BERN, June 16 -- For roughly one in four people living in Switzerland, the question on the ballot this weekend was really a question about whether they belonged. They were the foreigners, close to a quarter of the population, whose numbers the country's largest party wanted written into the constitution as a problem to be capped. By Sunday night the answer was no. Swiss voters rejected an initiative that would have forced the government to hold the population below ten million, handing the hard right one of its sharpest defeats in years.

The margin was not close. Roughly 55 percent voted against the cap and 45 percent for it, on a turnout near 59 percent that CNN reported ran well above the average for Swiss referendums, a sign of how mu...