50 



AUSTRO-HUNGARIAN MONARCHY. 



were officers), with 47,315 horses, and 724 

 pieces of ordnance. In time of war, the army 

 embraced no less than 1,002,649 men, with 

 161,645 horses, and 1,680 pieces of ordnance. 



The provincial Diets are composed of the 

 archbishops and the bishops (the Diet of the 

 Tyrol has also four clerical delegates of the 

 Mifte\ the rectors of the universities, the dele- 

 gates of the large real estates (in the Tyrol, 



only of the large landed estates of the nobility, 

 in Dalmatia, of those paying the highest taxes), 

 of the delegates of the towns, market-towns, 

 and industrial places, of the delegates of the 

 Chambers of Commerce and Trades, and of the 

 delegates of the rural communities. The sub- 

 joined table exhibits the composition of the 

 several Diets, and the number of delegates to 

 the Reichsrath, which are chosen by each : 



At the beginning of the year 1871 the cis- 

 Leithan provinces were under the administra- 

 tion of a ministry representing the German 

 Constitutional party (Deutsche Verfassungs- 

 partei). In the Reichsrath this party, however, 

 did not control a majority, but numbered 93 

 out of 203 members. In the speech with which 

 the Emperor, on December 27, 1871, opened 

 the Reichsrath, two measures had been desig- 

 nated as prominent features of the Auersperg 

 cabinet. The Government, it was said, would 

 accede to the wishes of Galicia, in so far as 

 they were compatible with the interests of the 

 empire, and steps would be taken which would 

 render the Reichsrath a completely representa- 

 tive body. In reply to the speech from the 

 throne, both Houses adopted, without amend- 

 ment, an address to the crown, calling its at- 

 tention to the manifest increase of discontent 

 among the subjects of various portions of the 

 empire, arising from recent misgovernrnent, 

 and particularly opposing an increase of taxa- 

 tion for military purposes. 



On February 20th, the House of Delegates 

 adopted, in compliance with the wish of the 

 Government, an important supplement to the 

 electoral law, providing that " when delegates 

 chosen from a provincial Diet into the Reichs- 

 rath resign their seats as members of the pro- 

 vincial Diet, or. of the Reichsrath during the 

 session of the latter, or when, in consequence 

 of permanent absence, they must be regarded 

 as having left the Reichsrath, the Emperor can 

 order new members of the Reichsrath to be 

 elected by the direct vote of the districts from 

 which the members of the Diet had been 

 chosen." The Upper House consented to this 

 election bill on March 5th, by a vote of 70 



against 10. In order to secure, if possible, a 

 trustworthy majority in the House of Dele- 

 gates, the Government, on March 15th, dis- 

 solved the Diet of Bohemia, which was entirely 

 under the control of the opposition, and or- 

 dered elections for a new Diet, which was con- 

 voked for the 24th of April. As these elections 

 were to have a decided influence on the politi- 

 cal complexion of the Reichsrath, they were 

 for the time the chief subject of discussion in 

 cis-Leithan Austria, and were hotly contested. 

 The vote of the large landed estate being favor- 

 able to the Government, the latter saw its ex- 

 pectations realized. Forty of the fifty-four 

 members elected by the new Bohemian Diet 

 to the Reichsrath joined the Constitutional 

 party, which thus controlled a two-thirds ma- 

 jority in the Lower House of the Reichsrath, 

 even if the Poles should not vote for it. The 

 session of the Diet was closed on June 23d. 

 The two great reforms, the introduction of 

 which had been regarded as the chief task of 

 the ministry, the substitution of direct elec- 

 tions to the Reichsrath for the indirect election 

 of the delegates by the provincial Diets, and 

 the Ausgleich (agreement) with the Poles, were 

 not carried through. The ministry offered to 

 the Poles extensive concessions, but at the 

 s-ame time declared that nothing would be 

 granted incompatible with the dualistic basis 

 of the entire empire. 



All the Diets of the cis-Leithan provinces 

 were opened on November 5th, and to each 

 the Government submitted a bill for the estab- 

 lishment of friendly courts of arbitration. In 

 the Tyrolese Diet a violent opposition was 

 made to the Government because the latter 

 had deprived the theological faculty of the 



