ETRURIA).
See E. A. Freeman, Hist. of Federal Government in Greece and Rome (end ed., 1893, J. B. Bury), and works quoted in the special articles.
The Swiss republic is the most fully federal Government of modern Europe. As now constituted it consists of 22 sovereign states or cantons. The government is vested in two legislative chambers, a senate or council of state (Stdnderat, Conseil d'Etat) in which each Canton has equal representation and a national council (Nationalrat, Conseil National) chosen on the basis of one member to every 20,000 of the population, the two bodies together constituting unitedly the federal assembly. The executive council (Bundesrat, Conseil Federal) of seven mem bers is elected by the federal assembly for a period of three years, and one of its members is chosen annually, also by the federal assembly, to be president of the council. Though only chairman of the council, with no more power than his colleagues, the president is also president of the confederation and represents the nation on all ceremonial occasions. The federal council is unique in two respects—in composition, in that the provision that not more than one councillor can come from any canton carries the federal principle into the structure of the executive; and in powers, in that the federal council, whilst responsible to the federal assembly, is of a non-party or inter-party character and does not resign if its policy is rejected by the legislature. Its members are usually re-elected from year to year, and it ap proaches a council of permanent "heads of departments" more nearly than the cabinet of a parliamentary system. (See SWITZER
