SAVE AUSTRIA.
rrHE condition of Austria requires the immediate attention of the European Powers, and, therefore, of the British people. By this we do not mean to say that the responsibility for the appalling condition of Austria, and of the dreadful consequences of allowing things to drift any longer, falls specially heavy upon us. We as a nation merely share that responsibility with the rest of the parties to what the poverty of the English language obliges us to call the settlement at Versailles. Still, as participants in that settlement, a clear duty devolves upon us, although it is a duty we share with others. It is not rendered any less a duty by its common character. We cannot escape from our obligation by pleading the indifference of our colleagues, nor limit our action by saying that we will only do what other nations will do. To adopt such an attitude is nothing less than an invitation to other States to betray their trust.
The Austrian Republic may be said to have been created and delimitated largely as a convenience for Europe, though also, no doubt, as a method of saving a portion of Europe whose helplessness, economic and political, and whose obvious inability to help itself, touched the assembled statesmen of the world. But the creation of the Austrian State had certain consequences from which neither we nor our colleagues can escape. If we intended to take up the cynical attitude that Austria's sufferings were no concern of ours, that her unhappy people had no claim on us, and that she must sink or swim as she could, we ought to have taken it up at Versailles three and a-half years ago. You cannot half-adopt an orphan child. If you adopt, you must do it thoroughly and abide the consequences. There can be no question that the Austrian Republic was the adopted child of the Conference. She did not, as did the Czecho-Slovaks, or the Jugo-Slays, or the Hungarians, show a fierce and eager spirit for auto- nomy. Those countries had for a century or more been full of people who wanted a settlement analogous to that which was ultimately provided for them at Versailles.
On Austria there had never been an Irredentist claim of any sort or kind. Austria, or rather Vienna and the country round it, had been a kind of very badly managed political clearing-house for a number of jealous and warring communities—ill-united and unwillingly united and as a rule very badly governed by the selfish and obsolete Tyrants of the Hofburg. The Hapsburg Empire was a federation without any pact or sanction except the phantom loyalty of the subject races to a cynical and degenerate bureaucracy speaking in the name of a still more selfish and still more degenerate royal house.
Make, then, what pretences we like, the fact remains that Europe has on its hands the Austrian Republic and must find some solution of the present agony, some means of preventing Vienna and its people--for that is the crux of the problem—literally dying of starvation. In our opinion the only way in which we can save Austria from a destruction so terrible that it can hardly help involving her neighbours, and so the whole of Europe if not the world, is to allow the present Austrian State, which 's entirely a German State, to be fused with the rest of the German Empire.
That is a solution which we, at any rate, have not adopted out of weariness or panic. It is the very suggestion which we strongly urged and supported during the sittings of the Paris Conference. It appeared to us then, as it does now, that Austria could not stand by herself, and that the merging of the population of the Austrian Grand Duchy, Vienna and the Tyrol in the German Empire would give no extra support to militarism or monarchism, but was far more likely to dilute rather than strengthen the dangerous elements of Germany. Next, we thought it a wise step because it was based upon the general principles of the Conference that the great thing was to group together those peoples and races which desired to put the political affairs into a common stock. Our aim, that is, was to create Homo- geneous States and get rid of the heterogeneous variety, in which self-determination could only be applied to one portion and not to the whole. Finally, we recommended absorption in Germany because we could not see how the Austrian Republic could live by itself. Our evil prognostications have not only come true, but are shorter of the truth than we imagined would be possible. At the same time, there is not only no reason to think that inclusion in Germany would do harm, but a great deal more ground than was to be found in 1919 to believe that the inclusion of the Austrian Republic would be helpful, not harmful, to Germany. But, though we think that the only practical way which remains of saving Austria from starvation, and so from the political dis- integration which is certain to follow starvation—i.e., contagious and confluent political typhus—we are anxious that the arrangement should not be a mere piece of opportunist patchwork but should be part of a general settle- ment of European affairs. If Austria is merged in Germany the Germans will obtain, no doubt, increased responsibilities ; but, on the balance, Germany will be strengthened commercially. Germany, therefore, may be expected to regard the proposal as the beginning of that better understanding and better treatment which she desires. We want to see Germany not only treating us fairly, but harnessed to help do the work of the world, and, above all things, to give up that militarism and monarchism which, while certain to be her ruin, would also be of evil consequence to the rest of the world. We want her also, while remaining a democratic country, not to be so foolish as to be drawn off into thinking that she can engage in political intrigues in Russia. In • regard to the commercial development of Russia by Germany we feel no jealousy. Whoever can revive trade, industry, and especially agriculture, in Russia is bound to be the friend of the world. It would be impossible to restore trade prosperity in Russia without having done an act of universal benevolence. As a proof, therefore, that the inclusion of Austria marked the turning over of a new leaf in German history, we should desire to see the entry of the enlarged Germany into the League of Nations. And here let us add that Germany must prove her willingness to give up for herself and for Austria the madness of printing money instead of levying taxes. Germany cannot, of course, restore the capital which she has confiscated by the depreciation of her coinage. That act of confiscation must stand. She can, however, stabilize the mark and undertake that there shall be no further dilution, and that the two ends, income and expenditure, must be made to meet by higher taxation instead of inflation. No doubt Germany should be helped towards doing this by a reduction of the reparation claims and by making her feel that, though she must pay large sums to France, those sums shall, though reduced, be fixed save for an arrangement which will make it cheaper for Germany to pay at once than to postpone her payments. Meanwhile, Europe will be well advised not to be timid or opportunist in applying to the situation of Austria the remedy of absorption in Germany. If we are not bold and prompt in this matter we may find it too late for any remedy. The patient will have died on our hands.
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