[Footnote E: The facts relative to the operation of these two forms of
the Referendum have been given me by Monsieur P. Jamin, of Geneva.]

Geneva's management of the optional cantonal Referendum is typical. The
constitution provides that, certain of the laws being excepted from the
Referendum, and a prerequisite of its operation being the presentation
to the Grand Council of a popular petition, the people may sanction or
reject not only the bulk of the laws passed by the Grand Council but
also the decrees issued by the legislative and executive powers. The
exceptions are (1) "measures of urgence" and (2) the items of the annual
budget, save such as establish a new tax, increase one in force, or
necessitate an issue of bonds. The Referendum cannot be exercised
against the budget as a whole, the Grand Council indicating the sections
which are to go to public vote. In case of opposition to any measure, a
petition for the Referendum is put in circulation. To prevent the
measure from becoming law, the petition must receive the legally
attested signatures of at least 3,500 citizens--about one in six of the
cantonal vote--within thirty days after the publication of the proposed
measure. After this period--known as "the first delay"--the referendary
vote, if the petition has been successful, must take place within forty
days--"the second delay."

The power of declaring measures to be "of urgence" lies with the Grand
Council, the body passing the measures. Small wonder, then, that in its
eyes many bills are of too much and too immediate importance to go to
the people. "The habit," protested Grand Councilor M. Putet, on one
occasion, "tends more and more to introduce itself here of decreeing
urgence unnecessarily, thus taking away from the Referendum expenses
which have nothing of urgence. This is contrary to the spirit of the
constitutional law. Public necessity alone can authorize the Grand