THE NECESSITY FOR AUSTRIAN UNITY.
THE alarmist rumours about a supposed impending collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire are re- viving as a result of the news from Bohemia. A section of the English Press, not perfectly realising the implica- tions of such a catastrophe, seems to be assuming that the end cannot be far off. If this were really the case, the existing complications of Europe would indeed be in- tensified, and the immediate prospect would be alarming. But critics of Austria would do well, before writing about a subject on which they are imperfectly informed, to read the learned and able survey of the situation by Dr. Emil Reich in the current Nineteenth Century. Dr. Reich starts with two assumptions which at once place the subject in quite a new aspect. So far from deducing gloomy conclusions from the recent disturbances in the Reichsrath and in Bohemia, he welcomes these as outward signs that the peoples and races in Austria have awakened from the political torpor in which they were enfolded, and have shown a keen desire for that political education which, as he says, comes not from books,•but from rough actual experience. " The people of Austria are just now learning their apprentice's Lessons. They cannot be expected to commit no mistake, nor to avoid all excesses. But what any fair-minded student of Austrian affairs cannot fail to notice, is that the present crisis, which will undoubtedly be followed by similar crises in 1907 and 1917, far from being a symptom of the lessened vitality of Austria-Hungary, is in reality the most welcome sign of an immeasurably heightened and quickened revival of that Empire." The truth is that the Austro-Hungarian Empire is a complex organism with delicate machinery, and that it needs time and patience to work it with success. This does not mean that on the first sign of difficulty the machinery is to be broken up and destroyed, but that the lessons it enforces on the peoples and statesmen of the Dual Empire are to be learned so thoroughly that the Empire can be enabled to play its part in the politics of Europe. This brings us to Dr. Reich's next assumption, that Austria-Hungary as a political entity is necessary to the internal tranquillity and progress of Europe ; and this seems to us to be a truth admitting of no doubt whatsoever.
Let us glance for an instant at the results of collapse.
A number of races and nationalities, now peacefully united, would be thrown off, as it were, into space. They would either remain isolated fragments, or would seek their racial affinities, or they would be compelled by force of arms to range themselves in the forces of some power- ful State. The racial theory, so often urged, assumes that it is "unnatural" for members of the same race to be politically separate, as though the formation of a State were a purely "natural" process. But there are other factors than race in the formation of States ; there are, e.g., religious, economic, and juristic factors. On "natural" grounds Ticino would join Italy, as would also Savoy, while the Channel Islands would be annexed to France. But Ticino prefers to remain in the Swiss Republic, Savoy would not dream for an instant of leaving France for Italy, nor would the Channel Islands forsake Britain for France. We must remember that the State is not a mere " natural " product, but that it is built up by distinct acts of human beings, which you may call artificial if you will, provided you understand that artifice or skilful constructive workmanship is not something inherently opposed to an assumed law of Nature. Now, there is no law of Nature com- pelling the German in Austria to be part of the Empire ruled from Berlin ; and, as a matter of fact, if any attempt were made to compel him to belong to that Empire, it would be stoutly resisted. "The Austrian 'Germans,'" says Dr. Reich, "as a body positively abhor the idea of being made a mere section of Germany." As with the German, so with the other populations. What reason should a Pole in Galicia have for union with a Pole in Russian Poland or a Hungarian Slav for joining the Slays of Russia ? It may be admitted that the Irredenta feeling in the Trentine and Trieste districts is a real fact to be reckoned with ; but, given the factor of an Austria to be preserved as a political unit, and it would be impossible to shut that Empire off from the sea, im- possible to deny it a port, while every one knows that the Italian population of Austria have no grievance, are far more prosperous than are the Italians proper, enjoy just as much freedom, and have their local customs and colouring still intact. The races of the Dual Empire would not seek their " natural " affinities, nor could any power compel them to do so. Besides, consider the interests of the two countries with which Austria is in alliance. If Italy were to break loose and attack her for the sake of the Italian provinces, Italy would be once more at the mercy of France. If Germany were to attack her Southern ally by making any attempt, e.g., on Bohemia, there would, as Dr. Reich says, be " continental earthquake of the most formidable dimen- sions." It seems plain, therefore, that any break-up of the Austro-Hungarian Empire means serious European disorder, and that the Dual Empire must be credited with rendering a service to Europe that cannot be dispensed with. That service may possibly be provisional, but it is a provisional arrangement which will, we think, last over a pretty long epoch of time.
