Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 10.djvu/749

 POPULAR INITIATIVE 733

to credit other agencies, which, to the unbiased examiners, appear to have had much to do with the results. Not one of them has employed the analytical method.

In a work of high standing among scholars, Governments and Parties in Continental Europe, by A. Lawrence Lowell, the his- tory and working of the initiative and referendum in Switzerland are given (in marked contrast to those quoted above) with every evidence of impartial and close knowledge of the subject. Mr. Lowell shows that the adoption of the law was not so much the work of statesmanship as the result of accidental and peculiar national conditions. It was really the work of contending fac- tions, some religious, others political or social. There was in former years lacking in the confederation a native representative system. This was due to the absence of a royal power, which was the great unifying force during the Middle Ages. Switzerland did not become sufficiently consolidated to have a central legis- lature, and no one of the separate states that made up the con- federation was large enough by itself to need a representative system.

The confederation being a mere league of independent states, the delegates to its diet acted like ambassadors, and .... were never given power to agree

to final settlement of matters of importance The old federal referendum

meant, therefore, the right of the members of the confederation to reserve questions for their own determination.

In fact, the Swiss had no representative government until about the end of the eighteenth century. Another important fact should also be given due consideration. Switzerland was without the protection of the executive veto against unscrupulous or unwise legislation, and as a rule had no judicial process for setting aside unconstitutional laws. Such lack of restraint on the legis- latures was no doubt an important factor favoring the adoption of the obligatory referendum, and afterward the initiative ; yet it is hardly referred to by those who quote that country as a model for America to imitate. This is an example of the one-sided and partisan method employed by the pro-initiative writers.

Mr. Lowell declares that the modern referendum, as applied in Switzerland, is based on the theories of popular rights, derived