THE SITUATION IN AUSTRIA.
EVENTS have marched rapidly in Austria of late. The dissolution of the Reichsrath; the dissolution of as many Provincial Diets as were likely to have their centralist character weakened by re-election, the brief and passionate electoral campaign, the decisive addition to the Federalist strength which the results attested, the pledge of Bohemian autonomy given under the hand of the Emperor himself, the „..secession of the German Deputies from so any of the Land- tags, .and their announcement el an irreconcilable policy,— seldom in the troubled history of the Eastern Realm have more momentous occurrences been crowded into so short a period of time. Two months ago the German party, supreme in an Assembly ignored by the representatives of discontented nationalities, could denounce with fervour the abetentionist mancouvres that refused the constitutional arbitrament of >parliamentary majorities. To-day that same German party, embracing the policy it had anathematized so lustily, seeks refuge in abstention from the parliamentary majority that was so long challenged to show itself, and which at length promises to respond to the challenge. So much lies on the surface of the situation.
The victory of the Federalist principle, indeed, was not of a character to excite surprise. Since the restoration of Hungarian independence gave the first rude shock to the old Austrian centralization, the tendency in favour of the satis- faction of the nationalities every day exhibited itself, to careful observers at least, in clearer and distincter colours. Especially since the present premier, Count Karl von Hohenwarth., assumed office, by the choice, as it were, of Franz Josef in person, has this tendency been displayed most markedly and unmistakably. The question could be summed up in a very few words. The Germans, the supporters of a centralizing system, as they were also the governing race, aid not number one-third of the population. It was only necessary to induce the vastly preponderating opposition in the country to become a vastly preponderating opposition in the Reichsrath, in order to introduce sweeping modifications. This was what Count von Hohenwarth proposed to himself when in his programme of February last he declared his design of "altering the con- stitution by means of the constitution." Thanks to the
happy blending of firmness and courtesy which has again and again won the reluctant admiration of incensed antagonists, thanks to the invaluable co-operation of Czech and Polish colleagues like a Jirezcek, a Habietinek, and a Grocholski, thanks, above all, to the growing feeling that the existing situation was intolerable, Count von Hohenwarth now sees the nationalities ready to make use of the constitutional forms they were accustomed to contemn. Unfortunately, the same success has not attended his efforts to gain the Austro-Germans to the policy of conciliation.
It would, indeed, be a matter to be most deeply regretted were it probable that the Germans of Austria had resolved to preserve an irreconcilable attitude. The boldest minister might well be alarmed at the mortal hostility of a party which numbers in its ranks so much talent and such distinguished culture, whose past is full of so many proud traditions, and which finds in the present condition of the German race new inspirations and assurances of confidence and supremacy. It is true that the policy of the Court of Berlin might long continue to discountenance any secession of the German subjects of the House of Hapsburg. There can be no doubt that, to mention but one circumstance, Prince von Bismarck would be extremely sorry to release Austrian politics, sup- posing Austria to continue to subsist, from that friendly and restraining influence which the presence of a powerful Ger- man element might be expected to exercise. We need not speculate whether the Prussian Chancellor might not also prefer to keep his tjunkers uncontaminated by the contact of Austrian Libor Is. But whatever might be the desires of the German Government, the German people would have also to be taken into consideration, and the German people would hardly endure for ever the spectacle of brother Germans handed over to the domination of the detested Slav, and stretching out the hand for help from their dishonouring bondage. If we are to believe some violent partizans, this is the spectacle which the Austro-Germans will really present, and we are asked to accept the certainty of all the conse- quences which may be imagined on such a supposition. We confess we are inclined to take a much less gloomy view of affairs.