So far we have considered the value of Austria- Hungary from an international point of view, a position which for centuries, as Dr. Reich Eillys, has been the raison d'être of Austria' proper. But Austria-Hungary has an internal as well as a Europea4 value, and that of a remarkable character. "This ellenic Europe of ours," writes Dr. Reich, "with its profound diversity of politics, with its utter repudiation of the Roman idea of one immense and uniform 'empire, possesses in Austria a state of a unique kind, a state different from all the rest of the European states." To understand the nature of this unique State is to understand the present crisis, and to have some idea of its probable solution more intelligent than that so commonly assumed in the Press. Most of our writers, when contemplating the chaos of the Austrian Reichsrath, cannot get out of their heads the comparison of the House of Commons. But there is no resemblance whatever between the two institutions beyond that of voting money and assenting to certain laws. If the House of Commons were in the condition of the Reichsrath, it would mean revolution and an end of Parliamentary government But in Austria Parliamentary government does not exist. Of the two States of which the Dual Empire is composed, one—Hungary—is an almost purely national State, while Austria is made up of a number of provinces populated by different nationalities. The real power and authority of the Reichsrath, as distinguished from its power and authority on paper, are limited. An institu- tion does not possess substantial power because of some words on a. piece of parchment, but because the evolution of the State has placed power in its hands. The evolution of Austria has not tended to place power in the hands of the Reichsrath, but in the hands of the Court of Adminis- tration, and the Reichsgericht or Imperial Court. The British Parliament can do anything ; but in Austria the Reichsrath is merely one of a number of institutions, provincial, regional, municipal, and general, existing under an Imperial constitution, whose relations are interpreted by the Courts to which we have referred in a way not wholly dissimilar from that in which the American Supreme Court interprets the Federal constitution. Dr. Reich defines Austria as being what German jurists call a Sachstaat,— i.e., a State "destined to superintend and promote the tangible and material interests of its inhabitants in all matters of home policy." Now the recent quarrel about the language-decrees in Bohemia is precisely of the nature of those cases of "tangible and material in- terests" which should be dealt with by the Imperial Tribunals. The pretensions of both Germans and Czechs in this quarrel are, as Dr. Reich shows, impos- sible, because they mean mutually opposing autonomies, and are thus opposed to the unity of Austria. But they are pretensions that will be dealt with, net by Parlia- mentary conflicts, whether physical or political, but by the enlargement and intensifying of the functions of the Reichsgericht which will act "as a regulator of the autonomy of the several ' lands ' and. ' kingdoms ' which make up the country called Austria." Thus, although Parliamentarism provides no solution of the Austrian problem, the law and the constitution provide a very complete solution.
But the completeness of the solution is strengthened by the nature of the constitutional relations of Austria with Hungary. Those who have written in England about the Ausgleiih have mostly erred in assuming that that docu- ment is a treaty between the two States. But it is not a treaty ; it is only a financial arrangement which must be renewed every ten years. The real treaty is the original contract of 1867, whereby Hungary explicitly asserts that her Cisleithan union is only with Austria as an undivided whole, not with the agglomeration of units of which she is composed. It is clear, therefore, that Hungary, whose position in the Dual Empire is practically supreme, and who has so much to gain by maintaining an Empire outside which she would be exposed to the risk of attack by Russia and to internal weakness owing to her increasing Slav element,—it is clear, we say, that Hungary is deeply interested in exerting all possible pressure to secure Austrian unity. It is also clear that Austria, which, outside of the Dual Empire, would sink into a congeries of quarrelling provinces, is vitally interested in maintaining that unity, since on its maintenance depends the existence of the Empire. It is also clear, from what we have said, that in her Imperial Court Austria possesses machinery whereby such unity may be secured through those measures of adjustment and conciliation which a wise Government knows how to apply. It would be useless to deny that the Austrian problem is a difficult and delicate one ; but it is manifest that it is by no means so insoluble as many English writers suppose.
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