AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



69 



without debate, under which 12 German National 

 and Social Democratic members were evicted from 

 the Chamber and were excluded from their seats for 

 three days, was on the same day pronounced uncon- 

 stitutional by the Supreme Court in an action 

 brought by these members to recover from the 

 Government their parliamentary allowance of 10 

 florins a day. Count Falkenhayn's motion, which 

 was passed in the midst of riotous and scandalous 

 proceedings that took place in November, 1898, 

 empowered the president of the Chamber to exclude 

 a member who has been guilty of grossly disorderly 

 conduct from three sittings at his own discretion 

 or with the assent of the house from thirty sittings. 

 It also declared that the salaries of members should 

 cease during the period of their suspension. The 

 introduction of the motion caused such a tumult 

 that it was put to the house in dumb show by the 

 president, and was declared carried, and put in 

 force on the following day, when the obstructionists 

 after outrageous misconduct were ejected, strug- 

 gling violently with the police. The court decided 

 that the modification in the standing orders was 

 illegal because the Constitution requires that any 

 change of the kind should be submitted to a com- 

 mittee and subsequently discussed by the Reichs- 

 rath, whereas the lex Falkenhayn was sprung upon 

 the house without these formalities. 



Count Thun invited the Reichsrath to regulate 

 the language question in a manner to protect the 

 minorities, reduce national friction, and lay the 

 foundations for a durable peace in the whole 

 nationality struggle, promising to abrogate the 

 Gautsch decree as soon as a committee of the Reichs- 

 rath, composed of representatives of all the parties, 

 should arrive at an understanding on the subject. 

 The prospect of peace between the nationalities was 

 rendered more remote by incidents that occurred 

 in Gratz, which caused fresh irritation. On the 

 occasion of the last stormy sittings of the Reichsrath 

 this university town was the scene of riotous dis- 

 orders, ending in a collision between the populace 

 and the Bosnian regiment stationed there. The 

 municipality gave a public burial to a workingman 

 who was killed, and nearly 50 officers of the reserve 

 took part in this demonstration against the Govern- 

 ment for employing a Slav regiment to keep order 

 in a German city. These officers the Government 

 reduced to the ranks, transferring some of them to 

 Slav and Magyar regiments, in which they were 

 compelled to serve as common soldiers. After the 

 band concerts had been omitted for several months 

 the garrison allowed the music to be resumed, 

 making a beginning with the band of the Bosnian 

 regiment ; but as soon as the bandsmen began to 

 play they were chased off the platform by a mob of 

 students and Socialist workingmen. The Minister 

 of War, in answer to an interpellation in the Aus- 

 trian Delegation, refused to consider the suggestion 

 that he should remove the Bosnians from Gratz and 

 restore the degraded reserve officers, and after the 

 municipal council of Gratz on May 25 had passed 

 resolutions reflecting on the Government it was 

 dissolved and replaced by a Government commis- 

 sioner. In Briinn, the Moravian capital, and in 

 Prague collisions occurred between Czechs and 

 Germans. The interference of the German Empire 

 and its absorption of German Austria were openly 

 invoked by the German Nationalists, while the 

 C/.echs vaunted the sympathy and protection of 

 Russia and fraternized more than ever with the 

 Panslavists. When the Reichsrath met again on 

 June 1, after the Delegations were closed, the Cabinet 

 had to face the reunited German Opposition. The 

 German Nationalists were able to stop all business 

 from being transacted or even discussed. When 

 the Prime Minister rose on June 7 to read his 



answer to an interpellation on Gratz, Herr Schonerer 

 took possession of the floor to read interminable 

 petitions for the adoption of German as the state 

 language. Before the date of the next appointed 

 sitting the Reichsrath was prorogued, leaving the 

 Government of the country to be carried on under 

 the fourteenth article of the Constitution, or virtual- 

 ly by a suspension of the Constitution. This article 

 was intended to meet emergencies when the 

 Reichsrath does not happen to be in session. Action 

 taken under it by the Government has the force of 

 law only under limitations, the most important of 

 which is that the Government's decrees must be 

 laid before the next Reichsrath within four weeks 

 of its assembling. The breakdown of the parlia- 

 mentary system was not contemplated, but the 

 Emperor would not break the letter of the Constitu- 

 tion if he continued to govern by arbitrary decrees 

 indefinitely without calling the Reichsrath together 

 to render an account of his actions. The Govern- 

 ment programme of railroad construction and a 

 comprehensive scheme of public improvements, in- 

 cluding the regulation of rivers, the sanitation of 

 towns, etc., could not be carried out because a loan 

 was necessary for these purposes, and for that, 

 though not for the levying of taxes and the expend- 

 iture of public moneys, the assent of Parliament 

 is necessary. 



Anti-Semitism in Galicia. The Polish peasant- 

 ry, first ground down by their landlords, and then 

 driven to the wall by the Jewish usurers from whom 

 they had obtained temporary relief in their distress, 

 stirred to hatred against their oppressors by Social 

 Democratic agitators, and inflamed with religious 

 antipathy to the Jews by false tales palmed on their 

 ignorance by unscrupulous Anti-Semitic fanatics, 

 found a vent for their desperate feeling and a relief 

 to their famishing condition in a series of outrages 

 and robberies begun in the spring of 1898. At first 

 the poorer Jews were the objects of their fury, but 

 later they attacked the rich Jews and burned and 

 plundered the houses of the landowning nobility. 

 The Government, when the movement took this 

 latter form, proceeded with vigor against Social 

 Democrats, not only those of the disturbed districts, 

 but the leaders of the party and the trade unions in 

 Vienna, whose papers and funds were confiscated 

 contrary to law. 



Hungary. The Hungarian Parliament consists 

 of two chambers. The Chamber of Magnates is 

 made up of 19 archdukes, 181 hereditary peers pay- 

 ing 3,000 florins of annual land taxes, 84 life peers, 

 41 archbishops, bishops, and other prelates of the 

 Roman and Greek churches, 11 representatives of 

 the Protestant communions, 17 official members, 

 and 3 delegates from Croatia and Slavonia. The 

 House of Representatives contains 453 members, 

 elected by all male citizens over the age of twenty 

 who pay a certain minimum tax or have a specified 

 small income. Of the members 413 represent the 

 towns and rural districts of Hungary, including 

 Transylvania, and 40 are from Croatia-Slavonia, 

 which has a provincial Diet with power to legislate 

 on internal religious, educational, and police affairs. 



The ministry, which is individually and collect- 

 ively responsible to Parliament, was in the beginning 

 of 1898 made up as follows: President of the Coun- 

 cil, Baron Desidcrius Banffy; Minister of Finance, 

 Dr. Ladislaus dc Lucacs; Minister of National De- 

 fense, Baron Geza Fejervary ; Minister of the Impe- 

 rial Cabinet, Baron Ernest de Daniel de Szamosuj var- 

 Nemethi : Minister of the Interior, Desiderius Perc- 

 zel ; Minister of Education and Public Worship, Dr. 

 Julius de Wlassics; Minister of Justice, Dr. Alex- 

 ander Erdely ; Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Ignatius 

 Daranyi : Minister for Croatia-Slavonia and Dalma- 

 tia, Emerich de Josipovich. 



