The Sun.
London, England, 1834-03-31 00:00:00

The English journals do not seem to attribute sufficient
importance to the position or to the growing spirit and
events of Switzerland. You seem to regard it as an ie-
teresting country indeed, but as one whose state or fortune
can have very little influence on the great questions of
European policy. In this I think you are mistaken. The
revolution that is at present working its way in the re-
mote and German portions of the country will in time
have tremendous influence on the parts of Germany to
which they are contiguous, and to which they are linked
by eitnil•r habits and sympathies of race.
Englishmen ought to be peculiarly aware of the disad-
vantages as well as the advantages to a country of having
achieved its revolution too early. The advantages are
not a few ; but the disadvantages are many also. Eng-
land can display a host. But not to go so near home.
There is Wirtembere, where an anciently won constitn-
tution has sanctioned and hallowed all species of abuse so
much, that the reforms and improvements which make
their way in regions all around it are shut out from Wir-
temberg by the bigot opinions entertained by the people of
their ancient state of soi-disant freedom and traditional
privileges. Now the old Cantons of Switzerland suffer,
and have-long suffeted, under the same malady, the same
check to their moral and political growth. They
conquered their freedom so young and so gloriously,
that all which was established at that period has
remained hallowed ever since. Freedom, at a time
when it was so rare a blessing, raised the pride of
the rustic, or Forest Cantons, as they are called, the
German ones in fact, to such a pitch, that they ever
looked with supreme contempt on every amelioration that
came from beyond their narrow circle. Hence the refor-
mation that spread like a torrent over the plains, or more
lately freed states, could never penetrate into the hills.
The same may be said of that lesser, but no less important
reformation, brought about in idea by the French revolu-
tion, and which, through France and Western Switzerland,
prodece that love of equality, clf-government, indepen-
dence, and freedom from bigotry, so unfavourable to either
political or religious usurpations.
It is to be remarked, that the French revolution, in
sowing its ideas, did, as the farmer did with the seed of
his corn ; that is, committed it to the earth and covered
it with soil and litter, in order not to its immediate
sprouting up, but to its tardier and surer germination in
future years. It has been in fact but since 1830 that the
spring came for such seed, and nowhere has its growth
been more rapid and more productive of good effects than
in Switzerland. It is only since that time that the Ger-
man and remote cantons have begun truly to grow liberal
and to put themselves in harmony with the canton; it
the plain. You might suppose, rrhapa, the contrary of
this, seeing that it is ainee this period that the Said remote
eat German" cantons have formed the league of Sarnen to
resist the Diet and its reforms, which league made attempts
by force of arms to reduce that subject portion of territory
that bad shaken off the yoke. But this very league, and the
violence which it had recourse to, are but the proofs and
consequences of what I allege. The little hereditary oli-
garchies that govern the remote cantons began to perceive
that their it fluence was undermined—that fairer, or what
they call democratic principles, were spreading even
amongst the shepherds of the hills. And it was in order
to anticipate and crush this redoubtable end invisible
enemy, that the dominant families of Schwytz, Uri, &c.,
armed and leagued in behalf of their ancient monopolies.
They were Lords, making a fight for their rotten boroughs.
So truly was this the case, that the cry throughout their
cautuae was not Egalite, or any French revolutionary
watchword. It was our own word Reform, that was and
is the rallying cry, the general desire. For these poor
shepherds would have been horrified at borrowing any-
thing from the French, or from .their vocabulary ; but
when England leads the way, they think they can't go
wrong in following her.
I was myself a spectator of this nsouvement, this revo-
lution, that proceeds to dethrone the Swiss Oligarchy, fi,st
at Berne. But of that I shall say nothing, since it found
its way into the journals, and is well known. Berne too,
though it be the link between the. Cantons of the moun-
tains and those of the plain, was reformed at once, the
population being Protestant, well-ioformed, and the revo-
lution having been made, as it ever ought, in the minds
of all, ere it be effected by their wills.
The thing is now in progress in the Valais, a region
that affords a good example. The Valais has from ancient
times consisted of two races, the old Gallic, Romanized
race, that occupied it when Martigny held a Roman gar-
rison ; and the German race, which descended from over
the bills, &c., to subdue them. Hence the Upper Valais,
next the mountains, are all German; the Lower speak
such French as they can. The German race has always
dominated over the Latin or the Gallic. And in the
settlement after the fall of Bonaparte, they succeeded in
continuing their supremacy, by procuring for their upper
region a greater and a most unfair proportion of electoral
districts, so that the poor Lower Valaisans have been
always outvoted and oppressed. The latter, however,
have begun to resist, and with effect. One cause of their
past submission, their Catholicity, has become a cause of
resistance, for their Monks have begun to aid them.
And the convents in the Lower Valais have become clubs
of liberalism and resistance. Their idea of justice and fair-
ness have gained ground in the Upper Valais itself, where
the shepherds begin to think they should have more scope
and freedom. Thus, in the. Upper Valais, as in Schwyrz,
Uri, and even eastward, liberal ideas and institutions are
making gradual way. And the tide of civilization, long
congealed amongst the glaciers of the line of Alps, begins
Ito roll over their summits eastward.

This is a fact of vast importance, not merely to Swit-
zerland, but to the population beyond—to these which no
longer slumber,' but which are sufficiently discontented
beneath the sceptre of Austria, for which they, so few
years back, were ready to sacrifice life and substance.
The effervescence now working in Eastern Switzerland
will soon spread into the Voralherg and the Tyrol, add
Austria prudently begins already to show her alarm. The
Swiss Diet and its Vorort are beset with menaces, not
only on account of their harbouring Poles,, or other re-
fugees, but that the country is brooding revolutionary
principles, more powerful than living adventurers, and
that the reforming, the propagan-ist spirit (to tr,e the
language of diplomacy), has, at length, spread from the
French or the German-Protestant races of Switzerland,
even to the remote, the rudely Germanic, and the bigoticd
Catholic regions.