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 1921 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 261 his work. Ostensibly from the year 1494 to 1516 the Swiss people are always fighting, but his purpose is to show that the larger cantonal govern- ments are almost always striving to curb this military temper, and in- variably failing. His story of the wars becomes a valuable study in the helplessness of a federation of states in various stages of democracy in the domain of foreign policy. It is a contribution to political science rather than to military history. Economic trouble was at once cause and effect of the abuse of mercenary service. Throughout the fifteenth century, manufacture, agriculture, and commerce were declining, mainly as the result of the Zurich secession war, of that against Charles the Bold, and the so-called Suabian war of 1499. As the working male population decreased from absence or from losses, pasturage took the place of agriculture, as requiring less labour. This was all the more unfortunate, as Switzerland has never been able to grow enough grain for her own consumption. The once flourishing manu- factures dwindled almost to extinction. The Swiss could only pay for their imports by mercenary service and by their command of the great Alpine trade routes. Even of these, the greatest, the St. Gothard, was suffering from the absence of exports, which were reduced to cattle and horses, through the insecurity caused by the chronic hostility of the forest cantons to the Milanese government. It was affected also by the growing impor- tance of the Tyrolese passes, as trade developed between Venice and the south German cities, and of the lateral route through Stockach and Bern to the fairs of Lyons and Geneva, to which Bern devoted much attention. Yet even here, as on the St. Gothard, the profits came not from national industries but from tolls, safe-conducts, and the earnings of inn- and horse-keepers. The enormous booty won from the Burgundian camp after the victory of Morat first, perhaps, infected the Swiss at large with the contagion of luxury. The plunder was, as always, a rapidly wasting asset, but the malady was permanent. The military class was, of course, chiefly affected by this, and by the consequent immorality. Soldiers could not settle down to work with small returns and no excitements ; they looked to plunder and high pay in foreign service. If attempts were made to enforce labour, they went off to other cantons where there was no control. Whereas military service was originally due to superfluous population, there was now a serious scarcity of adult labour. The higher standard of luxury affected also the governing classes in the wealthier cantons, the gentry, and the bourgeois. They satisfied their cravings, which were stimulated by envoys and agents from abroad, by means of pensions from all powers who wanted, or were likely to want, their support in applications for the levy of troops. Even the expenses of the cantonal governments were liquidated by the same corrupt methods. This led' to bad feeling between the lower classes, whose foreign service the govern- ments tried to stop, and the upper, who lived on pensions gained without work or risk. On this score a split was often threatened between the more highly-organized urban states and the democratic country cantons. In the latter military service was more necessary and control much less, for the executive had little power, and was at the mercy of sudden popular impulse, which was always in the direction of war. History has never