Finance.— Switzerland derives its revenue from the alcohol monopoly, customs, railways, posts, telegraphs, state property and invest ments, and military service exemption taxes. The revenue gathered for federal purposes amounts, normally, to about $32,500,000, about half from the customs and almost the rest from the public services. The production and sale of aloohol is a federal monopoly and pro duces nearly $2,000,000. a year profit. The bulk of the proceeds of this latter are divided among the canton governments, who have to expend one-tenth of the amount received in combating alcoholism. The revenue for 1913 (the last normal year) amounted to close on $20,000,000, and the expenditure to $21,062,000. Owing to cost of mobilization and enhanced prices under war conditions the expenditure for 1917 rose to $38,645,140 and the revenue to $35,316,400. The estimates for 1918 stood at over $50,000,000 expenditure. For mobilization the government issued loans for 80,000,000 francs in 1914; 115,000,000 in 1915; 200,000,000 in 1916; 100,000.000 in 1917, and 150,000, 000 in 1918. The public debt amounted 1 Jan. 1918 to $149,010,000; including the floating debt the total was $42,578,000. In 1914 there were 385 savings banks with 446,247 depositors and $315,000,000 in deposits. In 1917 the total state property was valued at nearly $29,000,000. The cantons separately raise about $27,500,000 a year, while the total taxation of the country is normally about $60, 000,000 annually. The salt monopoly produces about $7,500,000 a year. At the beginning of 1918 there were in circulation 10,880,000 gold coins of the face value of $40.520,000; 58,376 silver coins, face value $11.460,000; 143,700,000 nickel coins, face value $2,774,000 and 102,500, 000 copper coins, face value $270,000— a total face value of $55,024,000. The national bank, opened in 1907, has the exclusive right to issue bank notes, of which it had in circulation on 30 March 1918 to the value of $139,125,860. Switzerland is a party to the Latin Monetary Union with France, Belgium, Italy and Greece. The franc is the unit of currency; its value in terms of United States money is $0.225, roughly 20 cents, or five francs to the dollar.
Swiss Army.— Compulsory universal serv ice has been the root-pnnciple of Switzerland's military system for centuries. Since the re organization completed in 1912 the army has been brought to a high state of efficiency. The striking force of the Swiss army consists of about 300,000 men, divided into the Elite (20 to 32 years), the Landwehr (33 to 40) and the Landsturm (40 to 48), which number re spectively 117,530, 108,900 and 68,000 men. The supplementary services (men of from 20 to 48, who for vanous reasons are not entirely fit), number 205,000, and the grand total of the whole army is slightly under half a million or one-eighth of the entire population. There are few exemptions except for physical dis ability and those excused or rejected pay cer tain taxes instead of rendering service. Liability extends from the 20th to completion of the 48th year; service is distributed as fol lows: 12 years in the Elite or aAuszug,)) eight years in the Landwehr and eight years in the Landsturm. The longest periods of training are the recruits' courses which every man goes through in his first year of service-65 days for the infantry, 75 for the artillery and 90 for the cavalry—besides which there are compulsory courses in shooting. The younger men (the first line) do seven othei annual trainings of 11 days each (14 days in the ar tillery) before passing into the Landwehr, when they are called out for 11 days every four years; the Land.sturm are only called up in time of war. Men convicted of grave offenses are not allowed to join the army and officers and men whose private life is unworthy of their rank and standing are court-martialed and dis missed. In the strictest sense a democratic
service, the Swiss army is a model institution, unique in that every would-be officer starts as a private with the ordinary recruits' course, and promotion to the commissioned and non commissioned ranks is by merit and not by seniority, except that it is conditional on four years' service in each rank. Although officers naturally have to do more work and pass through longer courses of training than the privates, instances of shirking in order to es cape promotion do not occur. On the contrary, all through the army both officers and men do a large amount of extra voluntary work. In peace time there are no generals; these are appointed only on mobilization or outbreak of war. The system of promotion from the ranks has the.advantage that it obviates any danger of militansm, which always springs from an tagonism between people and officers as a class; in Switzerland officers as well as men either belong or feel that they belong to the people, and there is consequently no friction between them. The system also makes physical train ing obligatory, for it is preceded by compulsory gymnastic training in all the schools and sup plemented by a large amount of voluntary gym nastics, drill and shooting practice, which last is the principal cause of the high standard of marksmanship throughout the Swiss army. But apart from target exercise (which is en couraged, while at the same time mobilization is accelerated by the fact that every soldier when he is not out training keeps his rifle and equip ment in his' own house) the institution of an nual trainings tends to produce a high state of physical efficiency throughout the nation.
The composition and organization are thor oughly modern and complete. The infantry (traditionally known as Fusiliers and Car bineers, but for practical purposes are divided into field and mountain infantry) is the main arm. The cavalry consists of dragoons and guides, the former being ranged in independent divisions under the direct orders of the com mander-in-chief and the latter brigaded with those divisions. There are altogether 106 bat talions, 72 field batteries, 12 howitzer batteries, nine mountain batteries, eight cavalry regiments and 12 squadrons of guides, besides the usual accompaniment of engineers, cyclist, railway and pontoon corps, telegraph section, etc. The fortifications on the southern frontier for the defense of the Saint Gothard pass and the Rhone valley are manned mainly by the Landwehr, which is organized in 56 battalions and 36 squadrons. There are six divisions in the army, each of which belongs to one of the six divisional districts into which the coun try is divided and each can be worked as a separate army corps. The first consists en tirely of French-speaking Swiss, recruited from the cantons of Geneva, Valais, Vaud and Neuchatel. In the second division three quarters of the men are French-Swiss, from Fribourg, Neuchatel and the French Jura. The third, fourth and fifth divisions consist entirely of German-speaking Swiss from the cantons of Bern, Lucerne, Soleure, Basel, Argovie, Saint Gall, Zurich and Schaffhausen. The sixth di vision (Italians and Rumonsh) is recruited from Ticino, the Grisons and Saint Gall. At the beginning of the European War all six divisions were mobilized so rapidly that in the first week of August 1914 Switzerland was able to post on its frontiers over 250,000 fight ing men, well armed and well drilled. The in fantry are armed with the Swiss repeating rifle. The field artillery consist of 75's and 120's (howitzers); the mountain artillery of 75's (1906 model) and the heavy artillery of 120's, firing a shell of about 39.68 pounds.