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National Geographic : 1981 Feb
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you pay a fee to a lawyer to act as trustee, and you pay an annual tax of one-tenth of one percent on capital (nothing on income) held in Liechtenstein banks. Granted, firms operating inside the country are taxed at a stiffer rate-averaging a whopping 12 per cent! As one leading industrialist explained to me: "We are the freest people in the world; we are allowed to retain our capital." Free? In many ways, yes. And yet ... 6 LIECHTENSTEIN S 62 SQUARE MILES "Shining stone," Liech tenstein bears the name of the family that bought the land about 1700. The country is the sole intact sovereign state of the Holy Roman Empire. GOVERNMENT: Constitutional monarchy. POPULA TION: 26,000. ECONOMY: Industry, finance. RELI GION: 92% Roman Catholic. CLIMATE: Alpine. Except in two villages, Liechtenstein women may not vote or hold office. Though the prince may rule by decree in an emergen cy, everyday workings of the government are carried out by the prime minister, his four-member cabinet, and a 15-member elected parliament-elected by half the peo ple. Twice in recent years a referendum on women's suffrage has been submitted to Liechtenstein men and been voted down, the last time by a wider margin than the first. "It's unhealthy, unjust, and illogical that half the population has no vote," said the country's most prominent suffragette. Prin cess Gina, wife of the ruling prince, lit an other cigarette. A slender, vibrant woman, she wore little makeup or jewelry. "Why does it persist?" she mused. "Partly because of our traditions here; the women have never had a say. Also, many Liechten stein men marry foreigners. People who grew up here complain, 'Why should a for eign woman have a say in our politics?'" We were sitting in one of the hundred rooms of a 14th-century castle the princely family calls home. It squats on an outcrop ping 300 feet above the main street of Va duz. In another wing, behind 12-foot-thick stone walls, lay the family's art collection, said to be worth 500 million dollars. The princess went on: "It's an emotional thing for the men. They fear their influence will diminish. You must remember that un til 35 years ago the country was agricultural, closed in. Then came this industrial revolu tion-very fast and very complete. The old attitudes haven't changed as fast. But the vote will come. It must. My husband, of course, is all for it." Prince Franz Josef II Maria Aloys Alfred Karl Johannes Heinrich Michael Georg Ignatius Benediktus Gerhardus Majella von und zu Liechtenstein, Duke of Troppau and Jaegerndorf, Count of Rietberg, is a quiet and unassuming man. At 74, he has ruled for 42 years, longer than any living monarch save the Emperor of Japan. The Liechtensteins are old Austrian nobility, made princes of the empire in 1608. They acquired the property that took the family name for its own around 1700, when Prince Hans Adam purchased the adjoining territories of Vaduz and Schellenberg from a bankrupt count. National Geographic,February1981 274
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