The Personalities of the Federal Council
Friedrich Engels (1848-11-29)

The Personalities of the Swiss Federal Council

* Bern, 24 November. It will not be unwelcome to the readers of the N.Rh.Ztg. to learn some details about the personalities who are now called upon to govern Switzerland under the control of the two Councils, and who have just now entered into activity. Five members of the Federal Council have unconditionally accepted their election; one, Mr Furrer, provisionally up to the spring, and there can be no doubt about the acceptance of the seventh (Munzinger).

The President of the Federal Council, Mr Furrer, is the true type of the Zuricher. He has, as one would say in France, l’air éminemment bourgeois. His dress, his bearing, his features down to his silver spectacles betray at the first glance the “free imperial city-dweller”, who, as President of the Vorort and of the Diet respectively, has become somewhat civilised, but still remained “every inch a provincial”. Mr Furrer, one of the ablest advocates of “Swiss Athens” (as the Zurich philistine is fond of calling his little town of 10,000 inhabitants), has the principal merit of having overthrown the Zurich September regime by his consistent efforts and his moderate liberalism, and of having restored the canton to the party of movement. As President of the Diet he remained true to his principles. Moderate progress at home, the strictest neutrality abroad was the policy he pursued. That he has now become President of the Federal Council is more chance than intention. A Bernese would have been preferred; but there the only choice lay between Ochsenbein, towards whom great antipathies prevailed, and Neuhaus, who in 1848 appeared just as conservative as he did five to six years ago, and was therefore not elected to the Federal Council at all. In this embarrassment a Zuricher was taken, and Furrer was indeed the most suitable. Furrer, therefore, by no means exactly represents the majority of the Federal Assembly, but he represents at least the majority of German Switzerland.

The Personalities of the Swiss Federal Council

The Vice-President Druey is in every respect the opposite of Furrer and the best representative that French Switzerland could send. If Furrer is too moderate for the majority, let alone the radical minority, Druey is far too radical for most. If Furrer is a staid bourgeois liberal, Druey is a resolute adherent of the red republic. The prominent role that Druey played in the recent revolutions in his canton is known; less known, but all the greater, are the many-sided services he has rendered to his canton (Vaud). Druey, the socialist democrat of the hue of Louis Blanc, the foremost authority on public law, and the quickest and most industrious worker in the whole of Switzerland, is an element in the Federal Council that must, with time, gain more and more influence and prove of the best effect.

Ochsenbein, the chief of the free corps against Lucerne, the President of the Diet that decided the Sonderbund war, the colonel of the Bernese reserves in that campaign, has become known and popular not only in Switzerland, but throughout Europe, through his antecedents. But less known is his conduct since the February Revolution. The partly socialist character of this revolution, the measures of the provisional government in France and the whole movement of the French proletariat frightened him, the démocrate pur whom the French would assign to the party of the National, not a little. He gradually drew closer to the moderate tendency. Especially in foreign policy, in which he had shown so much energy before and during the Sonderbund war, he inclined more and more to the old system of so-called strict neutrality, which in reality, however, is nothing but the policy of conservatism and connivance towards reaction. Thus, as President of the Vorort, he hesitated to recognise the French Republic and behaved at least equivocally in the Italian affair. Moreover, the impetuous passion with which he presided over the Diet, and which often carried him away into partiality against the radicals, has made him many enemies among them, and particularly among the French Swiss. Had any choice been possible for the Bernese member other than between him and Neuhaus, Ochsenbein would have attracted far fewer votes.

Colonel Frey-Herose of Aargau is regarded as one of the military capacities of Switzerland. He was chief of the general staff in the campaign against the Sonderbund. Like most Swiss staff officers, he too has long played a political role in his canton, and has thereby also become familiar with civil administration. He will certainly do efficient work in his new position in the military department. In his political colour he belongs to the more resolute liberals of his canton.

