enlightened despotism preserved to the Bohemian people at one stroke an astonishing number of distinguished and progressive spirits." In Prof. Kadner's article on education we read : " A new organization was first created by the famous May education laws of 1869. It was the liberal-minded Germans who were instrumental in the first place in getting them passed; while the Slavs from the beginning took up to their own disadvantage a hostile or at least passive attitude towards the establishment of these laws." It should be difficult, after the copious details of this autobiography de luxe of the Czech nation in the year 1916, to speak of it historically as an " oppressed " nation of Austria.
The Poles were, together with the Ruthenians, the youngest Aus- trian nation ; the repeated partitions of Poland since the i8th century brought them unwillingly under Austrian rule. After a short period of German government, which was highly beneficial to the country, Galicia received after the Constitution of 1867 an exceptional posi- tion which was gradually consolidated; the German officials were removed, and the Polish members in the Reichsrat (who represented 71 votes) held the balance between the parties, which brought Galicia, without any effort, great financial advantages at the cost of the other Crown territories. Up to the World War there was actually no articulate irredentism among the Austrian Poles; they were more contented than their co-nationals in Russia and Germany, and this explains their attitude of vacillation and indecision during a long period of the war.
Ruthenians. Just as the Czechs had a majority in -Bohemia, so had the Poles in Galicia; and they used their strength against the Ruthenians. The Austrian Government being largely dependent upon the parliamentary aid of the Poles, could not stand out against them much on account of the far-reaching autonomy of the Galician Territorial Government. And so Russophil agitation found a fruitful soil, especially among the clergy and intellectuals. The Ruthenians, who were loyal to the empire, drew attention to the small degree of resistance offered to this agitation by the Polish authorities, who were interested in making the whole Ruthenian people suspect of irredentism. A grand campaign of agitation on the part of the Russian Count Bobrinsky, whose watch-word was that the Russian banner must wave over the Carpathians, though winked at by the Polish governor, led to a great political trial (Dec. 29 1913) for high treason of 1 80 Ruthenians who had been seduced by this agitator. It was not till towards the end of the war that the Austrian Govern- ment, in response to the wishes of the Ruthenians, began to come round to the idea of a separate status for Eastern Galicia; but it was then too late for such changes within the old territory of the empire.
The Southern Slavs were divided among four countries: Austria, Hungary, Serbia and Montenegro. Ban Jellacic, though loyal to the Emperor, had given expression to their aspirations towards unity as early as 1848; but Francis Joseph handed over the Croats and Serbs to Magyar domination (1867), and Dalmatia, the territory of the Austrian Croats, had been neglected by Vienna for years past ; thus it was not till the years immediately preceding the war that it was rapidly developed by the construction of ports and railways and the encouragement of tourist traffic. The Slovenes, who inhabited Carinthia and Carniola, had less grounds for discontent, for the barren Karst had been afforested at the expense of the state; but though they were at the very gate of Serbia, they suffered from a shortage of meat, for Hungary obstructed the traffic in livestock in the interests of her great territorial magnates, and Austria bore the brunt of this. Vienna had for long been the hope of the Southern Slavs, and many of them had dreamed of a union under the Crown of Austria (" trialism "). It was not till this failed them that they turned towards Belgrade.
Of the three Latin races, Italian, Ladin and Rumanian, national fragments were to be found in Austria. The Italians and Ladins, treated as separate in Switzerland, were in the Austrian official statistics treated as a single national group (like the Czecho-Slovaks and Serbo-Croats), but even then only totalled together 2-75% of the population of the empire. The claim set up by the Italians to a university of their own within the territory inhabited by them led to various controversies with the Germans and Southern Slavs. The Ladins, who formed about a quarter of this group, were not affected by irredentism, but looked rather towards German culture, and were to the end outspoken in their Austrianism. The Italian bourgeoisie of the towns, thanks to the force of attraction exercised by Italy, was all the more conspicuously irredentist, since the coun- try population maintained an attitude of comparative opposition to this movement. Among the Rumanians, who inhabited three states (Austria, Hungary and Rumania), the desire long prevailed for union within the monarchy, and Austria would only have had to stretch out her hand to them ; but the Magyars would not have it. Bukovina, the chief abode of the Austrian Rumanians, which they shared with the Ruthenians, offered the spectacle of a German adminstration in which without any compulsion German was the official language and also that of society, and neither efforts at Germanization nor language controversies were to be found. The Rumanians for years had proved themselves loyal to the State.
