Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 11.djvu/755

 PERIODICAL

691

PERIODICAL

general association of the "Dames de la buena prensa", edited by Jose Ignacio de Molina. "Revista Social Hispano-Amcricana", founded in 1902, semi- monthly publication of the "Accion Popular", Bar- celona.

It is difficult to say anything with certainty as to the future of the Catliolic Press in Spain, though there is reasonable ground for a hopeful view. The one thing evident is that, within the last few years, the number of Catholic publications in this country has considerably increased, and that an active propa- ganda is in progress in favour of the Catholic Press. Many Catholics, it seems, are awakening from their lethargy and are beginning to realize the necessity of using every possible means to counteract the per- nicious effect of the evil press. The "Asociaci6n de la Buena Prensa", organized with the approval of Cardinal Spinola, Archbishop of Heville, has already (1910) held two conferences. A Catholic agency has been formed to supply news to Catholic periodicals, and some of the new periodicals, such as " La Gaceta del Norte", give much information and are equipped with excellent typographic facilities.

Manuel del Propaganda (Seville, 1908) ; C.\s.v8, Anuario de la prensa catdlica Hispano-Portuguesa (Orenae, 1909); Criado. Las ordenes religiosas en el periodismo espaHol (Madrid, 1907) ; Pe- LAEZ, La impoTtancia de la prensa (Barcelona, 1907); Idem. La Cruzada de la Buena Prensa (Barcelona. 1908); DnESO, Escdn- dalo, Escdndalo (Madrid, 1907); La Agenda Catdlica de informa- c\6n (Saragossa, 1910).

Enrique Jimenez.

Switzerland. — The history of Swiss journalism goes back to the beginning of the seventeenth century, the first Swiss newspaper being issued at Basle in 1610. It is significant that the early newspapers of Switzer- land, which was at that time only nominally free, hardly discussed political matters excepting those of foreign countries and tliis was the case until well into the eighteenth century. The censorship exercised at that time was so strict that it did not seem advisable to raise questions concerning home politics. Even in the middle of the eighteenth century, writers of objec- tionable articles were bluntly notified to give up writ- ing for newspapers. The political newspaper did not appear until at the close of the eighteenth and the beginning of the nineteenth century, when tiie free- dom of the Press was gradually allowed. This freedom, however, for a long time existed chiefly in the Protes- tant cantons. Catholic journalism in the present sense is a recent growth, and does not extend farther back than the third decade of the last century, when the first Catholic newspapers appeared at Lucerne and St. Gall. The reasons for this were partly of a political and partly of an economic character. Switzerland is a federation of twenty-five cantons, each of which up to 184S was absolutely sovereign and up to 1S74 was practically sovereign. Even now the cantons possess many of the rights of sovereignty, though not as many as the States of the American Union. Hence the polit- ical Press has mainly a cantonal or local character, dealing with the interests of the sub-divisions of a small state.

All the Catholic cantons are relatively small, some of them not having more than 20,000 or 30,000 inhabi- tants. Moreover, the population is mostly rural. Except Lucerne and Fribourg, they do not contain important cities, and, finally, the Catholic party for many years totally misjudged the importance and influence of the political Press in general, and let itself be outstripped by their opponents. The first strong impulse to the founding of a Catholic Press was given by the civil war of 1847, called the war of the Sonder- bund; the war ended with the defeat of the seven Catholic cantons, which placed them largely at the mercy of a violent Liberalism. This was still more the ca.se in the cantons made up of Catholic and Protes- tant districts. The Catholic Press grew very rapidly during the sixth decade of the past century and still

more so duiing the Swiss Kulturkampf of the seventies. More recently a large emigration of Catholics into Protestant cantons led to the founding of Catholic newspapers in these cantons. Switzerland has now a Catholic Press in the Catholic cantons, in those where Catholics and Protestants are on a parity, and in the Protestant cantons.

The statistics are as follows: In 1911 Switzerland had 399 political newspapers, of which 64 were Cath- olic. Of these Catholic papers, 1 is issued 7 times a week, 10 are issued 6 times weekly, 1 is issued 5 times weekly, 3 appear 4 times weekly, 22 appear 3 times, 13 appear twice weekly, and 14 once a week. 50 are pub- lished in German, 9 in French, 4 in Italian, and 1 in Rhato-Romanic. The number of copies issued at an edition are, taken altogether, as follows: the 4 daily papers, including 1 issued 5 times weeklj-, have a circu- lation of 52,000 copies ; 3 that appear 4 times weekly, 8000 copies; 22 appearing 3 times weekly, 57,000; 13 appearing twice weekly, 30,000; 14 appearing once a week, 60,000. Thus the 64 Catholic papers have a total circulation of 207,000. The Canton of Aargau has 6; Appenzell Outer Rhodes, none; Appenzell Inner Rhodes, 1 ; half-canton of Basel-Stadt, 1 ; half-canton of Basel-Land, none; Berne, 3; Fribourg, 4; St. Gall, 12; Geneva, 1; Glarus, 1; Grisons, 3; Lucerne, 5; Neuch&tel, none; Schaffhausen, 1; Schwyz, 5; Solo- thurn, 3; Ticcino, 3; Thurgau, 1; half-canton of Nidwald, 1; half-canton of Obwald, 1; LTri, 1; Vaud, none; Valais, 5; Zug, 1; Zurich, 4. The Catholic cantons have 28 Catholic papers, including 3 dailies, the cantons having parity, 27, including 5 dailies; the Protestant cantons, 9, including 4 dailies and I appear- ing 5 times weekly.

Although the Catholic Press of Switzerland has grown enormously in the last thirty years, and need not fear comparison with that of other countries, even entirely Catholic, yet the result is much less satisfac- tory and even disappointing if we compare the Cath- olic with the anti-Catholic press. According to the census of 1910 Switzerland has in round numbers 3,700,000 inhabitants. Of these about 1,. 500,000 are Catholics. From this we should deduct the liberal Catholics, a fairly large element, and the foreign work- men, Italian men and women, journeymen-mechanics, servants, etc., that are only temporary residents. Consequently only about 1,200,000 Catholics can be taken into consideration for the present purpose. We shall compare only the dailies. A comparison between the weekly papers would not yield a much better re- sult, as is evident from the fact that there are only 64 Catholic political papers to counterbalance 399 non- Catholic, and for 269 non-Catholic weeklies that ap- pear 1 to 4 times weekly there are only 53 Catholic ones. The daily non-Catholic Press of Switzerland includes 67 newspapers; of these 44 are extreme Lib- eral, that is, hostile to the Church and in part disposed to renew the Kulturkampf: 3 of these appear twice a day, total circulation, 244,000; 7 Liberal-Conserva- tive, Protestant in faith, and generally friendly to Catholics, total circulation 46,000; 10 Social-Demo- cratic and belonging to the Democratic party of the Left, partly hostile to Catholics but not inclined to carry on a Kidlurkampf, total circulation 54,000; 7 politically indifferent, total circulation 164,000. Taken altogether, as before said, 67 papers with a total circu- lation of 508,000, opposed to which arc 12 Catholic dailies, one of which appears 5 times weekly, with a total circulation of ,52,000. In proportion to the popu- lation there should be at least 20 with a circulation of 150,000. The total circulation of all the 64 Catholic Swiss papers is 207,000 copies, not the half of the total circulation of the non-Catholic dailies, and the total circulation of the extreme Liberal dailies alone is much larger than the total circulation of all the Catholic papers taken together. It should be further added that up to now the Catholic Press contains no paper