[Illustration]
Neutral Spirit of the Swiss
An Interview With President Motta of the Swiss Confederation
[From The London Times, Jan. 30, 1915.]
BERNE, Jan. 20.
The President of the Swiss Confederation is the symbol of a democracy so
perfect that the man in the street is not quite sure who the President
is. He knows that he is one of a council of seven, and that he is
elected for one year, and that is all. In the Federal Palace, the Berne
Westminster and Downing Street, the anonymity is almost as complete.
Officers pass and repass in the corridors--one of the signs, like the
waiting military motor cars at the door, of mobilization--but this does
not change the spirit, simple and civilian, of the interior.
M. Motta, Chief of State for this year, is a man of early middle life.
He is the best type of Swiss, a lawyer by profession, whose limpid
French seems to express culture as well as candor. Nor could one doubt
for a moment the sincerity of his speech. Speaking on the Swiss position
in the war, M. Motta was anxious to remove the impression that it was
colored, dominated by the existence of the German-speaking cantons, more
numerous than the French. "Of course," he said, "we have our private
sympathies, which incline us one way or the other, and there is the
language tie--though here we are greatly attached to our Bernese
patois--but I would have you believe the Swiss are essentially just and
impartial, they look at the war objectively.
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