The success of the extraordinary compromise arrived at in Bohemia
appears for the moment to be amazing. The German merchants in Prague have informed the Czechs, through the Chamber of Commerce, that they will take part in a Czech Industrial Exhibition about to be held in Prague, and, more significant still, the two races now promenade on the same footway. The old Czech party, in fact, believes that it has won, while the German party is also content, only the younger Czechs, who are Radicals, remaining suspicious. The compromise is greatly approved in Hungary also, while the Emperor himself is delighted with the success of his work, and the Court dreams of a general reconciliation among the races of the Monarchy. Every well-wisher of Austria must desire such a reconciliation, which would not only strengthen but liberalise the Empire ; but we fear the Emperor's hopes are too sanguine. The States of the Hapsburg Dominion are no doubt bound together by a tie which has survived the rudest of all shocks, repeated defeat in war ; but race-jealousy survives through ages, especially where the populations are mixed. Still, the attempt is a wiser one, as well as a better one, than that of 1848, and it has succeeded in Europe in one place. In Switzerland, German and Frenchman, Italian and man of the Romansch tongue, all work together in politics without jars perceptible to the outside world.
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