State Councillor Franscini of Ticino is beyond question one of the most respected public characters in the whole of Switzerland. For many long years he worked tirelessly in his canton. It was chiefly he who, in 1830, even before the July Revolution, brought it about that the despised Ticino, regarded as politically immature, was the first canton in all Switzerland to replace the old oligarchic constitution by a democratic one, and without a revolution; it was again he who stood at the head of the revolution of 1840 that for the second time overthrew the surreptitious rule of the priests and oligarchs. It was furthermore Franscini who, after this revolution, reorganised the administration, which had fallen into complete disorder in the hands of the reactionaries, put a stop to the countless thefts, embezzlements, briberies and squanderings that had crept in, and finally reorganised the school system, which had utterly decayed under the direction of the monks, as far as the means of the poor mountain country permitted. By this he withdrew from the priests a principal means of influencing the people, and the consequences became evident with each passing year in the growing confidence of the Ticinese in their government. Franscini is moreover accounted the most educated economist in Switzerland and is the author of the best Swiss statistics (Statistica della Svizzera, Lugano 1827, Nuova Statistica della Svizzera 1848.) He is a resolute radical and in the Federal Council will side more with Druey than with Ochsenbein and Furrer. The Ticinese give him, the long-time head of their government, especial credit for his “honourable poverty”.

Government Councillor Munzinger of Solothurn is the most influential man in his canton, which he has represented almost continuously since 1830 in the Diet, and which he has in fact governed for years. He is said to—as a semi-radical paper of French Switzerland, the Gazette de Lausanne, expresses it—cacher sous les apparences de la bonhommie un esprit fin et pénétrant, i.e., he possesses that petty shrewdness, concealed beneath a good-natured, simple-hearted exterior, which in imperial cities is regarded as diplomacy. For the rest, he is a moderate progress-man à la Furrer, and demands that Switzerland should concern itself only with its own affairs, and leave great European politics to God and Lord Palmerston. He is therefore not at all well-disposed towards the foreign refugees, who have always caused Switzerland unpleasantness. He, in conjunction with the Zurich Athenian, Dr Escher, has recently again given proofs of his sentiments in this regard in Ticino. In general, Furrer and Munzinger represent in the Federal Council quite perfectly the prejudices and narrow-mindedness of the “enlightened” German Swiss.

Finally, Mr Näff of St Gallen, of whom I know little to say. He is said to have contributed essentially to the improvement of the administration in his canton, and to have distinguished himself otherwise as well. The canton of St Gallen, one reads in Swiss papers, is in general one of the richest and ablest men; but these able men have the misfortune that people do not hear much about them, and at any rate they seem to lack initiative. Nevertheless, Mr Näff is said not to be without merit as an administrative specialist. In his political direction he stands between Furrer and Ochsenbein; more resolute than the former, not going quite so far as the latter might perhaps still be expected to go, judging by his antecedents.

After this composition of the Federal Council, the policy that Switzerland will pursue for the time being is unmistakable. It is the same policy that the old Diet and the Vorort Berne followed under the direction of Ochsenbein and later Funck (who is nothing without Ochsenbein). At home, strict enforcement of the new Federal constitution, which still leaves far too much scope for cantonal sovereignty; abroad, strict neutrality, naturally stricter or milder according to circumstances, stricter especially towards Austria. The moderate party decidedly has the upper hand, and it is probable that Mr Ochsenbein will vote with it on most questions.

But how a minority, such as Druey and Franscini, could accept election under such circumstances, expose themselves to the pleasantness of being continually outvoted—how such a collegium can govern together at all—to understand that, one must be a Swiss or must have seen how Switzerland is governed. Here, where all executive authorities deliberate collegially, the principle is: just accept the post; today you are of course in the minority, but perhaps you can still be of use, and who knows whether deaths, resignations, etc., may not bring you into the majority after a year or two. This is the natural consequence of governing collegia being elected. Each party then seeks, just as in the legislative assemblies, at least to establish itself in the collegium by pushing in one or more candidates, to secure a minority so long as it cannot achieve a majority. The party would not take it amiss if its candidates wished to refuse the election, as would unconditionally happen in larger countries. But the Federal Council is no commission du pouvoir exécutif, and the distance between Druey’s position and that of Ledru-Rollin is infinitely great.

The Swiss press universally asserts that the Federal Council is composed of capacities of the first rank. I doubt, however, whether, apart from Druey and Franscini, a single member could ever play a prominent role in a larger country, and whether, with the exception of Frey-Herose and Ochsenbein, any one of the other three could even attain a significant secondary role.