two institutions can be marked by more essential differences. The
_plébiscite_ is a revolutionary or at least abnormal proceeding. It is
not preceded by debate. The form and nature of the questions to be
submitted to the nation are chosen and settled by the men in power, and
Frenchmen are asked whether they will or will not accept a given policy.
Rarely, indeed, when it has been taken, has the voting itself been full
or fair. Deliberation and discussion are the requisite conditions for
rational decision. Where effective opposition is an impossibility,
nominal assent is an unmeaning compliment. These essential
characteristics, the lack of which deprives a French _plébiscite_, of
all moral significance, are the undoubted properties of the Swiss
Referendum."

In the "Revue des Deux Mondes," Paris, August, 1891, Louis Wuarin, an
interested observer of Swiss politics for many years, writes: "A people
may indicate its will, not from a distance, but near at hand, always
superintending the work of its agents, watching them, stopping them if
there is reason for so doing, constraining them, in a word, to carry out
the people's will in both legislative and administrative affairs. In
this form of government the representative system is reduced to a
minimum. The deliberative bodies resemble simple committees charged with
preparing work for an elected assembly, and here the elected assembly is
replaced by the people. This sovereign action in person in the
transaction of public business may extend more or less widely; it may be
limited to the State, or it may be extended to the province also, and
even to the town. To whatever extent this supervision of the people may
go, one thing may certainly be expected, which is that the supervision
will become closer and closer as time goes on. It never has been known
that citizens gave up willingly and deliberately rights acquired, and
the natural tendency of citizens is to increase their privileges.