The Austrian Kaiser opened the Reichsrath on 13th inst. in
a long and rather cumbrous speech. His Majesty acknowledges that great tasks still remain to be accomplished ; but hints that reforms in the Constitution, which have been discussed in many of the Provincial Diets, must be restricted within limits " drawn in more than one direction by the very nature of the Empire itself." The Constitution had been carefully thought out, and His Majesty trusted that the power of the provincial Diets would neither be limited beyond what the Empire requires, nor extended till the Empire would be endangered. The " welfare of the whole Em- pire is necessary to the interests of the different kingdoms." This is understood to be a hint that the Bohemian agitation for universal suffrage and direct election to the Reichsrath is dangerous to the Empire. At present, the deputies are elected by the Diets, who, again, are elected by a suffrage which gives the Germans more than their numerical share of representation, they being better off than the Czechs around them. The question, as we have endeavoured elsewhere to explain, is very like the Irish demand for Repeal.
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