Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 49.djvu/486

466 and which practically reaffirmed previously existing conditions, Switzerland became a federated republic, whose proper and official designation is the "Helvetic Confederation," consisting of twenty-two Cantons or States; although the division of three cantons into two demi-cantons makes the total number of federative units twenty-five. The several Cantons elect a Federal Assembly (Nationalrath) and a States Council (Ständerath) in which are vested the parliamentary government of the country. The first consists of a hundred and forty-five members chosen every three years in the ratio of one for every twenty thousand of the population, the election being direct, with the right of participation by all citizens who have attained the age of twenty years. The second is composed of forty-four members, two from each Canton irrespective of its size, the mode of their election and the term of their membership being left exclusively to the respective Cantons. Clergymen are disqualified as candidates, though they are eligible for election to the Federal Assembly. The chief executive authority is deputed to a Federal Council (Bundesrath) of seven members, elected for three years by the Federal Assembly, and who during their term of service can not hold any other office in the Confederation or cantons, or engage in any calling or business. The President and the Vice-President of the Federal Council are the first magistrates of the Confederation. Both are elected by the Federal Assembly for the term of one year and are not eligible for the same office until after the expiration of another year. The salary of the President is three thousand dollars per annum. His prerogatives are very limited. He has no rank in the army, no power of veto, or independently to name any officials. He can not enforce a policy, declare war, make peace, or conclude a treaty, and the name of their President for any one year is even said not to be familiar to the mass of the Swiss people.

The Constitution of 1874 declares, that the Confederation has for its object to insure the independence of the country against foreign control, to preserve the tranquillity and the rights of the cantons, and to increase their common well-being. The Confederation has alone the right to declare war and conclude peace, as well as make alliances and treaties with foreign states, especially commercial treaties. But the cantons reserve the right of negotiating with foreign states any treaty affecting general administration, local intercourse, and police, so long as such treaties contain nothing injurious to the Confederation or to the rights of other cantons. The Confederation may not support a standing army, but every male citizen between twenty-four and forty-four years of age is bound to military service and drill. Those between the ages of twenty-four and thirty-two are designated as the