For EIGHT DOLLARS, remitted directly to the Publishers, the LIVING AGE will be punctually forwarded for a year, free of postage. Remittances should be made by bank draft or check, or by post-office money-order, if possible. If neither of these can be procured, the money should be sent in a registered letter. All postmasters are obliged to register letters when requested to do so. Drafts, checks, and money-orders should be made payable to the order of LITTELL & Co. Single Numbers of THE LIVING AGE, 18 cents. From The Fortnightly Review. AUSTRO-HUNGARY. ment from the Chamber of Deputies in that country. Yet no one can suppose that the danger which menaces Austria is less than that which overshadows Roumania, for the Polish Jews, who according to Prince Bismarck were created by Heaven for the express and sole purpose of serving as spies on Russia, have done their | work too accurately. If we wish to obtain an authoritative view of the situation in Austro-Hungary, it is not so easy, as it is in the case of some other countries, to know whom to consult or where to turn. Strong as may be the Austrian and Hungarian statesmen who are in power; strong in the possession of Parliamentary popularity and THE date of the appearance of this article is synchronous with the expiration of that compromise between Austria and Hungary as to customs duties, which lies at the root of the financial position of the dual monarchy. The resignation of the Hungarian finance minister and the creation of fresh arrangements between the Cis-Leithan empire and the Trans-Leithan kingdom upon the basis proposed by the Hungarian prime minister form not only a victory of M. Tisza over Count Szapáry, but a gain of power to the former, which | Parliamentary majorities as may be the makes him master for the time being in Hungarian president of council; the Austhe empire. He holds, or virtually holds, trian president of council, Count Taaffe; for the moment as many great ministerial the common minister of finance, M. Káloffices as the Duke of Wellington held at lay; or the common minister for foreign the time when Punch represented a meet-affairs, Count Kálnoky, they are all of ing of the Cabinet at which all the min- them compelled by the difficulties of the isters had the well-known nose. The situation of the dual monarchy to use Hungarian Cabinet appears to the world temporizing language, and to avoid anyto consist of M. Tisza only, who when he thing like frankness of speech or exprescame to power some twelve or thirteen sion of real intention. On the other hand, years ago was expected immediately to although Buda-Pest has at least one very fall, but who seems only to have become powerful journal in the Pester Lloyd, and more powerful day by day. Both halves although Vienna is of all the capitals of of the empire have now adopted the meas- Europe essentially the newspaper capital, ures of defence which the Austro-Hunga- yet there is a very marked difference of rian government considered necessary. tone between the newspapers of the AusThe fortifications of Cracow, upon which trian and those of the Hungarian capital. vast numbers of civilian workmen were In the absence of guidance it is by no employed in February and March, are now means certain to which we ought to look complete. The Landwehr and the Hon- as indicating the probable lines of the veds have been armed, and coats have future policy of the empire as a whole. been purchased for the Landsturm. The The Fremdenblatt, Neue Freie Presse, and war preparations which have been made many others that could be named of alare such as ought to have been made most equal power, have, like the Pester some years ago, such as it was most Lloyd, an European fame; but then, undangerous to have been without, and the fortunately, the great Hungarian journal absence of which in the past has been and those well-known Vienna sheets concaused solely by the difficulties of the tradict one another, not so much in words financial situation. Even under the terror as in the general tone of their writing. inspired by the recent concentration of Looking to the fact that some of the jourRussian cavalry upon the frontier of Gali-nals which write above all of the necessity cia — a concentration officially denied in to Austria of peace, and some of those Austria, but well known to the Austrian which call at times for instant war with government to exist the votes granted Russia, should she place a single soldier have been less in proportion than the in Bulgaria, are equally supposed to enjoy votes secured by the Roumanian govern- official inspiration, it is useless to try to gather the policy of the Austrian Empire | count for his home-rule views, by further from the journals of the two capitals. concessions to nationalities and further One paper, indeed, there is in Vienna, the divisions of Parliaments, and in any case Politische-Correspondez - if I may be the increase of Parliamentary activity and permitted to speak of that most secret- power will tend to increase the existing revealing of all European sheets as a divisions between Hungary and Austria. newspaper, as it is in fact in the highest Count Kálnoky's concessions in the Hunpossible degree, though hardly perhaps, in garian Delegation, which have increased form - which tells us much, and is always the constitutional element in the practical well worth reading, but tells us more of working of the Hungarian Constitution, facts than of tendencies. are not, therefore, viewed with unmixed satisfaction even by the Constitutionalists of Austria. The necessities of the situation which lie upon the surface are those which have been indicated in the first and third articles of the present series.