Swiss allmends, and a walk to see them

by F. Barham Zincke

It will help us to understand how this system acted, and why it acted as it did, if we observe how the introduction of the new conditions has affected it. Switzerland, which was for many ages the poorest country in Europe, is rapidly progressing towards becoming, in proportion to the amount of its population, one of the richest. As I have already reminded the reader, no other country in the world, in proportion to its population, manufactures cotton and silk so largely. Again, it is said that 150,000 travellers pass every year through the single town of Interlaken. We will not take into account any but these; and we will suppose that those who stay in the country some months as well as those who stay some weeks, and those who are careless, as well as those who are careful, about their outgoings, spend each, on an average of the whole, 35l. This will amount to 5,250,000l. As to Swiss investments in foreign securities, from what inquiries I have been able to make I have come to the conclusion that they are very considerable. This is nothing less than making foreign countries tributary to them. The interest paid on these investments is so much tribute. It is just as much a tribute as that which the Jews paid to the Romans, or which the Khedive is at this day paying to the Porte. How it came about in any one of these cases that the payment had, or has, to be paid, is practically, of no importance: what is essential, as far as the matter before us is concerned, is the fact of the payment. The money goes to Switzerland. Russians, Americans, French, Italians, Germans, are in this way working for, and are being taxed for, the Swiss. English, Dutch, and Danish funds do not pay interest enough for them. There is therefore no longer any point in the Frenchman’s sarcasm, ‘We fight for honour, but you fight for money.’ Nor in the Switzer’s rejoinder, ‘It is only natural that each of us, like the rest of the world, should fight for what he has not got.’ The Swiss have at last come to be so prosperous, and to have so many other means of making money, both at home and abroad, that they would not in these days risk their lives in foreign military service for a franc a day.

What we now have to observe is, that this influx of wealth has, to a great extent, rendered the old system of common pasturage both unnecessary and unfair. While it has been abrogating its necessity, it has been reversing its action. In these days a man keeps an hotel, or a shop; has a bank, or a factory; or in some way or other makes a good deal of money: perhaps it was made abroad, and he has returned home with it. He will now keep a dozen, he may even keep two dozen cows. He will be able to do this, because he will keep them out of the profits of his business, or from the interest of accumulated capital; and not, as was alone possible formerly, by his own labour and that of his family. If he were reduced to that means for keeping them, their number would be reduced to four or five. And this rich man is a burger, and therefore he is entitled to send them all up to the common pastures. If he have more than two dozen, all still may be sent. At the other extremity of society many are called into existence by the existence of the rich. These will be supported by wages. And these wages they will not get unless they work regularly. But if they work regularly for wages, they will not be able to spend the summer in collecting winter provender for cows. Nor in winter, if they had provender, could they devote their time to cows. These men, therefore, though burgers, equally with the rich, will be unable to turn their rights in the common pastures to account. Their rights thus fall into abeyance. And in many places the population has so increased that there is no longer common pasturage enough for those who do keep cows. Some half-dozen rich burgers, then, may alone have more cows than the pastures, which remain common, would be able to maintain, or an increase in the number of burgers who are able to keep a few cows each, may have brought things to the same point. And either of these cases may be coincident with the inability of a large proportion of the burgers to keep any cows at all. Increase, then, of wealth, and consequent increase of population, have altogether altered the action and defeated the purpose of the old system. In those communes in which the rich are in the majority—a state of society which, strange to say, does exist in some—the old rule is rigidly maintained: every burger is still entitled to send up to the common pastures all the cows he kept through the winter. In places, however, where wealth has so increased the number of cows that there is no longer sufficient common pasturage for all, each burger sends up a pro ratâ proportion of his herd, say a third, or a half. In such cases, by the very maintenance, as far as possible, of the old, originally fair rule, the poor, some partially, some utterly, are excluded from the use of their property. As Dr. Bekker observed to me, it is the literal application of the saying, that ‘to them who have shall be given, and they shall have abundantly; but from them who have not shall be taken away what they appear to have.’ In many places it has become the practice, and it is one which the force of circumstances is rapidly extending, to let the common pastures. The question then arises, of what is to be done with the proceeds? In the case of the communal alpes they may be applied to the payment of local rates; or they may be divided among the burgers, who may receive each an equal amount, or an amount proportionate to the number either of his cows, or of his family.