Constitution. The establishment in Austria of universal suffrage in 1907 had as its aim the creation, in the place of the old
Parliament, which was crippled by the strife of nationalities, of a Chamber in which social and economic interests should prevail over national ones. It had been believed that it was property owners and intellectuals who placed the question of nationality above all others, while behind them stood a solid mass of working- people who were uncorrupted by nationalist chauvinism. The Social Democrats in particular had always insisted that the working-classes were necessarily international. The House now consisted of 516 members, of whom 221 were of Slav nationality, 177 of German nationality, and 87 Social Democrats, so that in every national controversy the latter could carry a decision in accordance with their principles. In spite of this, the calculation was defeated; for in Europe every true democracy at once be- comes national, and hence the national problem infected the working-classes so soon as they won parliamentary power; the " International " split up into national groups, just as the bourgeoisie had done before it. Thus the motive force of nation- ality proved itself stronger than that of Socialism.
With the introduction of universal equal suffrage the stormy suffrage agitation came to rest, although one of its demands was unfulfilled, namely female suffrage for the Austrian House of Deputies. Active committees for women's rights were, it is true, set up in the territorial capitals. The election of a woman as a deputy to the Diet, which took place prematurely through their influence in Bohemia in 1912, was annulled by the governor as illegal. Women's activity was, for the rest, kept free from demonstrations and excesses. They were not, however, without quiet success, for these committees worked so intensively to create a public opinion favourable to woman's suffrage that im- mediately after the proclamation of the Austrian Republic in 1918 the vote was unanimously conceded to women, even the con- servative parties agreeing to this.
It might have been expected that the concession of universal suffrage in the case of the House of Deputies would have led to the abolition of the class system of voting for the legislative bodies of the several territories and the introduction of an equal franchise, and also to the doing away with the three-class system of voting established on the Prussian model in the case of the election of municipal representatives. This was all the more probable owing to the fact that since the Constitution of 1867 there had been a certain analogy between the franchise for the Reichsrat, the Terri- torial Diets, and the elected commercial bodies. The Social Demo- cratic party endeavoured, indeed, to remove the last remains of the old electoral privilege in town and country; but the urgent motion which they brought in to this effect as early as July 8 1908 broke down, owing to a not unfounded anxiety lest in the Crown terri- tories of mixed populations one nationality should predominate too much over another. There was only a cautious and gradual exten- sion of the right to vote in Diet and municipal elections in the several territories; and it was not till Jan. 20 1918 that the Government adopted the point of view of the Social Democrats, and promised to extend the principle of the parliamentary franchise, as established in the case of elections to the Reichsrat, to the communal elections also, but with reservations intended to guard against " the unde- sirable reaction of nationality in districts of mixed population." The principle of full equality of electoral rights in all three spheres was not carried out till the republic.
Parliament. The activity of the Austrian Parliament can best be characterized as a continuous inactivity. The two great recurring " necessities of State," the budget and the authoriza- tion of the contingents of army recruits, regularly occupied a large part of the sittings; the budget was generally passed only in instalments in three or six monthly grants, and the Government was forced to adopt the practice of adjourning the obstructive House of Deputies and of providing for indispensable require- ments in its absence by emergency decree.
The procedure of emergency decree was based upon Par. 14 of the constitution, which provided that: "When pressing necessity for such measures presents itself at a time when the Reichsrat is not sitting, they may be promulgated by imperial decree, in so far as they do not produce any lasting burden on the State treasury." The current administration could, it is true, be provided for by this means, but new commitments could not be entered upon. This resulted, indeed, in a fairly economical administration, but nothing could be done on an imposing scale. Par. 14 of the constitution also contained a safety valve which enabled the Government to carry on current business for a time without the cooperation of the Parliament. The Government repeatedly exposed itself to the charge of proroguing
