set her women to work before dawn. That they should work through the whole day, beginning at dawn, is a sufficiently long task for them. I even doubt whether spinning and weaving could have been carried on with the feeble light of the lamps of those days; and, too, whether, if possible, it would have paid to do it for the short time before dawn. At all events by my interpretation of ‘ad lumina’ the good woman’s motives and early rising are thrown into strong relief; and this is done without making her treat her women harshly.

[2] I was reminded of the Anacreontic to the Grasshopper, and of Cowley’s rendering of it:--

Thou dost drink, and dance, and sing,
Happier than the happiest king.
Thou dost innocently enjoy,
Nor does thy luxury destroy.
To thee, of all things upon earth,
Life is no longer than thy mirth.
Happy insect! happy thou,
Dost neither age nor winter know.
But when thou’st danced, and drunk, and sung
Thy fill, the flowery leaves among
(Voluptuous, and wise withal,
Epicurean animal,)
Sated with thy summer feast,
Thou retir’st to endless rest.

[3] Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works, vol. i. pp. 198 and 255.

[4] And may I not be allowed to say here in passing, that our observation of this fact must have a good effect upon our treatment of our dumb fellow-workers, and of every creature that breathes? Indeed, if they were not dumb, as has been suggested in an earlier part of this volume, they would probably be able to show us, that in the highest gift also of all, that of reason, their approximation to ourselves is much closer than many of us suppose at present. And may not this eventually prove a new, and very striking instance of the way in which an increase of knowledge enlarges and elevates religion? I say religion rather than the sense of duty, because if such knowledge should bring us to treat the lower animals with kindly interest and consideration, it will not be because we feel in the matter responsibility to them, or to our fellow men, but to the common Author of all.

INDEX.

Agrarian evolution, 305.
Village community, 322

Agriculture, prehistoric, 315.
In New Caledonia, 317

Airolo, 63, 87

Aletsch Glacier, 242, 260, 264, 267

Aletschwald, 260

Allotments, 260

Allmends, 2.
Of Stanz, 35.
Of Glarus, 165.
Of Switzerland, 297.
Causes that maintained them, 330.
Unsuitable to existing conditions, 345-354

Alpes, at Am Stag, 48.
Of Oberalp, 95.
Of Waldnacht, 109.
Statistics of, 301.
Why common, 336.
Relation to prairies, 337

Alpbach, 131

Alpnach, 34, 204

Altorf, 43.
No bookseller at, 44

American puzzled at Lugano, 78.
Medical students, 93.
An angler, 104

Ammer, 14, 44, 51, 59, 98.
His portrait, 208-213

Am Stag, 46.
Intellectual condition of, 47.
Common rights at, 48.
La Croix Blanche of, 103

Andermatt, 58, 87, 102

Animal life, scarcity of, 207

Animals, domestication of useful, 312

Association, primæval, 310.
Among lower animals, 311, 314

Beisassen, Why excluded from common rights, 340, 342

Barber, the, of Brieg, 274

Beckenried, 122-127

Bekker, Dr., 176, 347

Bellaggio, 79

Bell Alp, 264-271.
View from, 268

Bellinzona, 68, 85

Berne, 7

Black Virgin of Einsiedln, 147

Blue of glacier ice, 263

Boats, Swiss, 31

Bocketobel, 108

Böningen, Allmends of, 14

Bookseller, none at Altorf, 44

Boots for walking, 232

Bretzwyl, 1-6

Brieg, 272

Brünig, 23, 207

Brunnen, 188

Buochs, 36, 40

Burgers, without cows, 48.
Old and new, 297, 340, 342

Canterbury, why no pilgrimages to, 143

Capital incompatible with common land, 349

Carriages at Andermatt, 89.
At Am Stag, 104.
At Alpnach, 204

Carving in wood, 28

Cenere, view from Monte, 74, 83

Cereals, first culture of, 315

Cheese, its value to the Swiss, 331

_Christo in pauperibus_, 32

Church of Rome, present position of, 151.
The, a protest, 357

Cities, English, 203

Classical studies, why advocated, 138

Climate, favourable to grass and forests, 134

Cloud banner, 114, 170

Common, how produce of land now, 325

Commune, Swiss, 298

Como, Mass at, 81.
Shores of Lake, 82

Conversation spoils society, 65

Corporations, 175

Cowley, 238

Culture, moral and intellectual, a means of living, 358-362

Dazio Grande, 64

Delta of Lütschine, 11-14

Deschwanden, M., 122

Devil, Ammer on the, 51.
Devil’s Bridge, 57.
Forms assumed by the, 66

Differences not seen by pilgrims, 145

Diligences, 92

Disappointment, a common, 84

Education, aims of Swiss, 358-362

Eggischhorn, hotel at, 236.
Storm at, 239.
Ascent of, 240.
View from, 242

Einsiedln, 135-160

Endowments, 177

Engelberg, 117-120

Englishman, in Italy, 105

English virtue, 125

Ennetburgen, 36

Enjoyment, science of, 292.
Knowledge necessary for, 296

Etruria, perhaps two races in ancient, 20

Evening at Engelberg, 118, 119

Excursion, the kind of, 15.
How described, 288.
Plan of the, 290.
Pleasures of, 295