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mont for damages sustained, the best thing is to rid oneself of such a turbulent people, by handing them over to France. In short, the Savoy business and its 'mutual repulsion' will be repeated, with the difference that obtains between old reminiscences of supremacy and the passions that are fresh, vigorous, and exasperated by hatreds truly Italian." Such is the language of men who call themselves conservatives. It is the language of the men, who in reality regard the interests of their section or province as superior to their country's greatest good. While among the Neapolitan radicals we hear of nothing but an earnest desire for the good of Italy, the great question at the north seems to be: What will be most conducive to the interests of Piedmont? On the one side is the comprehensive consideration of country; on the other the petty jealousy which arises from sectional ambition. It is the same spirit which manifests itself in the crisis of every nation. It is the same thing whether it appears in the narrow sectionalism of Piedmont, or in the pernicious states rights doctrine, which led to the rebellion of the South. The principle is to talk loudly of country as long as the power is retained; but to turn when the good of the nation demands, that the power, so long held, be withdrawn. But while we give all honor to the "party of action," in that for their country's sake they are willing to waive or defer their long cherished hope of making Rome the capital of a united Italy, still we cannot but sympathize with the desire. To be sure there are reasons why Rome should not now be selected. If it were, how could the Papal question be settled? The Holy Father could not possibly reside elsewhere; nor could a spiritual and a temporal jurisdiction be maintained in peace within the same walls. Yet, although the giving up of Rome is a present necessity, we trust it will not always be so, for Italy ought not to be permanently ruled from any other than the Eternal City. Florence, indeed, possesses very many of the requisite qualifications. Its situation is central, its climate salubrious, and its very name is surrounded by a halo of associations upon which the mind loves to dwell. Yet the associations of Florence are different from those of Rome. Firenza la Bella presents to every mind a picture of peaceful, quiet beauty; while the very name of Rome is forever associated with all the stern realities of a great and powerful governOn the gently-sloping banks of the rippling Arno is the proper place for the poet to muse on days gone by, and to clothe with all the beauties of immortal verse the hallowed memories of the past; while the bosterous, tumbling waves of Father Tiber, as he rushes by the capital, and under the massive arches of the Ponte St. Angelo, brings before us the stern eloquence of CICERO, and tells of noble deeds of patriotic valor. In Florence we expect to hear the gentle clicking of the sculptor's chisel, and to see its every wall adorned with beautiful works of art. Rome presents at once to the mind the harsh tramping sound of armed men, and there we would expect to see all the brilliant paraphernalia of war, and to find the center of a powerful nation. It is hard to think of Italy and not to think of Rome. Yet if it must be so let us be content to wait and hope that some future disturbance in European politics will bring about a time, when the Austrians will be driven from Venetia and the government will be placed upon the capitol, and the king of an entirely united Italy will hold his court in the seven hilled city, and bring back into modern times some of the hallowed memories of Imperial Rome.

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INDUSTRY AND REVENUE OF SWITZERLAND.*

IN 1850 a fiscal reform was effected in Switzerland. Previously to that date each of the cantons levied its own customs duties within its own circle of territory. In 1850 the Confederation centralised the entire collection of those duties in its own hands; but by article 29 of the constitution it was at the same time stipulated, that the free purchase and free sale of cattle and of ordinary wares and merchandise, their free entry, their free exit, and their free passage from canton to canton, should be guaranteed through the length and breadth of the Confederation. But from this freedom the following articles were excepted: The purchase and sale of salt and of gunpowder; the duties granted or conceded by the Diet, and which the Confederation did not suppress; and the duties on the consumption of wines and spiritous liquors, levied locally in each canton in the nature of excise. But by article 32 this power of excising liquors is subject to certain restrictions. The levy of these local duties is not allowed to be interfered with so as to burden transit, by any tax; if the articles are re-exported from any canton the duties paid on their entry into that canton are remitted, nor can any other charge be substituted in lieu of them. Products of Swiss origin are less heavily taxed than foreign products. The existing duties on the consumption of wines or spirituous liquors of Swiss origin cannot be increased by the cantons in which they are imposed, nor can they be levied at all where they were not levied previously to 1850. Such are the principal points of the federal constitution bearing upon the cantonal rights to levy excise duties, and such duties are levied, but with few exceptions, solely upon liquids.

