The Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir-presumptive to the Hapsburg throne, has
made a very imprudent speech. He received on Wednesday a deputation from a Catholic School Society, and told them not only that the Empire was Catholic, which is true, and that he himself was devoutly Catholic, which he had a perfect right to say, but that Protestants were persons who endeavoured to pervert their hearers from the tree faith. The speech is, of course, inter- preted to mean that he belongs to the Clerical party, which, as Hungary is not Clerical and Liberalism even in Austria is becoming very Protestant, is to take sides in a deadly quarrel in a way that must shake the influence of the dynasty. Our own Whigs were forced into action by the birth of a child to James II., who would, they felt sure, be brought up a rigid Catholic. It is true that in Austria scarcely a fourth of the population are " heretical" and only four millions are Protestants, and it is also true that the opinions of an heir are seldom those of himself as King ; but the worst thing that could happen to Austria would be the crystallisation of her various oppositions into one great party striking for religious liberty. The Pan-Germans would have a chance then.
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