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From The Quarterly Review.
AUSTRIA SINCE SADOWA.*

ernment to command any genuine sympathy from any of its subjects. But with A GOOD deal has been written lately the close of the war with Prussia these about "New America," and "New Rus- two difficulties—the relations with Gersia," but no one has attempted to give many and the relations with Italy - were Englishmen anything like a detailed de-swept away. From this time forward Ausscription of New Austria. And yet it would be difficult to point to any country in the course of the world's history which, in the short space of four years, has so completely cast away old traditions and assumed a new political and social character, as this old home of despotism, the last depositary of the traditions of the Holy Roman Empire.

tria could appear before the world as a Power binding together for the interests of all, a number of petty nationalities, each of which was too feeble to maintain a separate existence. In short, from the year 1866 Austria had a raison d'être, whereas before she had none.

It is proposed in the following remarks, first to describe Austria as she was after Sadowa; secondly, to give an account of the main events which have accomplished her political transformation; thirdly, to describe her as she is, and to glance at the probabilities of the future which awaits her.

A short preliminary account of the complicated political machinery obtaining in Austria will be necessary, inasmuch as ignorance on this point would render much of what is to follow unintelligible. Briefly then, the Empire is divided into a number of provinces, and the population of each province into three groups or classes. The first group consists of the great landlords (Grossgrundbesitzer), the second of the commercial men belonging to the towns, markets, and trade-guilds, the third of the inhabitants of the country parishes (Land

Peace politicians may say that a war always does more harm than good to the nations which engage in it. Perhaps it always does, at any rate, morally speaking, to the victors: but that it does not to the vanquished, Austria stands as a living evidence. Finally excluded from Italy and Germany by the campaign of 1866, she has cast aside her dreams of foreign domination, and has set herself manfully to the task of making a nation out of the various conflicting nationalities over which she presides. It does not require much insight to perceive that as long as she held her position in Germany this fusion was hopeless. The overwhelming preponderance of the German element made any approach to a reciprocity of interests impossible. The Germans always were regarded as sovereigns, the remaining na-gemeinde). Each of these groups has the tionalities as subjects; it was for these to command, for those to obey. In like manner, it was impossible for the Austrian Government to establish a mutual understanding with a population which felt itself attracted-alike by the ties of race, language, and geographical position to another political union. Nay more, as long as the occupation of the Italian provinces remained as a blot on the Imperial escutcheon, it was impossible for the Gov

privilege of electing a certain number of members to the provincial Parliament (Landtag). To take a typical instance (for the proportions vary in the different provinces), in Bohemia the great landlords elect 70 members, the towns and markets 87, and the country parishes 79. In addition to this, the archbishop and bishops of each province sit in the Landtag by right of office. The great landlords elect their members, as a rule, en masse; the remaining two groups are divided into a number of voting-divisions, each of which has the right of electing a certain definite number of members. Thus the country parishes are grouped together into political circles (Wahlbezirke), and each circle elects one member. The competence of the Landtag is two-fold. They are (1)

It would be out of place to give a detailed account of the well-known measure which converted the "Austrian empire into the " Austro-Hungarian monarchy." It will be necessary, however, to describe the additions made by it to the political machinery. The Hungarian Reichstag

supreme in certain questions of local ad- It was under these auspices that Baron ministration; (2) they elect from their Beust, on the 7th of February, 1867, took own body members for the Reichsrath, or office under Franz Joseph. His procentral Parliament, which meets in Vien- gramme may be stated as follows. He na. The method of election is as follows. saw that the day of centralism and imperiThe three groups or classes are all repre- al unity was gone past recall, and that the sented by certain fixed numbers. Thus, most liberal Constitution in the world in Bohemia, the great landlords send 15, would never reconcile the nationalities to the towns 20, and the parishes 19 mem- their present position, as provinces under bers to the Reichsrath. But the members the always detested and now despised Emof the three groups do not respectively pire. But then came the question — choose their own delegates. The whole Granted that a certain disintegration is Landtag votes in each case, but its elec- inevitable, how far ist his disintegration tion is confined, as the case may be, to one to go? Beust proposed to disarm the opof the groups. This group-system was position of the leading nationality by the the invention of Schmerling, who was gift of an almost complete independence, Premier in 1861, and its object was to and, resting on the support thus obtained, give an artificial preponderance to the to gain time for conciliating the remaining landlords, whose votes were most easily provinces by building up a new system of influenced by Court persuasion. The free government. Reichsrath consists of an Upper and Lower House (Herren-und Abgeordneten haus). The Upper House contains (1) a number of hereditary peers of diffent ranks, (2) the Prince-Cardinals and Archbishops of the Empire, (3) a certain number of lifepeers, among whom may be found wellknown statesmen, lawyers, generals, poets, was constructed on the same principle as &c. The Lower House contains 203 mem- the Austrian Reichsrath. It was to meet bers - a certain definite number being in Pesth, as the Reichsrath at Vienna, and elected by the Landtag of each province, was to have its own responsible ministers. Bohemia sending 54, Galicia 38, Moravia From the members of the Reichsrath and 22, Lower Austria 18, &c. Reichstag respectively were to be chosPerhaps no country since the days of en annually sixty delegates to repthe late Roman Empire ever found itself resent Cisleithanian and sixty to reprein a more wretched condition than Aus- sent Hungarian interests-twenty being tria in the winter of 1866. An ecclesias- taken in each case from the Upper, forty tical despotism had for years crushed all from the Lower House. These two "Delthe free thought of the nation; a civil egations,” whose votes were to be taken, despotism had crushed all its political life, when necessary, collectively, though each and had now added to its many sins the Delegation sat in a distinct chamber, crowning sin of a crushing military failure. owing to the difference of language, Popular education was by legal sanction formed the Supreme Imperial Assembly, in the hands of the priests: there was no and met alternate years at Vienna and Ministerial responsibility. Parliament had Pesth. They were competent in matters lost control even of the public purse; and of foreign policy, in military administraa heavy deficit threatened national bank- tion, and in Imperial finance. At their ruptcy. In addition to these evils the dif- head stood three Imperial ministers - the ferent nationalities, which had hitherto Reichskanzler, who presided at the Forbeen kept in order by the sword, showed eign Office, and was ex officio Prime Minopen signs of revolution, and the weak ister; the Minister of War, and the Minispolicy of Belcredi's Ministry had neither the strength to control, nor the sagacity to pacify them.

