AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



can be carried on by decrees. Not only was the 

 minority strong and aggressive, but the major- 

 ity divided and wavering, so that in a snap vote 

 the ministry found itself actually in a minority 

 of one the day before it closed the session. The 

 chances of a truce between the rival nationali- 

 ties did not improve after the return to the 

 mild absolutism of Article XIV, although the 

 Social Democrats were the only ones who cried 

 out against the reactionary and despotic charac- 

 ter of this provisional method of government, 

 now become chronic. The Poles and the German 

 Clericals, who formed part of the Government 

 majority, were growing restive under the con- 

 trol of the Czechs before the prorogation, and 

 yet these, although the members of the German 

 party who a year or so before were in favor of 

 compromise were now united with the extremists 

 against any concession, became more exorbitant 

 in their demands, exciting the resentment even 

 of the lesser nationalities, such as the Slovenes 

 and the Italians. The Germans, as a matter of 

 policy, were not willing to accept a compromise 

 favorable to themselves in the language ques- 

 tion, even if such could be obtained from the 

 Government after prorogation, because the lan- 

 guage ordinances were ordinary administrative 

 decrees, but if new ones were issued while Article 

 XIV was in force it would require an act of Par- 

 liament to repeal them. The Pan-Germanic 

 party, headed by Herr Schonerer, began to ex- 

 tend its influence among the hitherto loyal 

 Catholic peasantry, who were incensed against 

 their Clerical leaders and the Catholic hierarchy 

 on account of their political alliance with the 

 Czechs. The movement took the form of whole- 

 sale conversions to the Protestant Evangelical 

 and the Old Catholic faiths. Many of those that 

 renounced the Roman Catholic faith for political 

 reasons under the lead and direction of the Pan- 

 Germanic leaders, who kept a list of persons 

 ready at the opportune moment to announce 

 their conversion to Protestantism, were still 

 loyal to the dynasty, and were not ready to fol- 

 low these in their ultimate plans for the separa- 

 tion of the German provinces from Austria and 

 their annexation to the German Empire. The 

 German Government gave no countenance to the 

 Austrian separatists' designs, and prevented their 

 finding an echo in Germany; but the conversions 

 to Protestantism were openly aided and encour- 

 aged by the Evangelical community in Germany, 

 although the High Consistory of the Evangelical 

 Church in Austria adopted a hostile attitude 

 toward the movement. There were numerous 

 conversions in January in Linz, the chief town 

 of Upper Austria, and more in succeeding months. 

 In northern Bohemia a large number of German 

 Catholics changed their religion on national 

 grounds. The cry of " Away from Rome ! " was 

 taken up in Gratz, the capital of Styria, where 

 not 1 per cent, of the population were Protes- 

 tants. Although aristocratic ladies placed obsta- 

 cles in the way of a meeting that was announced 

 to be held in a public hall, a large assemblage 

 gathered eventually to hear Old Catholic orators 

 preach emancipation from Rome, until the pro- 

 ceedings were stopped by the police, because one 

 of the speakers spoke of the Old Catholic move- 

 ment as an expression of the spirit of German 

 nationalism. The Peasant League of the Alpine 

 provinces, which combined a general Agrarian 

 programme with certain German Nationalist fea- 

 tures, such as the adoption of German as the 

 language of the state, a customs union with Ger- 

 many, a merely personal union with Hungary, 

 and the exclusion from Austria of Galicia, Buko- 



wina, and Dalmatia, which would be erected into 

 autonomous provinces, thus relieving the finances 

 of the Austrian state, was suppressed by the 

 Statthalter of Gratz on the ground that it had 

 enrolled German subjects as .members. This 

 league was founded to resist the absorption of 

 the small farms by the great landholders, who 

 in upper Styria convert them into game pre- 

 serves. The agitation, which was started by 

 Baron Rokitansky, a member of the Styrian 

 Diet, spread through Styria, Salzburg, Upper 

 Austria, and the German districts of other prov- 

 inces wherever the peasant proprietors, whose 

 freeholds were already heavily mortgaged, were 

 so reduced by the general agricultural depression 

 that thousands of farms were sold under the 

 hammer every year. The denunciation of the 

 league by the priests had created a prejudice 

 against the clergy among the peasantry, and 

 gave occasion for the adoption of the Old Catho- 

 lic creed by Catholics who had no other grounds, 

 either religious or national, for abandoning the 

 faith to which they were as deeply attached as 

 the priests themselves. The policy of making 

 concessions to the Slavs at the cost of the Ger- 

 mans in other parts of Austria caused profound 

 mortification even in the Tyrol, the most loyal of 

 the Austrian provinces, where there is no Slav 

 element. The same policy produced a similar 

 effect among the Austro-Italian population of the 

 coast lands. Political radicalism also gained 

 ground in all parts of the country, and the grow- 

 ing distress of the peasantry made them accessi- 

 ble to the Social Democratic propaganda, which 

 was not a serious danger to political institutions 

 so long as it was confined to the industrial popu- 

 lation. The Socialists had worked hand in hand 

 with the anti-Clerical element in the last elec- 

 tions in Styria. The Government intended to 

 issue a new decree regulating the language ques- 

 tion under paragraph 14, but the reception oi an 

 announcement to that effect discouraged such 

 an attempt. The Diet of Lower Austria passed 

 a resolution approving the language ordinances 

 as an absolute necessity in the interest of the 

 Germans and in that of Austria, but rejecting all 

 attempts to settle the language question through 

 any channel but the laws of the empire. When 

 the provincial Diet of Bohemia met on March 

 14 the German members remained absent. The 

 Tyrolese Diet passed German Nationalist reso- 

 lutions. In the first quarter of 1899 there were 

 2,600 renunciations of the Roman Catholic faith, 

 and in succeeding months changes of religion 

 took place at an increasing rate, but by summer 

 the movement seemed to have spent its force. 

 The religious movement was not a new mani- 

 festation in Bohemia,, where religion and politics 

 have already been interwoven. When the Ger- 

 mans controlled the Government in Austria under 

 the Auersperg ministry many Czechs embraced 

 the Russian Orthodox religion and built a Rus- 

 sian church in Prague. The Catholicism of the 

 Czechs is of a very liberal stripe, and some of 

 the lower clergy, preserving the Hussite tradi- 

 tion, have habitually been in opposition to the 

 higher episcopal authorities. The Thun minis- 

 try has authorized the erection of a statue to 

 John Huss in Prague to please a popular de- 

 mand among the Czechs, although the Taafe 

 and Badeni Cabinets and the previous Liberal 

 Cabinets, out of consideration for the Catholic 

 clergy, refused to sanction this glorification of 

 the Protestant national hero of the Czechs. The 

 Germans of Bohemia have shown such indiffer- 

 ence in religious matters that a change of faith 

 for political reasons is an easy process for them. 