In the first place, we are very slow to believe that a Slav tyranny, any more than a German tyranny, is at all within the intention of the Imperial advisers. The language of every Ministerial statement which has appeared is studiously mode- rate, we might say deferential, towards the Germans of Austria. In the latest expression of Ministerial policy, the letter in which the Emperor declares that he "gladly recog- nizes the rights of the kingdom of Bohemia," and is " ready to renew this recognition by the coronation oath," the reser- vation is expressly made that the rights of the kingdom of 13ohenaia must be influenced by the rights of "our other kingdoms." According to the programme of projected reforms which circulates in well-informed circles in Prague, the pro- minent feature of the coming constitutional modifications will be the careful, the laboriously exact, impartiality of the legis- lation to regulate the relative position of Czechs and Germans. The Bill itself is declared in its parliamentary title to be the "Law relating to the protection of the equal rights of the Bohemian and German nationalities in the kingdom of Bohemia," and the first paragraph of the preamble lays down, "with the consent of the Landtag of my kingdom of Bohemia," that "the Bohemian and German race in the kingdom of Bohemia has equal right in all the relations of public and private law to respect, preservation, and use for its national autonomy, and especially for its language (in alien Beziehungen des offentlichen und bargerlichen Rechts elm gleiches Becht auf Achtung, Wahrung, und Pjlege litres nationalen Eigen- wesens und insbesondere ihrer Sprach)." Of course, equality is often a very irritating change for persons who have hitherto en- joyed ascendancy, and is apt in such circumstances to be de- nounced as degradation, spoliation, and so forth. In Ireland, mili- tant ministers of peace threatened "to kick the Queen's crown into the Boyne." In Austria, irate professors rather broadly in- sinuate their readiness to serve the Hapsburg diadem after a similar fashion. It may, however, be that in Austria as well as Ireland, when the first excitement has blown over, and when it is discovered that equality does not mean anything particularly horrible, the most fiery champions of an untenable ascendancy may come to take more cheerful views of things. It is true that the indignation expressed in such Centralist journals as the Argue Freie Presse, has already so far translated itself into facts that, as a rule, the German Deputies to the Landtags have refused to take any part in the proposed Federalist measures. There are, however, several observations which may be made upon this conduct. It does not at all follow, that even if every deputy from the German pro- vinces or states adopted an attitude of abstention, that there- fore, by any means necessarily, the entirety of the German popu- lations share the sentiments of their representatives. Not to mention that the measures are brought .forward under the sanction of so thoroughly German a Premier as a Count von Hohenwarth, and, it is well known, enjoy the approval of an emperor who is not only emperor, but an emperor of German
blood, there are other considerations. A Representative system has its disadvantages as well as its advantages, and one disadvantage is that it tends to ignore the exis- tence of minorities almost co-extensive with the triumphant majority. It may be that the actual monopoly of representa- tive authority possessed by the Ultra-Germans in the restricted sphere of the German provinces, arises from no corresponding unanimity of Ultra-German feeling among the mass of the German electoral population. As a fact, that electoral population is the very reverse of unanimous. It is only necessary to study the Centralist Press to be convinced of the fact. It is not the Slays alone that are the object of Centralist anathemas. There arc also the "unworthy Germans," the " foudals," the "recreants," the "slaves of the priests." It is complained that the " clerieo-feudal propaganda" is active in every German district, that the " clerico-feudal casinos " are established in every town. In other words, the German strength is divided, and the admissions of the Centralists show that it is dangerously divided. It is not unnatural that this should be so. Putting aside the nowerful influence of the religious questions which have been imported on the one side and the other into the dispute, it is but natural that a large section of the Austro-Germans should be Austrians rather than Germans. Even in Bavaria there is a Patriot Party, a party, too, which commands the majority of the Bavarian Chambers, which may not love Germany the less, but which certainly loves Bavaria the more. And is it conceivable that some at least of the haughty Austrians, the old Imperial race,—stigmatize them as conservatives, or what you will,—will not prefer to remain linked with the fortunes of their old Imperial House, in possession of a history and a prestige of.which no equality can rob them, rather than sink to the level of a mere South-German