46 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



majority. Finally, the ministry gave heed 

 to the frequent memorials from Bohemia and 

 Carniola, and ordered new elections for the 

 Diets of those provinces, in which an over- 

 whelming majority of Autonomistic candidates 

 were returned. In Galicia the Ruthenians 

 have the same complaints to make against the 

 Poles which the latter and the other Slavs for- 

 merly made against the Germans. To them 

 alone of all the Slav races the triumph of the 

 federalistic principle signifies the extirpation 

 of their national characteristics. They are 

 about equal in number with the Poles, but form 

 the poorer and politically weaker class. They 

 formerly voted with the German Centralistic 

 party, and looked to it for protection, but, los- 

 ing hope of relief from that quarter, are gradu- 

 ally abandoning their opposition, relying on 

 the hope that the combination of parties which 

 has saved from extinction all the other nation- 

 alities will not be so inconsistent as to help 

 crush out theirs. In the elections of 1883 the 

 Polish Federalistic party carried everything 

 before them. A sign that the Germans will 

 soon abandon their efforts to recover the domi- 

 nant position which enabled them to impose 

 German civilization upcn the unwilling Slavs 

 by political means, is seen in the growth of a 

 German national spirit manifested in demands 

 for the autonomy of the German communi- 

 ties of Austria which are in danger of being 

 ingulfed in the " Slavic deluge." Many of the 

 Jews in Austria, who formerly counted them- 

 selves as Germans, have turned with the popu- 

 lar current, and adopted other nationalities. 

 The Germans also begin to show the same fa- 

 cility as in other countries to merge their na- 

 tionality, now that it secures them no advan- 

 tage, in that of alien races. 



As the Saxons of Transylvania complain of 

 Magyar oppression, the German party in Bo- 

 hemia anticipate similar grievances, and have 

 broached the subject of the division of the 

 province into separate German and Czechish 

 administrative districts. These incidents of 

 the race struggle are but superficial manifesta- 

 tions. The preponderance of German thought 

 and the spread of German influence through 

 commercial, political, and intellectual channels 

 still continues in Austrian lands and extends 

 through southeastern Europe, although Magyar 

 and Slav politicians attempt to revive the in- 

 fluence of French ideas, and during the year 

 gave expression to this sentiment in frequent 

 newspaper articles and a number of political 

 manifestoes. The combination of Czechs, 

 Poles, and Conservatives, which has carried 

 through the federalistic policy, obtained in 

 1883 for the first time a majority in the Aus- 

 trian Delegation, which, according to the usual 

 custom, is not elected by the whole House, but 

 by the deputations of the several provinces, to 

 each of which a certain number of seats in the 

 Delegation are allotted. 



Socialism. Austria has hitherto prided itself 

 on its freedom fr'om socialistic agitation. But 



for a year or two past it has seen evidences of 

 a wide-spread socialistic propaganda, and has 

 been startled by eccentric crimes committed 

 by revolutionary desperadoes, by riotous dem- 

 onstrations in the streets of Vienna, and by 

 murderous encounters between the police and 

 socialists. In November, 1882, the breaking 

 up by the police of a shoemakers' trades-union 

 was the occasion of a riot in Vienna, in which 

 the cavalry were called out, and charged on 

 the mob. The following month there was a 

 monster trial of socialists in Prague, \vhich re- 

 sulted in the conviction of forty-five persons. 

 Another band, twenty-nine in number, were 

 brought to trial at Vienna in March, 1883. To 

 some of these a singular crime was brought 

 home. They had murdered and robbed a shoe- 

 maker in July, 1882, in order to obtain money 

 to spread the inflammatory teachings of Johann 

 Most's " Freiheit." All the prisoners except 

 the two implicated in the crime were acquitted, 

 because there is no law against socialism in 

 Austria, and convictions can only be pro- 

 nounced for high treason or disturbance of the 

 public peace. A general strike of the bakers 

 in Vienna caused some excitement and much 

 inconvenience, until the Government came to 

 the relief of the public and crushed the strike 

 by supplying the city with bread made by the 

 army bakers. On December 15th a commissary 

 of police who had attended socialistic gather- 

 ings, in conformity with a law requiring all 

 meetings, however private, to be held under 

 police supervision, was murdered in a suburb 

 of Vienna. 



The socialistic ferment, which has penetrated 

 into Austria, has stimulated politicians to pro- 

 pose remedial measures. The Government in- 

 troduced into the Reichsrath, in the session 

 which opened Dec. 5, 1882, a trade-regulation 

 act, an employers' liability act, and a. project 

 for accident insurance. Even the Left sacri- 

 ficed the principle of non-interference so far 

 as to accept the trade act with its provisions 

 for compulsory benefit associations. Another 

 law intended to counteract the unrestricted 

 supremacy of capital, which was passed, im- 

 poses limitations on joint -stock companies. 

 The Liberals, who here as in Germany have 

 been accused of indifference to the welfare of 

 the humble classes, brought forward a scheme 

 which embraced industrial, agrarian, and poor- 

 law reforms. They proposed to establish sick- 

 funds, accident insurance, and superannuation 

 pensions for industrial operatives at the sole cost 

 of employers. The poor laws they wished to 

 amend so as to enlarge the districts or facilitate 

 the acquirement of a domicile, as now relief to 

 the sick or hungry is often refused on account 

 of non-residence, and in some cases persons are 

 sent away from cities where there are hospitals 

 to carry contagious diseases into their rural 

 parishes. The agrarian question is one of great 

 moment and difficulty in Austria, but is not 

 likely to find the same reconstructive disposi- 

 tion on the part of the ruling factions as the 



