Good wines, especially Muscat and Vin du Glacier, are produced in the canton, but the chief activity of the main valley below Brig is agriculture, rendered rather precarious in former days by ex tensive Rhone inundations. In the higher valleys the inhabitants are employed in pastoral occupations. The number of mountain pastures is greater, and they are better stocked in the more congenial Lower Valais than in Upper Valais (the line of di vision passing near Leuk). The capital is Sion (pop. 6,95o). The canton has no large towns. The average density of the population in 1920, 63 per sq.m., was but little above that of Uri (q.v.). Of the larger settlements, Monthey St. Maurice—with an electric railway up the Val d'Illiez to Cham pery, and Brig (3,130) are the most important. Naters, near the latter town, has a prosperous colony of Italian workmen.
Valais is divided into 13 administrative districts, which com prise 171 communes. The Cantonal Constitution was entirely re modelled in 1907. The legislature (Grand Conseil) is composed of 109 members elected by the people in the proportion of one for every 'J o° Swiss residents. The executive (Conseil d'Etat) is composed of five members. Both councils hold office for four years. The "obligatory referendum" prevails for all laws and financial resolutions passed by the Grand Conseil, while 4,000 electors (6,000 in the case of a revision of the Cantonal Constitu tion) have the right of "initiative" as to legislative projects; the latter initiative dates back to 1848. The canton provides two members of the Federal Stiinderat and six members of the Federal Nationalrat, elected by a popular vote. The principles of pro portional representation are employed in communal elections. History.—The Vallis Poenina was won by the Romans after a great fight at Octodurus (Martigny) in 57 B.C., and was so thoroughly Romanized that the Celtic aboriginal inhabitants and the Teutonic Burgundian invaders (5th century) became Ro mance-speaking peoples. Valais formed part of the kingdom of Transjurane Burgundy (888), which fell to the empire in 1032, and later of the duchy of Burgundia Minor, which was held from the emperors by the house of Zahringen (extinct 1218). In 999 Rudolph III. of Burgundy gave all temporal rights and privileges to the bishop of Sion, who was later styled "praefect and count of the Valais." About the middle of the 13th century we find inde pendent communities or "tithings" (dizains or Zehnten) growing up, these, though seven in number, taking their name most prob ably from a very ancient division of the bishop's manors for ad ministrative and judicial purposes. In the same century the upper part of the valley was colonized by Germans from Hasli (Bern), who Teutonized it, though many Romance local names still remain. In 1354 the liberties of several of the seven "tithings" (Sion, Sierre, Leuk, Raron, Visp, Brieg and Conches) were con firmed by the emperor, Charles IV. A little later the influence of Savoy became predominant, and the count secured to his family the bishopric of Sion, of which he was already the suzerain. His
progress was resisted by the tithings, which in 1375-76 crushed the power of the house of La Tour-Chatillon, and in 1388 utterly defeated the forces of the bishop, the count and the nobles at Visp, this being a victory of the Teutonic over the Romance ele ment in the land. From 1384 the Morge stream (a little below Sion) was recognized as the boundary between Savoyard or Lower Valais and episcopal or Upper Valais. In 1416-17 the Zehnten of the upper valley made an alliance with Lucerne, Uri and Unterwalden, with a view partly to the conquest of the Val d'Ossola, which was finally lost in 1422, and partly to the success ful crushing of the power of the lords of Raron (1420). By the election of Walther von Supersax of Conches as bishop in the Teutonic element finally won the supremacy. On the outbreak of the Burgundian War, the bishop of Sion and the tithings made a treaty with Bern. In November of the same year (1475) they seized all Lower or Savoyard Valais up to Martigny, and in 1476 (March), after the victory of Grandson, won St. Maurice, Evian, Thonon and Monthey. The last three districts were given up in 1477, but won again in 1536, though finally by the treaty of Thonon in 1569 Monthey, Val d'Illiez and Bouveret alone were permanently annexed to the Valais, these conquests being main tained with the help of their old allies, Uri, Schwyz and Unter walden. These districts (or Lower Valais) were ruled as subject lands by the bishop and tithings of Upper Valais. In 179o-91 Lower Valais rose in revolt ; but it was not finally freed till 1798, when the whole of Valais became one of the cantons of the Helvetic republic. Such prolonged resistance, however, was offered to French rule that in 1802 Bonaparte declared Valais an inde pendent State under the name of the "Rhodanic Republic." In 181o, for strategic reasons, he incorporated it with France as the "department of the Simplon," and it was not freed till the Aus trians came in 1813. In 1815 a local assembly was created, in which each of the seven tithings of Upper, and each of the six of Lower Valais elected four members, the bishop being given four votes. This constitution was approved by the Federal Swiss diet, and the Valais was received as a full member of the Swiss Con federation. By the constitution of 1839, the local assembly was to be elected according to population (one member for every 1,000 inhabitants), and the bishop was given a seat instead of his four votes, while the clergy elected one deputy. By the 1844 con stitution the clergy elected a second deputy. In 1844 there was civil war, and the Valais became a member of the Sonderbund. It was the last canton to submit in the Sonderbund War (1847). By the constitution of 1848 all ecclesiastical exemptions from taxation were swept away, and the bishop lost his seat in the assembly. New constitutions were framed in 1852, 1875 and 1907. (See SWITZERLAND : History.)