THE SOUTHERN SLAVS. T HE Southern Slav question is a powder
magazine; and we fear that the Teutonic element in Austria and the Hungarian Coalition Government are perversely arranging the materials so that, if ever there should be an explosion, it will be a resounding one. Parliamentary government in Croatia has been rendered impossible, and its reorganisa- tion depends upon whether the Hungarian Government has the moral courage to yield and meet the Croatians on the points on which they clearly have a dangerous power of resistance. It is not easy, we know, for the Hungarian Government to give way, for it has to control a fierce and reckless band of Chauvinists ; but safety lies that way, and that way only. As it is, explosive is weekly added to explosive in the magazine, and we wish we could see any sign that the danger to Europe is appreciated. Since we last wrote on this problem of the Southern Slays new evidence has appeared that a policy of foolish repression against the Slays of Bosnia is being more hotly than ever urged upon Baron de Burian. This must be our excuse for returning so soon to the subject. The policy of the iron hand is madness, for history has shown that the Slavonic peoples have a tenacity and a power of cohesion comparable with that of the Jews ; and if they unitei under a great common stress, they would be strong enough to throw Europe into a turmoil. There is no need, how- ever, to make sensational prophecies. It is enough that the non-Teutonic and non-Magyar peoples under Austro- Hungarian rule are being treated with• less than human consideration, and countries which have tradi- tionally sided with oppressed peoples cannot look on unmoved now. Of course the growth of South Slav nationalism more and more threatens the only outlet which Hungary has to the sea; but it is quite possible to sympathise with Hungarian ambitions in that direction and still protest against the anti-Slav measures. Indeed, the two points of view are identical, for without con- ciliating the Slays Hungary will be helpless' their obstructive force is great already, and is bound to become greater. At this moment there is a Parliamentary dead- lock in Croatia ; there is an ugly ferment among the non- Magyar population of Hungary ; and the latest news assures us that moderation will hardly be allowed to con- tinue in Bosnia. Here are three sections of the Slavonic world being provolzed, and complications in Servia, which are not at all inconceivable, might be the match which would set fire to the magazine.
The Vienna correspondent of the Times has pointed out a significant attack upon Baron de Burian in the Montage Revue, a paper which is known to be inspired by the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office. Baron de Burian, who is the Austro-Hungarian Minister for Finance, is also the Administrator of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In 1903 he succeeded Baron von Kallay as Administrator, and dis- covered that though Baron von Kallay's rule had indeed been overtly successful, the people were not contented. On the foundations laid by Kallay he has tried to establish a milder regime, and to treat the population as though they had hopes of citizenship some day in a more or less autonomous province of Austria-Hungary, and not as though they were merely the permanent dwellers in a territory under military occupation. Baron de Burian provided safety- valves for Bosnian and Southern Slav feeling; but it seems, as the Times correspondent says, that the noise of the escaping steam was too much for the nerves of the Drang each Osten school. Hence the significance of the article in the Montags Revue, which accuses Baron de Burian of having neither the courage nor the power to rule. He is informed that he must change his ways if the efforts of Baron von Aehrenthal to carry to Bosnia and Herzegovina the full might of the Monarchy are not to remain fruitless. All Baron de Burian's conciliatory touches are, in fact, put down to hesitation and nerveless- ness. We shall wait with some anxiety to see whether Baron de Burian will obey the word of command and con- tribute his own quota of explosive material to the heap that is accumulating in the magazine. Baron von Aehrenthal's own sentiments in this case can, we fear, be only too well pre- dicted. The quarrel which the Hungarian Government picked with Croatia certainly had for one of its objects the suppression of Slav ambitions, and in that quarrel Hungary has had throughout his support.
