tongue of the citizen, as elsewhere, but the lingual medium which one employs in daily association with others. This medium the statisticians designate the “Verkehrsprache”—the “Language of Association.” The first decennial census, under this novel system, was taken in 1880, and the results thereby obtained pleased Vienna so well that the method has remained in use ever since. When the matter was debated in parliament in 1880 the Bohemians and other Slavs indignantly protested against it as unscientific and as a device dictated by political motives. A census so taken, they contended, was calculated to raise by artful means the numerical strength of the Germans and to deduce from it the superior importance to the state of the Germanic element to the disadvantage of the non-Germans.[1] It was argued that the mother tongue of the citizens should serve as the test of one’s nationality, not the language in which the Slavic workman may be compelled to address his German employer or a Slavic subaltern his German military superior. But, as usual. Slavic opposition was over-ridden. Even fair-minded Austrians condemned the system as unscientific. Innama-
- ↑ Representation in parliament being determinable by the result of the enumeration, one can at once see of what vital concern it is to non-Germans to obtain a census free from political bias. As matters are, the Germans constitute 35 per cent of the population, yet have 52 per cent. representation in the Reichsrath (parliament), while 24 per cent. Bohemians are represented in parliament only by 17 per cent.