Local fiscality varies in its amount and in its objects in different cantons, and it would be uninteresting to occupy space with such minute details, but we shall give a general result. "Eighteen cantons, numbering a popu lation of 1,775,335 souls, raise excise duties amounting to 2,502,387 franes 57 centimes; among these eighteen cantons eight raise in addition, by the sale of excise licenses, 167,775 francs; four cantons, numbering a population of 574,725 souls, raise by the sale of excise licenses (no excise dues being levied) the sum of 326,644 francs; and finally, one canton and two half cantons, with a population of 148,468 souls, enjoy the pri vilege of not knowing what an excise officer or an excise license is like." In some of the cantons these excise duties form a very important part of cantonal revenue. Wine and brandy are chiefly imported from France, the former article to the annual value of 20,000,000 francs a very large sum for so small a country as Switzerland-but numerous tourists in the summer months contribute greatly to the consumption.

The Swiss are well known as a laborious and frugal people, and among their industries the manufacture of cotton has made very respectable progress; but there are some circumstances in which it differs from our own, and these are of sufficient interest to deserve some notice. The Swiss

* See JENNY on Switzerland.

spinner has no facilities for obtaining his raw material at short notice, and therefore always holds a considerable stock in his stores, generally sufficient for a year's consumption. Before our civil war he bought large quantities directly at New Orleans or other Southern ports, acting as his own broker, and thus obtained his supply at a figure lower than the ordinary market rate, which compensated him for loss of interest and rent of warehousing. Another difference between the Swiss and the American manufacturer is the relation in which the employers and the employed stand to each other. The Swiss laborer is never regarded as a "hand," and he himself never forgets that he is a man, on whom the principle of honor has a very strong hold. "In Switzerland the operative who leaves a good master for better wages would be despised by his fellow-work nen;" on the other hand, the master who aimed at underselling by cutting down wages, would be scouted. Thus the millowner and the operative are influenced by a mutuality of considerate feeling, and selfishness does not rule in the trade. Since our war there has been a decrease of work of 40 per cent, but it appears that only one mill has been stopped, and even in that case the men are paid their wages, and thus receive a retaining fee which binds them morally to their employers, for whom they will work again when business is resumed. In Switzerland the operative spinners and weavers have an advantage many others do not possess; they have small patches of land to cultivate, and never being detatched wholly from agricultural pursuits, they are not mere "specialties" as in England, unfit for every occupation but the one to which they have been trained. The consequence has been that in the recent dearth of cotton there has been no distress in Switzerland. The canton of Glarus is eminent in this manufacture.

"It has at present 206,000 spindles, 2,500 power-looms, several bleaching works and dye establishments, besides 4,000 printing presses of various kinds. In these establishments from 9,000 to 10,000 workmen are employed, and the floating and fixed capital may amount to 40,000,000 or 50,000,000 francs."

Since Switzerland has to compete with the world, and is relatively a poor country, how does it sustain itself in the unequal struggle? It works with old machinery, not being rich enough to buy the new inventions when these are first introduced. The following comparison has been made: A mill for spinning, in full working order, costs in England 25 franes, in Switzerland 50 francs per spindle; one for weaving, in the former country, from 400 to 500 franes, and in the latter from 900 to 1,250 francs per loom. This difference in fixed capital is enormous, nor is that the only disadvantage. In England, on account of the superior machinery, four or five persons can manage 1,000 spindles; in Switzerland, nine or ten are required. In England machine inaking is a separate trade, largely carried on in every manufacturing town of importance; this is not the case in Switzerland, where the smallest cotton-inill must possess its own mechanical contrivances as an adjunct to itself. England works with steam power, Switzerland with water power; but the first cost of steam power does not equal one-third of the cost of water power. How then does Switzerland stand her ground against such formidable competition? Because her operatives work longer hours, and receive lower wages; and because the habits of her manufacturers are more simple and economical,

and their personal expenditure is less. It is said that they display more tact in their mercantile operations.

