CHAPTER IV. AUSTRO-HUNGARY.-Church Legislation-Resignation of War Minister-Visits of the Emperor to Russia and to Bohemia-Ex-Emperor Ferdinand-Austrian Polar Expedition-New lands discovered-Autumn Session of Reichsrath-Ministerial Crisis in Hungary-Debate on Hungarian Finance. ITALY.-Church and education-Bill for fortifications-Finance debates and Ministerial defeats-Twenty-fifth anniversary of King's accession-Brigandage in Central Italy, Naples, and Sicily: Camorra and Maffia. SPAIN.-Meeting of Cortes-General Pavia's Pronunciamiento-Castelar retires- AUSTRIA. THE deliberations of the newly reformed Legislature at Vienna, were looked forward to with no small interest. The first subject brought before it was one of special moment, being the regulation of the relations between the Church and State, rendered necessary by the late progress of Ultramontane aggression, in the opinion of a Ministry formed on Liberal principles. The religious measures introduced into the Reichsrath by the Government of Prince Auersperg on January 21, were four in number. The first, in laying down new provisions for the external relations of the Catholic Church, aimed at abolishing the last vestiges of the Concordat, which had hitherto remained partially in force. In regulating the position of clerical functionaries, it proposed to subject the appointment of priests to the sanction of Government, and reserved to the latter the right, under certain conditions, of demanding their dismissal. It went on to prescribe the limits of spiritual authority exercised by priests; to lay down rules for the education and training of candidates for the priesthood; to modify the rights of ecclesiastical bodies, the right of patronage, the rights of congregations; and to provide for the proper appropriation of endowments, reserving to the State the supreme control. The second measure dealt exclusively with the monastic orders. It proposed to place in the hands of Government the right to permit or prohibit the erection of convents and monasteries, leaving members free to quit them at their own. choice, by simply making a declaration to the purpose before a civil magistrate. The third Bill provided for the taxation of clerical endowments, imposing upon them a progressive tax of to 12 per cent., the proceeds to be appropriated to the assistance of the lower clergy. The fourth Bill related to the recognition of separate religious bodies, facilitating the establishment of such bodies, and in so far benefiting the Old Catholic community, though by no means to the extent desired by its members. The omission of a Civil Marriage Bill was considered by the Liberals as a serious defect in the programme, and as hardly sufficiently supplied by a provision enabling Government to recognise dissenting bodies, under certain conditions. Though these laws were of a far more moderate character than the laws enacted under the Falck Legislation in Prussia, they were a sore mortification to the head of the Church Catholic, of which the Empire of the Hapsburgs had been in all time past so firm a stronghold. On March 9, Pius IX. addressed an Encyclical letter to the Austrian Bishops, condemning the new Ecclesiastical Bills, and declaring that their object was to bring the Church into most ruinous subjection to the arbitrary power of the State. He admitted their moderate character as compared with those recently passed in Prussia, but declared them to partake of the same spirit and character, and to be not less calculated to pave the way for the destruction of the Church. He renewed his protest against the rupture of the Concordat of 1855; described the assertion that a change was brought about in the Church by the dogma of Infallibility, as a pernicious pretext; and expressed his hopes that the Bishops would protect the rights of the Church. He, at the same time, announced that in a fresh letter to the Emperor Francis Joseph, dated the 7th inst., he had adjured His Majesty not to allow the Church to be handed over to dishonourable servitude, and his Catholic subjects to be visited by the deepest affliction. After four days' discussion the general debate, on the principle of the Bill, closed on March 9, in the Lower House of the Reichsrath, Government obtaining a majority of 224 votes against 71. The debate was a very interesting one. At the head of the list of speakers against the Bill was Count Hohenwart, and he was followed by almost all the more prominent champions of the Clerical party, with a well combined array of objections. Each speaker had chosen the line of argument best suited to his own powers. Count Hohenwart, as the Statesman, chose the theme of a free Church in a free State, of which he saw a violation in the Bill, which he thought so much the more glaring, as one paragraph of the general Constitution distinctly guaranteed the freedom and independence of the Church in her own internal affairs. More successful in his way was Father Greuter from Tyrol, the pugnacious and energetic Clerical champion. As the man of the people he spoke of the feelings of the Catholics, which were deeply wounded by this interference of Parliament and Government with the most sacred convictions of those millions of Catholics who composed the overwhelming majority of the peoples of Austria. Prince Czartoryski stood up as the champion of provincial rights. All that referred to matters of religion and worship, belonged, he said, to the Provincial Diets, not to the Central Legislature. A layman, Weiss von Starkenfels, took it upon himself to defend the thesis that all power comes from God, and that obedience to God must go before obedience to men. This concluded the series of speeches against the Bill on the first day. The debates of the second and third days were less exciting; but on the fourth and last, the Ministerial statements warmed up the House to enthusiasm. Often had the Ministry as a whole, and, above all, Dr. Streymayer, the Minister of Public Worship, had to bear the imputation of being too indulgent, and too little energetic in repelling the encroachments attempted by the Catholic hierarchy. It was said that they seemed always ready to overlook any little ebullitions of episcopal frondeurs; that they were endeavouring to find a modus vivendi with the Tyrolese clericals about the interpretation of the laws on schools; and they were strongly suspected of not being heartily in favour of the civil marriage legislation. The debate of March 9 swept away all these misgivings. The Minister of Public Worship, while disclaiming any intentions on the part of the Government of encroaching on the sacred domain of the Church, expressed the firm resolution not to allow religion to be used for political purposes fraught with danger to the State. If the speech of Dr. Streymayer warmed up the House, the few words by the Minister President, Prince Auersperg, in reply to divers remarks made during the debate, couched as they were in happy epigrammatic language, produced quite a burst of enthusiasm. It was language that came from the heart and