70 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



pary a strong feeling of resentment against 

 Prince Bismarck and of distrust of the value of 

 the Austro - German alliance. The German 

 Chancellor through his press organs acknowl- 

 edged that his action was influenced by a fear 

 of a Franco-Russian alliance, though the ad- 

 mission was construed by his political oppo- 

 nents as a ruse to secure the voting of a mili- 

 tary budget for the next septennial period. 

 The Austrian and German diplomacy acted in 

 concert during the crisis, but even though they 

 restrained Russia from intervening actively in 

 Bulgaria, and extracted from her a promise to 

 continue to respect the independence of that 

 principality, the events there were regarded in 

 Austria- Hungary as a decided Russian victory, 

 and one that affected the vital interests and se- 

 curity of tho dual monarchy. These feelings 

 found expression in interpellations in the Hun- 

 garian Parliament in September. In Hungary 

 the creation of independent states in the Bal- 

 kan region that will serve as a bulwark against 

 the expansion of Russia is considered a neces- 

 sity for the continued existence of the Austro- 

 Uangariaa Empire. With the Muscovite seated 

 in Constantinople it is feared that the Slav peo- 

 ples will gravitate to Russia, that the Austro- 

 Hungarian federation of states will dissolve, 

 and that, while German Austria will be ab- 

 sorbed in the German Empire, Hungary, like 

 Roumania, will be ingulfed in the Slavic flood, 

 and her national existence eventually obliter- 

 ated. The occupation of Bosnia and Herze- 

 govina was at first unpopular in Hungary, be- 

 cause the acquisition of those provinces would 

 add to the strength of the Slav element within 

 the empire, but it was afterward accepted as a 

 benefit, inasmuch as it was a check to the Pan- 

 slavic movement. The scheme of a parallel 

 march of Austria-Hungary to Salonica, and a 

 delimitation of Russian and Austrian spheres 

 of interests in the Balkans, would not, in the 

 view of Hungarian statesmen, avert the dangers 

 that would probably rise from the Russian ad- 

 vance to Stamboul. 



The Cnstoms Treaty. The customs union be- 

 tween the two parts of the empire, established 

 at the time of the division in 1867, is renewa- 

 ble every ten years. The year 1886 was taken 

 up with negotiations for the arrangement of 

 duties, subsidies, etc., for the new period be- 

 ginning with 1887. The Austrian and Hun- 

 garian ministers began their conferences on 

 Jan. 5. They decided to fix the duties on 

 grain at the same figure as in Germany, and 

 arrived at an agreement on all points except in 

 ri-ganl to the duties on petroleum, molasses, 

 and woolen yarns. Negotiations were inter- 

 rupted on account of a disagreement on the pe- 

 troleum and sugar duties, but finally the Cabi- 

 nets came to an accord. The Hungarian oil- 

 refineries, the largest of which are situated in 

 Flume, down to the middle of 1885 used crude 

 American petroleum, which was taxed 2 flor- 

 ins under the general tariff of 1882. Since 

 then, Russian refined oil with an admixture of 



crude has been brought in as crude oil, and the 

 duty reduced by the Hungarian premium on 

 refining to only 1*10 florin per 100 kilos. The 

 two Cabinets agreed to increase the duty on 

 Russian raw petroleum about 30 per cent., and 

 that on American half-refined petroleum 15 per 

 cent. The proposed new petroleum duties 

 caused a Cabinet crisis to suddenly arise in 

 Austria. The Austrians desired to have the 

 abuses in the petroleum industry corrected, not 

 only in order to prevent frauds on the revenue 

 and to cheapen an article of necessity, but to 

 relieve the newly developed oil-wells of Galicia 

 from unfair competition. The borings in Ga- 

 licia are 900 feet in depth, while those in the 

 Caucasus seldom exceed 60 feet. Moreover, 

 the Russian oil yields 80 per cent, of kerosene, 

 and the Galician but 50 or 60 per cent. With 

 these differences in cost and quality, the Ga- 

 licians have to pay 5 florins duty when it 

 leaves their refineries, even if the full rates of 

 5 florins for semi-refined and 10 florins for re- 

 fined petroleum were paid by the importers. 

 The Poles, German Liberals, Left Center, and 

 Clerical Conservatives united against the com- 

 promise, which left the way still open to adul- 

 teration and fraud. The Minister of Finance, 

 Dunajevski, declared it to be impossible to dis- 

 tinguish adulterated petroleum by chemical 

 tests. He and Count Taaffe threatened to re- 

 sign if the Government were defeated. The 

 Czech party also determined to abandon the 

 ministry. The Hungarians took the ground 

 that the petroleum duties were part of a treaty 

 in which concessions were made on both sides. 

 The animosity excited by this question between 

 the two parts of the empire was aggravated by 

 incidents that occurred in Pesth at this time, 

 the latter part of May. Some German officers, 

 among them Gen. Janski, the commandant at 

 the Hungarian capital, placed wreaths on the 

 monument of Gen. Hentzi, who fell in defend- 

 ing Buda against the Hungarian revolutionists 

 in 1849. For this a Hungarian mob broke Gen. 

 Janski's windows. The offending general was 

 recalled after the Hungarian Cabinet had threat- 

 ened to resign. Street demonstrations in Pesth 

 were put down by the police, who killed one 

 man. The disturbances were renewed on June 

 9, and the military were called upon to pre- 

 serve order. When large crowds collected 

 again on the 10th the troops surrounded them, 

 arrested over 700, and imprisoned the leaders. 

 The excitement was revived in July when the 

 successor of Gen. Janski, Gen. von Edelsheim, 

 who had made himself acceptable to the Mag- 

 yars, was placed on the pension list, and Gen. 

 Janski was at the same time promoted to the 

 command of a division. The patriotic suscep- 

 tibilities of the Magyars were appeased by a let- 

 ter from the Ernperor-King to Premier Tisza. 

 The amendment of Dr. Suss, a German Lib- 

 eral, who proposed that crude petroleum should 

 be taxed nearly as high as refined, which the 

 majority of the Chamber, following the Polish 

 Club, had adopted in the several caucuses, was 