But to each of these methods, and I believe to every conceivable method of appropriating the proceeds, valid objections may be made. If they go in reduction, or whole payment, of rates for schools, roads, churches, fountains, police, &c., then the rich are eased in a far greater degree than the poor; who, according to the original principle of the system have an equal right in the common property with the rich; its use having been, at the time of its institution, so regulated—this was possible under the circumstances of those times—as to enable all to participate in it; and, too, to participate in it pretty equally. Riches have supervened, and have, as things now are, made this impossible. But as those who are now poor may some day become rich, their rights are still, contingently, equal to those of the rich. Or, if the proceeds are divided among the usagers in equal amounts, or in proportion to the number of cows owned, or of the family—and these methods of distribution are often resorted to in places where the population has quite outgrown the common pastures—the benefit to each burger will be very small. In the equal per capita distributions idleness will always be rewarded, without industry being ever encouraged. And in the proportionate distributions it will generally happen that those who want help most will get the least, and those who want it least will get the most; which difficulty will be further aggravated by the fact, that in these days many of those who want it most are least deserving of it. Again, all these methods of distribution exclude the new burgers; and such exclusions are in direct contradiction to the ideas, the sentiments, and the requirements of modern societies.

In those cases in which common pastures belong to sections of the burgers of a commune, that is to say, to corporations, for instance, to the burgers of a particular hamlet, or to certain families, either with or without a definite object to be promoted by the use, or the proceeds, of the common property, or in some way or other by those who hold it, it is found that the same disturbing action, as in the case of the communal property, though not quite to the same degree, has been introduced by the influx of riches. Some get rich, and some get poor; which in the case of these corporations also, renders the system unmeaning, and even noxious. And riches lead to an increase of population which renders the share of each corporator of little value.

The fact is that the old system is utterly inapplicable to the new conditions into which society has advanced. It was intended for that state of things, modified by the strong peculiarities of Switzerland, in which land is the only means of supporting life. Life may now be supported by capital, either invested or employed, a means which admits of indefinite extension, or by the labour and skill of those whom capital employs. This has deprived the old system of its character and utility; and even in many places made its action prejudicial to the interests both of individuals and of society. Its object—that of supporting life—can now be better attained by other arrangements, and also by other means.

Still the great principle to be dealt with in these days is identical with that which had to be dealt with originally. It must, however, be applied under the circumstances existing now, as it had to be under the circumstances existing then. It is the principle that the land of the country ought to be so held as to ensure the production of the greatest amount of food, possible under the conditions of the time, for the people of the country. Any arrangement which now excludes from the land the application to it of capital, the great modern agent of production, contradicts this principle. The old system therefore of holding the land in common contradicts it. It has also to be considered now, how what must be done for carrying out the paramount principle, can be done on a footing that is fair to all. A system which excludes a large part of the population from the chance of becoming owners of land contradicts this requirement. That is to say, the old system, which was in its day beneficial to the community, and fair to all, is now the reverse of beneficial to all, and the reverse of fair to all. Those who are now under the necessity of attempting to work it are beset with much the same kind of difficulties in which a general would find himself involved, if he were obliged to attempt to carry out a campaign with the commissariat and the tactics of the Homeric age. Much would be lost, much would be hindered, and the attempt, after all, could not be anything but unreal and mischievous; or their antiquated methods and position may be compared to what would be those of a colony of Esquimaux, who, having been settled in the genial climate, and amid the abundant resources, of a temperate region, were endeavouring to maintain inviolate the practices and the ways of living that had been necessary in their old Arctic home.

The administration of the common forests is, under existing circumstances, hampered with similar difficulties, though not quite to the same extent. Their produce for fuel, for building, and for repairs, was distributed in accordance with the size of the house. Now, however, there are large mansions, and very small tenements; and, if the old rule of distribution be maintained, the owners of the large mansions, who can very well afford to pay for their fuel, will receive half a dozen or more klafters of fuel, and timber in proportion, while the owners of small tenements may be receiving only one klafter of fuel, and timber in proportion to that. In some places, where the population has largely increased, the produce of the common forests is all sold, and the proceeds are applied to the maintenance of the destitute, or to some other public purpose.