appealed to the heart, especially the concluding passages, in which he replied to the threats uttered that the law would not be accepted by the people, and would be opposed by them. He did not believe, he said, that this threat was a serious one, but, should it turn out true, he assured the House that the present Government would have energy enough to accept the struggle. It was able to do so, because it had never provoked conflicts; whenever it could it had avoided them. All the more, therefore, was it its duty to accept the struggle if forced upon it, and he hoped that in such a case it would be able to end it in favour of the authority of the State. For minutes after, the House and galleries rung with the applause which this enunciation by the Minister President had elicited, and its effect was visible afterwards in the majority which passed the Bill, and which was very much larger than any one anticipated, being 224 votes against 71. The debate thus ended in a great triumph for the Ministry. By the middle of May the Bills regulating the position of the Roman Catholic Church in Austria, and the contributions to be made towards an ecclesiastical fund for covering the expenses of Catholic worship, had passed both Houses and received the Imperial sanction. Although the Pope expressed his disapproval of the legislation, and the representatives of the hierarchy in the Upper House made their dissent clear in every way, there was no bitterness of antagonism, as in Prussia. The Pope knew that Francis Joseph was a good Catholic at heart, and he therefore dealt tenderly with him in his correspondence on the subject; and, indeed, when the Emperor visited his Bohemian dominions in September, the answer he gave to the address of the Cardinal Archbishop of Prague-an answer which was not reported in the official papers-gave serious apprehensions to some of his subjects of his personal tendency towards Ultramontane views. He regretted, he said, not being able to do for the defence of the Church what the promptings of his heart impelled. And, reporting the state of things towards the close of the year, we may say that very little, if any, opposition has as yet been made on the part of the bishops to the application of the new Ecclesiastical Laws passed in the last Session. This is attributed mainly to the firm but conciliatory manner in which the civil authorities have exercised the powers conferred upon them by the new laws. There have been, indeed, minor differences, as it could not well be otherwise; but they have hitherto been amicably settled, and nowhere has there been a trace shown of that systematic opposition which many people expected and predicted. The bishops fought against the Bill with all the means at their disposal; but after it had become the law of the country they submitted to it with a good grace. According to the data hitherto collected, the tax on ecclesiastical benefices is estimated to produce about 100,000l., which is to go towards improving the position of the parochial clergy. The only other political event which made much impression at Vienna this summer was the unexpected resignation of Baron Kuhn, the Minister of War. It was unexpected at least by the public, who had not been aware of the departmental opposition which the army reforms of the Baron had roused against him, nor had known that he had tendered his resignation to the Emperor once already, and had been commanded to continue in office as there was no one then to replace him. Baron Koller, CommandingGeneral and Civil Governor of Bohemia, now succeeded to his post as Minister of War. The general affairs of Austria both external and internal this year were very tranquil. A visit of the Emperor to St. Petersburg in February gave rise to various comments and conjectures; but the general feeling was one of satisfaction, in the belief that it indicated the close of that state of chronic hostility which had existed between the Empires of Austria and Russia for the last twenty years, and a further guarantee of that peace which both countries so much needed in order to complete the process of transformation through which they were passing. The Emperor's visit to Bohemia, in September, afforded a marked and happy contrast to the circumstances attending a similar occurrence six years before, when the discontent and disaffection of the Czech population had made themselves painfully manifest. On the present occasion it was far otherwise. The Emperor was received at Prague with cordial loyalty; and though the address of the Town Council showed that Czech disaffection was not altogether at an end, yet it evinced a spirit of compromise which gave good hope for the future. While in the neighbourhood of Prague, the Emperor paid a visit to the ancient palace of the kings of Bohemia on the Hradschin, where still, in old age and seclusion and partial imbecility, lived his uncle, the late Emperor Ferdinand, who had abdicated during the troubles of 1848. The visit was almost an event. For twenty-five years the two monarchs-the one crowned, the other refusing to be so during the lifetime of his predecessor-had not met. The Empress Elizabeth had never seen her uncle. The Empress Anna Maria was the person who did the honours of the reception; for the old Emperor was confined to his apartments. A very interesting episode of this year's history was the return of the Austrian Polar Expedition after its two years' absence in the regions of ice. The Tegethoff," a vessel of about 220 tons, and built for the purpose at Bremerhaven, in Norway, had quitted that port on June 13, 1872, with the object of finding a northeasterly passage towards the coast of Siberia. In command of it were Lieut. Weyprecht and Lieut. Payer. The crew consisted of twenty-four men. It started in the wake of the German Expedition of 1871, got up at the initiative of the well-known geographer Petermann, according to whose supposition Nova Zembla, the shores of which are reached by the Gulf Stream, offered the best chances of penetrating towards the North Pole. It was on this track the Expedition started, taking Nova Zembla as the basis for their operations. Losing no time, they made their way towards the end of August some 120 miles north-east to 78° 30', where the ship was enclosed by the ice. In this position the explorers had to pass the two winters. During the first of these -that of 1872-73-the ship drifted in a north-easterly direction to 73 deg. longitude, Greenwich. In the summer of 1873 it was drifted back in the opposite direction, until, on August 3, the land was sighted which will now be known under the name of FranzJoseph Land. The southernmost point of it lies in 78° 51' N. lat. and 59° E. long. In that neighbourhood the Expedition passed the last winter, making a series of astronomical, meteorological, and magnetic observations of great interest. In March and April Lieutenant Payer, one of its two leaders, undertook sledge expeditions through the newly-discovered land. He penetrated up to 82°, or only 40' less than Parry in 1827, but he |