Economical and financial arguments were also extensively used by the opponents of purchase, and were brought forward with much force in two pamphlets which created much sensation in the country—one by ex-President Numa Droz, and the other by Dr. J. Steiger. The question was asked in these publications whether the railroads, in the hands of the confederation, would yield a financial return that would permit the realization of the hopes of improvement in the service without risk to other interests of the confederation to which the project of purchase had given rise. They reviewed the propositions which the federal council had emitted on this subject, and attempted to show that it had failed to take account of several items which might tend to increase the expenditure side of the budget. No allowance had been made for the expenses of improvement and construction and completion of the lines, which had cost the five companies thirteen million francs a year; or for the cost of tunneling the Simplon and making the eastern extensions that were promised; or for the loss of receipts that would be incurred through the promised reduction of rates. It seemed a probable result of the calculations made by the authors that the working-expense budget of the federal railroads would have to bear a considerable deficiency, which would not permit the extinction of the debt by the middle of the next century, but would rather tend to increase it. In order, therefore, to avoid too great annual deficits, the federal administration would have to work the railroads in a spirit of the strictest economy, and instead of reducing rates might have to raise them. There were no provisions in the law to prevent this, all propositions to insert them having been rejected.
MM. Droz, Steiger, and those who agreed with them held, therefore, that the purchase would be a bad financial operation for the state. And, then, would it not be dangerous for a small country like Switzerland to contract an enormous debt which it would be difficult to extinguish and of which it might at most only pay the interest? Might not the existence of considerable obligations, partly held abroad, compromise the financial independence of the confederation? Why run these risks when the necessity of economizing might prevent the confederation from fulfilling the promises of which the partisans of purchase had been lavish in its name?
Some of the other arguments urged in the discussion were less legitimate, and some appealed to prejudices which exist, it seems, in Switzerland as well as in America, against corporations and foreign bondholders. The campaign was one of the most exciting that had been witnessed for a long time in the republic. During January and February, 1898, public opinion was occupied with no other question. Numerous public meetings were held in all the cantons, pamphlets