province, with the mere South-German city of Vienna not even the capital of a mediatized monarchy? Some German territories, Tyrol, for instance, are not indeed even divided, at least so far as any profit for Ultra-Germanism is concerned. It is evident that all this alters immensely any estimate which we might otherwise be led to form of the resources of the Centralist Irreconcilables. The six or seven millions of Germans in Cis-Leithan Austria, though in a minority of one-third, would form an opposition of vastly different force in a condition of internal union than in a condition of internal disorganization. Four or five millions of dissidents spread over half the pro- vinces of the Empire, there are a million and a half of them shut up in Bohemia, may cause a good deal of inconvenience, but can hardly excite serious alarm. At the worst, and sup- posing that the German majority obstinately persisted in refusing their countenance to either provincial or imperial legislation, it does not at all follow that even a local dead-lock would be the result. If the Centralists absolutely refuse to make use of the proffered boon of domestic autonomy, which is at their option, in common with the nationalities, if they insist that the Reikhsrath, and the Reichsrath only, is competent to govern them, why, the most expedient thing may be to take them at their word. The Reichsrath will only have to pass the requisite measures of autonomy for the Bohemians, Galicians, South Tyrolese, and the rest who want to govern themselves, and, as the Centralists insist upon it, continue to keep the German provinces subject to Imperial legislation. The Reichsrath is perfectly competent to act with all constitutional validity, inasmuch as quite independent of the Centralist abstentionists, considerably more than the necessary majority of two-thirds of the representatives has been assured. It ought to be a real pleasure to Count von Hohen- warth to be able, in case of extremity, to please both his Federalist and his Centralist friends in so constitutional a manner.
There is another aspect of the political complication which deserves to be considered. The German Centralists protest against the proposed federalization of the constitution, on the ground that it will open a wide gate for the ingress of those influences against which, under the opprobrious epithet of Ultramontanisin, they have been accustomed to wage a war without quarter. The Slays and the Church are confederated together, they cry, and once Count von Hohenvvarth's policy has succeeded, all is over with the abrogation of the Con- cordat, the secularization of the public education, the protec- tion of Dollingerite priests, and similar Liberal measures. We must avow that we are unable to see how the mainten- ance of the existing constitution affords any guarantee against the abolition of these Liberal measures. If the Church party has the majority, we cannot imagine how it will mend matters for the Centralists to have the whole Catholic pro- gramme made into law by a vote of the Reichsrath. It seems to us that under such circumstances a Centralist con- stitution would be precisely the most effective instrument possible for carrying the hated domination into every corner of the Empire. To suppose an extreme case, the votes of Catholic Poles and Tyrolese might decide the validity of a law that would make the opening of a secular school penal in the most liberal town of Lower Austria. So far from think- ing that Austrian Liberalism has lost by the abstention of the nationalities from the Reichsrath in times past, we are not at all certain that their presence in the Reichsrath of the future would not bring about a summary reversal of all those mea- sures which were carried, so to speak, behind their backs. On the other hand, if the proposed scheme of provincial autonomy becomes law, it will no doubt place in the power of the Catholic populations of the Empire to remodel their institutions after the pattern of the Syllabus, if it so please them ; but at least the same provincial autonomy will allow the provinces where Liberalism is the ruling creed to preserve Liberal institutions uncontrolled by the outnum- bering multitudes of the partizans of the Church elsewhere. We are aware that our judgment is very different from the views usually hazarded upon this subject. So far, however, are we from being able to perceive any gain to Catholicism in a Catholic majority adopting a federalist policy, that, on the contrary, it seems to us as if the only chance of Liberalism remaining unmolested in its own seats lay in the Catho-
lics persisting in such a move. The foreign policy of Austria may be affected by the Catholicism of a Federal Reichsrath. Neither foreign nor domestic policy could any- where escape the interference of a centralist one. We suspect that, after the heat and excitement of the opening conflict have subsided a little, this reflection will occur to many an Austro-German who is now too surprised and angry to know very well what he really is about.
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