The purity and peacefulness of Swiss press and politics are due to the national development of today as expressed in appropriate institutions. Of these institutions the most effective, the fundamental, is direct legislation, accompanied as it is with general education. In education the Swiss are preeminent among nations. Illiteracy is at a lower percentage than in any other country; primary instruction is free and compulsory in all the cantons; and that the higher education is general is shown in the four universities, employing three hundred instructors. An enlightened people, employing the ballot freely, directly, and in consequence effectively--this is the true sovereign governing power in Switzerland. As to what, in general terms, have been the effects of this power on the public welfare, as to how the Swiss themselves feel toward their government, and as to what are the opinions of foreign observers on the recent changes through the Initiative and Referendum, some testimony may at this point be offered. In the present year, Mr. W.D. McCrackan has published in the "Arena" of Boston his observations of Swiss politics. He found, he says, the effects of the Referendum to be admirable. Jobbery and extravagance are unknown, and politics, as there is no money in it, has ceased to be a trade. The men elected to office are taken from the ranks of the citizens, and are chosen because of their fitness for the work. The people take an intelligent interest in every kind of local and federal legislation, and have a full sense of their political responsibility. The mass of useless or evil laws which legislatures in other countries are constantly passing with little consideration, and which have constantly to be repealed, are in Switzerland not passed at all. In a study of the direct legislation of Switzerland, the "Westminster Review," February, 1888, passed this opinion: "The bulk of the people move more slowly than their representatives, are more cautious in adopting new and trying legislative experiments, and have a tendency to reject propositions submitted to them for the first time." Further: "The issue which is presented to the sovereign people is invariably and necessarily reduced to its simplest expression, and so placed before them as to be capable of an affirmative or negative answer. In practice, therefore, the discussion of details is left to the representative assemblies, while the people express approval or disapproval of the general principle or policy embraced in the proposed measure. Public attention being confined to the issue, leaders are nothing. The collective wisdom judges of merits."