ter of Finance. These three ministers were independent of the Reichsrath and Reichstag, and could only be dismissed by a

vote of want of confidence on the part of lions. To this large interest the Hunga

rians, who plaintively urged that the virgin credit of the new kingdom must not start with a burden greater than it was able to bear, refused to contribute more than 29 1-5 millions. Throughout the negotiations they persisted in putting the question, not what it was just that Hungary should pay, but what Hungary, with advantage to herself and without injury to her political future, could pay. Through this concession the remaining provinces were burdened with a debt which they were positively unable to meet, and the Hungarians must be held mainly answerable for the disastrous repudiation of 1868, of which they had ingeniously avoided the direct responsibility.

It was further provided that from January, 1868, to December, 1877, the military and other common expenses connected with the Foreign and Finance Department should be defrayed by the two halves of the empire, in very different proportions. Cisleithania was to pay 70, Hungary only 30 per cent. Thus the latter was put in possession of half the power in the Imperial system, with less than a third of the burdens attaching to that power.

the Delegations. The " Ausgleich" or scheme of federation with Hungary is, no doubt, much open to criticism, both as a whole and in its several parts. It must always be borne in mind that administratively and politically it was a retrogression. At a time in which all other European nations notably North Germany were simplifying and unifying their political systems, Austria was found doing the very reverse. It is easy to point out the inconvenience of a state of things which makes an annual transfer of the seat of Government necessary, and forces the Imperial Parliament and Ministry to reside every other year at a distance from the Ambassadors of the foreign Courts. It might be urged that it was foolish to gratify Hungarian vanity by making a second capital, and absurd to have no single chamber where members of each kingdom could debate in common on subjects of Imperial interest. The true answer to these objections is, that the measure of 1867 was constructed to meet a practical difficulty. Its end was not the formation of a symmetrical system of government, but the pacification of Hungary. The Magyars, who with their feudal insti- Of the defects which have been noticed tutions and commercial backwardness are in the dnal system - viz., the double capistill semi-barbarians, required the conces- tal, the absence of a single supreme Parsion of the capital as a sign and symbol of liament, and the financial anomaly - it their independence. They refused to ad- may be observed that the second only is mit the constitution of a supreme Imperial irremediable. As confidence in the Govassembly, because they foresaw that Ger- ernment increases, it may well be hoped man would be spoken in such an assembly, that the Hungarians themselves will recand were unwilling to own the superiority ognize the inconvenience of a double adof the German to the Magyar tongue. ministrative centre and the uselessness of Hence the justification of these and simi- a financial prerogative, which, inasmuch as lar irrational clauses of the measure is it lacks its due counterpart of financial refirst their necessity, and secondly their sponsibility, could never be practically exsuccess. Before 1867 Hungary was a dis-ercised without leading to discontent, if contented province, kept in order by Ger- not to revolution. man troops: it is now the most contented and patriotic part of the empire.

From this point the internal history of the two halves of the empire flows in two different channels. Graf Andrassy, the Hungarian Premier, had a comparatively easy task before him. There were several reasons for this. In the first place, the predominance of the Magyars in Hungary was more assured than that of the Germans in Cisleithania. It is true that they

The only part of the scheme which is open to really serious objection is the financial part. In this question the Hungarians must be considered as having made an unworthy use of their strong political position. In 1867 the Austrian national debt amounted to 3046 million florins, the yearly interest being 127 mil-numbered only 5,000,000 out of the 16,