As to the garden-ground, the increase of population has in many places reduced the share of each usager to an almost uselessly small plot of ground: the occupation of which must often prove a real detriment, by indisposing him to turn to some trade or employment, by which he might readily obtain the competency, with the hope, or appearance only of which, his few rods of land are now mocking him.

M. Emile de Laveleye, a learned writer, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, on the social and political relations of agriculture, thinks that he has discovered in the old Swiss system a remedy for the social and political maladies under which France has long been suffering. He advocates its adoption. Of course the adoption of anything of the kind is impossible. This is a matter in which the arrangements of the time can be engendered only by the circumstances of the time. As well might he advocate a reversion to bows and arrows as a scheme for enabling Europe to get rid of its costly armaments; or to domestic distaffs and looms as a remedy for the evils of the factory system. In these matters there can be no reversions. Even in Switzerland, where exceptional causes, the character of the country, and centuries of dearth of capital, so long maintained the system we have endeavoured to describe, and which he would fain endeavour to reproduce in France, it is seen by the more intelligent part of the nation that now, even in its remote and secluded valleys, in consequence of the increase of population and accumulation of capital, it is going, and must go. The holding of land in common they acknowledge to be, as things now are, an evil, and to be no longer capable of defence. The old ideas cannot now be carried out, the old objects cannot now be secured, by the old methods. Society has now needs, and has assumed a form, and has within it an agent, which renders some other arrangement more conformable to existing conditions, more workable, and more productive of the elements of moral and intellectual, as well as of material well-being; and, too, more fair for all. Those among the Swiss themselves who are in a position to take a view of the whole subject, now recognize what time has established among them—that land is no longer, as formerly, the only means of maintaining a family; that in the case of many it is not the best means; that more can be made of it that is to say, that it can be made to produce more food, which is the equivalent of its being made to support a greater number of families, by its being allowed to pass into the hands of private owners possessed of capital, than by its being kept as the common property of communes, or of corporations; and by its acquisition being made by the way of the results of any kind of industry, equally open and possible to all. They regret the difficulties which stand in the way of the removal of those antiquated shackles which now limit its uses and produce, and which do this mischief, ridiculously, in the name of equality; as if the perfection of equality were to exclude rigidly the majority of the community from all chance of ever acquiring any share in the property of the land. In this matter, the true equality for these days is to make the ownership of the land—the chief instrument of production, and participation in the produce of the land, as far as possible equal to all by the thousand ways of the thousand forms of industry society now requires. What is now wanted is that all should have the chance of such an education as would properly qualify each for some form of industry, and enable him by perseverance, thrift, and cultivated intelligence to turn it to good account. This would enable all, and each according to his merits, which should be the first aims of society in the era of capital, to participate in the produce of the soil. Make the produce as abundant as possible, and at the same time make that, as far as possible, common to all, in proportion to the exertions, which mean the intellectual and moral merits, of each. Of these times these are the requirements, which so far from being promoted, can only be thwarted by the system of common land, or by that of the minute division of the land. Both of these systems carry us in a thoroughly wrong direction.

So soon as facts oblige us to see these points, the existing system, so far as it is opposed to them, is demonstrated to have become antiquated and false. It begins therefore to be undermined, and to totter to its fall; no matter how unquestioned, varied, and great the services it was capable, under other circumstances, of rendering, and had rendered, to society. It was for the sake of those circumstances that it existed. When they are gone the reasons for its existence have gone with them. As it, itself, formerly superseded some other system, so must some other system now supersede it. This is the law of nature. In such matters gratitude for what once did good service, respect for the past, the charm that memory flings about old arrangements, have nothing to do with the settlement of the questions in debate, except in the way of securing ample time for their complete discussion. The governing consideration must always be, What under existing circumstances will be best for society? That is to say, in this particular case, What, as things now are, will give the community the best supply of food, and in such a manner as will be fairest and best for all, all the wants of society that are affected by the ownership and the produce of the land having been duly attended to? These are the old questions, which, from the beginning, advances in the conditions of society have reopened again and again, and which have been resettled again and again, always in conformity with the existing conditions of the epoch. They are questions that have relative as well as absolute elements, and which therefore, like that of government, and of almost everything belonging to the domain of human affairs, can never be settled once for all by the aid of some abstract theory. The circumstances, however, and events arising out of the circumstances, which are what force them into debate, always, sooner or later, force upon us a corresponding settlement of them.