The Southern Slav problem affects an area from the Styrian Alps to the Albanian and Bulgarian frontiers. Suppose that to the body of Slav sentiment contained in that area there were added the outraged sense of nationality ainong the Prussian Poles, and we shall see dimly what a pretty mess Austria-Hungary may be unthinkingly pre- paring. The revival by the Hungarian Coalition Govern- ment of the one-language policy which did so much mischief in an earlier generation is a curious instance either of historical blindness or of unmeasured racial prejudice. But to the examples of intolerance we have had recently to add grave acts of persecution in Hungary itself. We fear that there is no escape from the evidence laid before us lately by our correspondent "Scotus Viator." The trial of the unfortunate peasants of Csernova was a grievous misuse of judicial powers, and we can only hope that the sentences will be generously reduced. The Slovak inhabitants of Csernova did no more than throw stones after being provoked by the forcible attempt of two priests to consecrate a church against the wishes of the people. Yet for daring to meet force by force they were set upon by gendarmes, and fifteen persons were killed and others were wounded. The sequel was that fifty-eight persons were tried, and a total of over thirty-six years' imprisonment was awarded among them. This can only be called punishment for surviving massacre. We do not suppose for a moment that the majority of Magyars, whose good qualities we heartily admire, approve of this act; but the Magyar domination over the Slavonic population can only be judged by the conduct of the Government. The Magyars face a crisis in their history, and if the Govern- ment repeats acts like this it will head straight for disaster. That the Slays cannot be suppressed is shown by their numbers alone. Take the figures of Austria. In 1850 the Germans exceeded the Czechs and the Poles together by half-a-million, but to-day the Czechs and Poles outnumber the Germans by more than a million. Between 1850 and 1900 the per- centages of increase have been : Germans, 35.4; Czechs and Moravians, 49; Poles, 95. No impartial observer can shut his eyes to this plain tendency. Austria already has universal suffrage, which gives the Slays a free opportunity to assert themselves, and Hungary will not indefinitely be able to resist the demand for it. The Hungarian Coalition Government came into power two years ago for the express purpose, among other things, of introducing it. Universal suffrage throughout the Dual Monarchy will, we imagine, greatly change the political configuration of the whole country before many years are past, and we sincerely hope that the German, and above all the Magyar, elements of the nation will do themselves the justice of preparing for a time when an artificial ascendency will be more difficult than ever to maintain. The railway policy of Baron von Aehrenthal in the Novi Bazar district may be good in itself—and we ourselves think on general grounds that the more railways the better—but unless Slavonic feeling is tactfully engaged in its favour it will be bitterly affronted by it. The Austrian Poles, it is true, have less cause for discontent than any body of Poles in the world ; yet even they are moved by the spectacle of the Prussian attempt to "snow under" their brothers in Prussian Poland, and we dare say that a strong Parliamentary condemnation of the Prussian Bill would have been recorded the other day if Baron von Aehrenthal had accepted the Motion.
The common view of the last generation in Britain was that the Slav was only a rotnantic,—a dreamer, a poet, or a musician. He was known to have a certain verve in lighting, as his history showed, but it was not supposed that he had the solid- practical powers without which no amount of artistic or emotional impulse is of any use. By this time, however, a new manifestation of Slavonic ability must be admitted. In Prussian Poland a certain " middle-class " commercial shrewdness and aptitude is so clear a phenomenon that it compels us to acknowledge that Slays may have all the common-sense they require to ballast their ambitions. Since Bismarck's time the policy of planting out German settlers in Prussian Poland has continued but every move of the Commission of Colonisa- tion has been met by a counter-move by the Poles. The Prussian Government has bought estates, but the Poles have bought back a corresponding number, or even more, from disheartened or insolvent Germans. ' So the game has gone on, and nothing but the humiliating knowledge that he was losing ground in the battle of commercial wits drove Prince Biilow to the perilous expedient of compulsory expro- priation. It is a very notable sign, this power to do civilly and commercially what the persecuted Slav of a hundred years ago would only have attempted deliberately with the help of the sword. It is the most suggestive of all the reflections with which observers must watch the Slav con- sciousness of ra'ce—a bond sundered but always ready to be rejoined—being provoked into a sensitive intensity.
Previous page
