AUSTRIA AND GERMANY [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—I
have seen in the Vienna newspaper Der Tag the translation of a passage of your article about the Austrian I question. You state there that the Austrian people coming 'into Germany would make Germany forget the consequences of War. Do you think really that six millions coming to
sixty would make anything ? I believe there is no example in the whole of history for such an influence except in Germany, where some millions of Pnissians (not Germans but something between them and slaves) oppressed the whole country by their imperialism in all psychical and physical things. You must know that the difference between Austrian and German people is as great as between Irish and English. Or do you think that Canada and U.S.A. must be politically united, because they speak the same language ? Austrian people— and I am an absolutely sure Austrian through all generations that I know—have no characteristic qualities except their political indifference, which is for this country the only way of life. What will they become if sixty millions more or less nationalist German people take them into their autonomy ?
No, dear Sir, your idea, so sympathetic in principle, that Austria would teach Germany, is in practice quite impossible. You would find after the union sixty-six million Germans of
pure nationalist colour instead of sixty, just as after 1870 you find sixty million Prussians instead of Bayern, Sachsen, Rheinliinder, Schwaben and so on.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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