The second ballots in the Austrian General Election were held
on Thursday, and the Times correspondent in Vienna says that the interest was keener than at the first ballots ten days ago. Then the contest was broad and impersonal, being rather one of doctrines ; on Thursday it was more personal, and parties sought alliances on the basis of the lesser evil instead of fighting single-handed for the greater good. The chief rivalry continued to be between the two kinds of Socialists,—the Social Democrats and the Christian Socialists, and of these the Social Democrats carried off more honours. Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, will be entirely represented by them. Vienna, however, has returned twenty Christian Socialist Anti-Semites, ten Social Democrats, and three Ger- man Liberals. But even this result has scarcely fulfilled the exalted hopes of the Christian Socialists in the capital. The Young Czechs recovered slightly from the disasters of the first ballots. A sign of the fusion of cognate parties is the fact that the leader of the Clerical Centre in Upper Austria has joined the Christian Socialist Anti-Semitic Party with sixteen followers. During the next few weeks similar alliances may be expected.
