Session of the National Council – Council of States –
Protest of the Pope – Imperial Grain Blockade –
The Wallis Great Council
** Berne, 26 November. In yesterday’s sitting the National
No. 157, 1 December 1848.
Supplement
Neue Rheinische Zeitung.
Council disposed of the two items on the agenda (Emil Frei’s motion
concerning the law on accountability and Ochsenbein’s concerning the
federal university) by referring them to the Federal Council. During the
discussion on the university a number of singular remarks were made.
Lusser of Uri saw in the project the ruin of his canton’s finances.
Hungerbühler of Berne likewise opposed the university with all his might:
it was a luxury expenditure and there were already enough overeducated
people. Alcibiades of Swiss Athens, Herr Escher of Zurich, also opined
that one ought first to await the financial means. Alcibiades had good
reasons for pressing for the straightforward agenda; he knew full well
that the Bernese intended to seize the federal seat for themselves and
then fob off Lucerne with the federal court and Zurich with the “Con-
federal University”. But the ambition of Switzerland’s Athenians extends
further, and all but two of them voted, albeit in vain, for the straightforward
agenda.
In the Council of States the law concerning the federal seat was adopted
in the version proposed by the National Council, and only an addition
by Rüttimann, concerning the security of the federal authorities, was
appended. It is therefore now decided that the federal seat shall be
determined in both chambers separately, and, in fact, not by election
but by ordinary vote. We shall see what comes of it.
In the Canton of Neuchâtel great confusion had arisen a few days ago.
News reached here that all the State councillors, save one (Herr Steck),
had tendered their resignations. In the utmost consternation all the
National and State councillors of the republic at once set off home from
here. As we hear, the difference, provoked by a vehement outburst on
the part of Herr Steck, has been settled again by a commission of the
Great Council appointed for that purpose, and at the sitting the day
before yesterday the State councillors withdrew their resignations,
which was received by the Great Council with a loud vive la république.
The Pope has protested against the resolutions of the five cantons of
the Fribourg diocese, which remove Bishop Marilley from his episcopal
functions and arrange measures for the provisional administration of the
diocese. He threatens, if these measures are not rescinded, to take
“other measures to which his conscience, before the Catholic world,
would oblige him.” The Schweizerische Beobachter, the local reactionary
paper, consoled itself the evening before last with the hope that, since
the republic had now been proclaimed in Rome (this had been foisted
on the worthy paper), the papacy was finished and the Catholic world
restored to its freedom, whereby the Fribourg troubles would also be
resolved!
The news from the German frontier regarding whether the grain
blockade has already come into effect or not is contradictory. This much
is certain: at most it has already come into effect on Lake Constance;
for on the 24th, the day before yesterday, as many Swabian grain farmers
as ever before had still come to market in Zurich.
The Wallis Great Council has adopted the resolution to impose the
Sonderbund war tax, not as has happened elsewhere, on the enormously
rich monasteries, but on the communes. The share that Wallis has to
pay amounts to 1,600,000 Swiss francs. Thus, instead of the actual
authors of the whole insurrection, the monks, the poor people of the
canton are to pay this tax. Meanwhile, the reverend fathers are carting
more and more of their property over into Piedmont, as the fathers of
the Great St. Bernard have already done. These little padres, so famous
in school books and sentimental tales on account of their dogs and
their alleged self-sacrifice on behalf of freezing travellers, but in reality
immensely rich little clerics who look after themselves very comfortably,
have taken all their riches, their cattle, their money, their utensils to
Aosta, where they are also staying and heartily tucking into the
Piedmontese wine. When Radetzky marched into Milan, these friends of
humanity celebrated the joyful event with banqueting and cannon
thunder, and were for that reason placed under indictment by the
Piedmontese courts. In their wintry monastery this ecclesia pressa has
left nothing behind but some bread and bacon, with which a few
servants regale travellers. The Suisse, incidentally, doubts that the
above resolution is correct, although it was printed in the Journal du
Valais.