The history of the silk industry of Bâle is very interesting. Its rise and progress have been carefully studied by Professor KINKELIN of the University of Bâle, and we take him as our guide in many curious details. In former times" silk ribbons were woven by the gold and silver lacemakers on small one-shuttle weaving looms, and the shuttles were thrown by hand." Silk ribbons were then in scanty use. The lace-makers had a particular guild of their own, in common with other artisans. No one could be a master unless he had been an apprentice for several years, and had been employed abroad as a working journeyman for three years. In the second half of the seventeenth century a great revolution took place in the trade by an invention, which set the shuttle in motion by mechanical means, and which gradually displaced the hand looms. The lacemakers resisted the owners of the ribbon mills, and, to show the character of the age, in several places those mills were burnt by the hangman as works of the devil. But they could not be suppressed either by violence or by superstition, and the lace-makers who, in 1670, worked 359 shuttles in Bale, foresaw the ruin of their trade. The ribbon mills were legalised in 1691 on payment of a tax of one-fourth per cent on the money value of the material worked up in a mill during the year. After many contentions between the lace-makers and the ribbon mills, which were appeased by the intervention of the government, the ribbon manufacture became firmly established; but it received a check from an edict of the Germanic Empire prohibiting the fabrics of Bâle, which, however, was removed by the Diet of Augsburg in 1725. It also suffered from the thefts of the workmen, who stole the silk, but that was suppressed by severe punitive laws. This was an era of government regulations, when authority interfered in every trade, as though men of business were incapable of conducting their own affairs. The following rules were enacted:"It was ordered that all manufacturers should inscribe themselves on the books of the committee (of supervision,) and that the non-inscribed should be forbid. den to manufacture; that the manufacturers should pay the wages of their operatives as fixed by the government; that no operatives were to be allowed to work cheaper for a native or foreign manufacturer; that no operative could work at another manufacturer's unless he produced a regular permit or discharge from his former employer." The law also fixed the number of ells each sort of ribbon should contain per piece. No looms could be made except for the citizens of Bâle; their sale to others was strictly prohibited. Foreign workmen could not be employed, and operatives emigrating clandestinely forfeited their civil rights and property. Whoever attempted to inveigle operatives out of the country was fined 50 thalers. The lace-makers at last became paupers, and in 1788 an or dinance was passed for their relief, which imposed a tax on ribbons, that article having caused their ruin. It was never evaded, for at the French Revolution the books of all the manufacturers were scrutinised and stood the test honorably.

These old regulations ceased in 1798, when the revolution subverted all that was ancient; but now that Europe is gradually relaxing all old restrictions this sketch of former systems (for they were not confined to Switzerland) may not prove altogether uninteresting to our readers. At present gov

ernment claims no right of interference with the private affairs of the citizens. Protection, as enforced at Bâle, had at least this good effect—it secured the reputation of the local manufactures; no short lengths, no false or rapidly perishable dyes-in fact, none of the vile frauds now so common in England, and which have compelled parliamentry interference, were then possible. If free trade was then denounced so was free boɔty. Workmen were not at that time the serfs of the factory. They had their own looms, and worked at home, and had their small piece of land, which their family cultivated, which fostered and perpetuate an indepen lent spirit among the people. This state of things still continues to a large extent. "Of the 7,250 ribbon looms 5,000 are in the private dwellings of the operatives in the country or the town, and 2,000 only in manufactories, independently of the 250 looms upon which the ribbon patterns are woven under the eyes of the manufacturers." The silk industry must be carried on in a light, airy, and dry situation, free from vapors injurious to the lungs, which deprive cotton operatives of strength, health, and even life. At Bâle 6,000 looms are still worked by hand, about 500 by water power, and 750 by steam. The looms belong to manufacturers, and each operative pays two per cent of his wages for the use of his loom. Sufficient confidence is reposed in his honesty and faith not to exact from him a deposit for the value of the machine. The wages of silk reelers are from 1 to 2 francs a day; of warpers, from 2 to 3 francs; of lace-makers and weavers, from 4 to 5 francs. Among themselves the workmen contribute monthly to a sick fund, on which they draw when ill at home; or if they enter the hospital the charges are paid out of it.

The Bâle ribbon manufacture is famed for excellence. Dyeing has made considerable progress. The dyers are responsible to the manufacturers. for spoiled or damaged goods. There are eight of those establishments at Båle, the largest employing 300 persons. In 1846 the total value of ribbon manufactured at Bâle was 20,000,000 francs annually, nearly half of all produced in Switzerland, which was 46,000,000 francs. At present the total production is put down at 35,000,000 francs. Bale now competes successfully, even in Paris, against its French rivals, though at a disadvantage of from 5 to 7 per cent of import duty. The Balois keep their own designers in Paris. The French formerly had an advantage in the excellence of their silk, but now they are rivalled by Bâle. The prosperity of Bâle is mainly attributed to the honesty of her manufacturers and operatives, all their articles being what they profess to be, in quality and length of the piece, and to the superior education of the workmen, who are admirably schooled. If they are not so quick as the French they are more solid, and their employers are cleverer merchants than the French. At Bâle there is a Society of Public Industry, which maintains three industrial schools, where the arts of manufacture, drawing, and modelling are taught; and also one designated the "French Repetition School," so designated because the pupils, who have been already taught the French language in early youth, there repeat what they have acquired, so that they may not forget. The manufacturing school is free to students. At the drawing and modelling the charge is about one franc per month. Then there is M. RICHTER-LINDER's school for girls. He only receives those who have been badly trained, or have received no training at all, and out of several hundreds-all of whom must have remained with him

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