* Austro-Hungary needs quiet; first and above all because of the state of her finances, and in the next place because, as has been seen in the last article, she is not in a military sense equal to the strain of war with Russia. But unfortunately for her she is in a domestic situation which further enforces the necessity of peace. The mixture in the Austrian Empire of the Slav and German races, and in the Hungarian kingdom of the Slavs, the Magyars, and the Roumans; the strong Catholicism of a great part of old Austria and Croatia and Bohemia; the strong Protestantism of a large section of the Magyars, — all these are securities against downright rapacity on the part of the two most powerful neighbors of Austro-Hungary. But on the other hand they enormously increase the diffi The difficulty is very largely explained when we remember that Austria and Hungary do not in reality agree, and that neither of them very clearly sees her way. Hungary, partly from old traditions, partly from the memories of '48-9, partly from her exposed situation in the middle of an enormous mass of Slavs, is bitterly antiRussian, and therefore warlike. Austria is anti-Russian too, but with a distinct peace note, and with a certain desire to patch up matters of dispute, and to make ties of friendship, if they will not last for ever, at all events last some time. There is always a doubt which of the two policies is to prevail. Parliamentary control grows stronger in the dual monarchy year by year; yet this does but increase its difficulties. The Magyars are a military people, and proud of their king and of his army. The Croats of the Banat share these views, but detest their Magyar exponents, and the Diet of Agram is a thorn in the side of Hungary. The Tsechs of Bohemia and the Poles of Galicia also support the army and the Austrian em-culties of government. Germany cannot peror, although with a desire to see the emperor crowned king of the kingdoms of Bohemia and Galicia respectively, and a tripartite or a quadrilateral form given to the dual monarchy. But these feelings of loyalty to the sovereign and of glory in the army which have hitherto held AustroHungary together, are greatly weakened by constitutional control; for even as matters stand ministers are pulled both ways by combinations of minorities, forming what we may call scratch majorities without a common guiding principle. They are driven to attempt to meet their difficulties, like the federalist prime minister of Austria, Count Taaffe, whose Irish extraction is perhaps too remote to ac wish to tear from Austria the archduchy of Austria or the duchy of Styria, or Carinthia, or Salzburg, or North Tyrol, where there are altogether between four and five millions of Germans, on account of the violent Slav feeling in the margraviate of Moravia and in the kingdom of Bohemia, which separate German Austria from Germany. Prince Bismarck perfectly knows that the Slavism of the Tsechs would become Russianism if they were annexed to Germany, and he can hardly desire to increase his religious difficulties by annexing Catholics so strong as the Catholics "The Present Position of European Politics. Part I.: Germany," LIVING AGE, No. 2225. Part III.: "Russia," LIVING AGE, No. 2233. 150,000 men in line, who are admirably officered and trained, and have the solidity of German troops. of German Austria and of the intervening | ance, even standing by itself, was likely strip, or his other difficulties by annexing to put an end to the hesitation and the the Socialists of the suburbs of Vienna. doubts of Austria. Now, an Italian alliRussia, too, which might easily swallow ance may be of great value to Austria, as the Ruthenians of eastern Galicia and of I shall attempt to show in the next article part of Bukowina, and possibly, although of this series. An English alliance, for with more difficulty, the Catholic Polish those military reasons which I shall have Slavs and the Jews of western Galicia, to discuss in my concluding article, that certainly could not digest the Magyars of on England, and which are perfectly known the Hungarian plain, nor even the Rou- to Austrian statesmen, would, I fear, be mans and the Saxons of the principal- regarded by them as of less instant value ity of Transylvania. Just as Germany than an alliance with Roumania. The cannot step across Bohemia and Moravia power of England at sea is absolutely useand a corner of Silesia, where there are less in an Austrian alliance to save Ausseven millions of Slavs, to get to central tria from the immediate consequences of Austria, so the Russians cannot swallow war. The power of England upon land, up the Magyars and the Roumans to get during the two months which probably to the Croats of the Banat and the Slovenes would be sufficient for the Russian adof the kingdom of Dalmatia. When na- vance, may be looked upon as non-existtionalities are considered from the annex-ent; whereas the Roumanians can place ing point of view, that excellent Berlin professor, unrivalled for his combination of map-making and ethnography - Dr. Kiepert - becomes a sort of savior of The view which I have taken of the the Austro-Hungarian empire. But there military power of Russia is looked upon is the reverse of the medal, and that mix- as exaggerated. The subject is worth inture of races and religions, which in one quiry, as the chances are that we shall sense secures the continued existence of a find ourselves at war with Russia one of something which shall be called Austria, these days; and the comparison of Ausmakes that Austria full of discordant ele-trian and Russian military forces is also ments, which have different sets of power- of much interest, inasmuch as war between ful friends outside her territory, to whom they turn for advice and with whom they continually intrigue. The result is that Austro-Hungary is, of all the countries in the world, by far the most difficult to govern, and that as a necessity of her condition she must before all things long for peace. The German and Italian alliance was for Austria not a matter of choice but of absolute necessity, and however little direct advantage she may appear to gain from it, it may be confidently asserted that that alliance will continue. The more doubtful point is, given the fact that Germany, menaced on the one flank by Russia and on the other by France, is now only strong enough to hold her own, how far Austria will go in the direction of concession to Russia rather than draw the sword. A few months ago some sanguine and belligerent Englishmen were disposed to think that the prospect of an English alli these two great powers is not likely to be long avoided. It is also personally important to ourselves, inasmuch as, if we have to look forward to the possibility of having to fight Russia, it would obviously be better to fight her with allies, that is with Austria, than to fight her alone. I fear that time will show that those who believe that Austria can hold her own against Russia are as wrong as are, I believe, those who hold, upon the other hand, that Russia is invulnerable by Great Britain in a single-handed war. Various military writers compute the real military power of the various countries of Europe in very different ways; and it is not easy to arrive at a common standard. When, for example, we discuss the military power of Italy we have to some extent to deal with the unknown. Italy pretends to have a number of "instructed men" far more than double that of Austria, and exceeding by 100,000 the number possessed by |