THE LATE DUAL MONARCHY.

Press, Volume LV, Issue 16418, 11 January 1919, Page 7

THE LATE DUAL MONARCHY.

» liquidation of AUSTRIAHUNGART. t (SPECIALLY WRITTEN" FOE "THE PRESS.") b (By Mrs Julian Gra>-de.) 3 5 BERNE, October 51. I As long ago as 1916 I said that j Austria-Hungary was the first to draxr the 6word, and 6he .would be the flrsr i to perish by the sword. It is onty . those living on the very frontiers of ■ Austria, as it were, and constantly > meeting persons coming from that j country to whom her present state of » absolute disintegration is fully i brought home. The marvel is not 5 that Austria has collapsed so soon, but that she did not do so far sooner. The Germans claim that it was they who . held her together, whereas many jius- ) trians declare that it was Germany • who helped to render her asunder. > In any case, what the Wolff Bureau is now doing its best to prove is thai ( Austria-Hungary cannot form a Euror pean United States, and that she • must become an extension of the Bal--1 kans, and consequently an extension . of the quarrelling and dissatisfied . European nationalities. i Germany's object in spreading such i ideas abroad is to induce the Germanspeaking Austrians to throw in their lot with her as speedily as possible; and as they number about ten mil- ! lions or oven more, she thinks that [ they will compensate her for her losses 1 elsewhere. At present it must be ad- ' mitfced that the German-speaking Austrians are not very happy. The Czechs and Slovaks will have nothing to do | with them, and, as is well known, they have never been on particularly frieiJß- • ly terms with the other x\ustrian nationalities. - It will be immediately , asked: Why cannot the German-speak- . ing Austrians form a republic by themselves on tho model perhaps of the Swiss Republic, and hy keeping to themselves avoid all causes of dispute with their neighbours? The answer is that they would have no sea ■coast, . and would be in the same position i which experience, especially that of this war, has shown to be so dangerous to the Swiss. That is, they , would hare to depend upon Germany for an outlet to the sea. Conditions at present in the former ■ Dual Monarchy, in fact, are so chaotic that it would be difficult to realise and | keep" pace with them, even for anyone who had nothing else to do or to think about. Old Lammasch is openly referred to even by the Austro-Hun-garian Press, as the liquidator of the Dual Monarchy. But there is not much to liquidate, except wrangling , nationalities, debts, and "financial and commercial confusion generally—"k. and k. Chaos" as a rude writer (an Austrian) in the Swiss Press calls it— ' "royal and imperial chaosT" It may sound preposterous, but It ; is a solemn fact that the Austro-Hun-garian bank, whose position: is o¥ ought to be in Austria-Hungary -what that of the Bank of England is in Great Britain, was unable last week to cash cheques of a fairly large amount. Its excuse was that it had no bank notes. Last week the Burgomaster of Vienna, Dr. Weieskirchner, appeared before the meeting of the V ienna City Council stating . that the Austro-Hungarian Bank had just telephoned him saying that, they had not •the money to supply tho needs of the Vienna municipality, and that the only •advice 'they could offer him was to issue municipal money to tide the Austrian capital over its immediate 'difficulties. As may be imagined, this announcement caused a groat sensation in the Vienna City Council. Already, added the Burgomaster, on October Ist he had been obliged to pay municipal salaries and other bills by twokrone notes (not quite 2s), no others being obtainable. Such quantities could only be conveyed in furniture vans—incredible and absurd as this may seem, and they must have seriously inconvenienced the Municipal Paymaster, for having no room in his sates i'or them he had to keep them in his olfiee. Alter consultation with financial experts, I>r..\Veisskirchner said tnat he wouid propose to the City Council to issue 50,000,000 kronen worth (more than £2,000,000 sterling, taking tho krone at its normal value) of municipal treasury bonds: 2,400,000 of the value of o kronen each, 500,000 of 20 kronen each, 360,000 of 50 kronen each, and 100,000 of 100 kronen each. Experts advised him that these municipal Treasury bonds should be in circulation until February 28th, 1919, and that between January Ist and February 28th they should be legally convertible into ordinary currency, or, if necessary, it is added, significantly, after that time be exchangeable for other Treasury bonds of longer validity. The security for these municipal Treasury bonds is the property of Vienna municipality, movable and immovable. There is no word either in tho report of tho Vienna City Council or anywhere else apparently about there being any cover in gold or silver for these notes, which presumably are worth just as much or just as little as the paper of which they are made. Here, again,' the Austrian people are merely reaping what thev • have sown. In the past, thov let the Hapsburgs and their satellites rule as they pleased, provided only thev themselves were spared the trouble of ruling. Home life, at any rato in Vionna, scarcely existed. Families lived in boxlike flats consisting of kitchen and one other room. No one seems to have thought of saving, and it is not surpris-' ing that Austria should now be able to find no cover properly so-called for her monstrous issue of paper money. True, she has a post-office savings bank, but it was little used, and those few . who did use it could now probably not , withdraw their money. Lammasch's . programme sounds sensible, but it is : ono thing to draw up a programme in Austria at present, and quite another to carry it out. The troops now hurrying or trying to hurry, home, are often imbued with Bolshevist ideas, as even the Austrian Minister of War admits, 'and he should know. The various nationalities are already wrangling with i one another at the frontiers about rail- ' { way questions, indoed, to settle Aus- j trian railway difficulties is at present < almost more "urgent than to settle Aus- 1 trian food supply difficulties, because it | is plainly useless deciding how yon are going to distribute food if the railways ( are not in working order to transport , that food. Already railway communi- j cations in certain parts are almost at . a standstill.' . Alreauy Bohemia does not allow any food to be exported from her territory to other parts of Austria: and 1 I. hear that Lammach's next appeaL to c President Wilson will bo for food. 1 Tho Burgomaster of Vienna said open- t ]y at tho City Council meeting a few 1 days ago that ho had been negotiating c with the Czecho-Slovaks for .food, J which, it must b6 remembered,_ js, in c the circumstances, something like a \ British or American subject confessing 1 that he' had been negotiating with. Ger- j

mans. Even he. a man of moderate words, admitted that, ho looked forward with anxietv to the next few weeks, not knowing how Vienna was to |>e supplied with fcSd. Iu the Ukraine and Bessai abia he said, there is plenty of food, but he added, iu Bessarabia Roumama Jin thl Ukraine >»»« »" such that trade More over ho continued, there is the further difficulty that Austrian money is ™a ortata cholera and" dysentery, AUstrm larlv Vienna, is suffering froni there having been in seven temper Ist to October 19th) 31-0 doatns from this cause alone in the A" 6 ™ capital. It mny very well be that tfto Allies will be forced to obey the BioU cal command: "If thine enemy feed him: if he thirst, give him dnnk Otherwise the peoples in what- was Ihial Monarchy, will perish. In Hungary the Magyars are only of tnemselves. They aro la g out of touch with the rest of and they imagine that if only toej wa. n their hands of Germany and Austna all will go well with them, No trou blesome Americans or other obje.tio - able porsons will come knocking at their doorswith inconvenient questions about whether all nationalities m the Hun garian kingdom aro enjoying'the right of deciding their own d« , 8.000.000 Magyars heheve. that tn 12,000,000 Czechs. Serbs, Slovaks, . an Roumanians will allow themselves to be tvrannised over hy Magyar P° ht J^ I{ V? ' They aro even roady to suPP°rt tti® tottering Hapeburg monarchy, it by s doing they think they can continue to rule according to~antiquated Principles. But the Croats, atter nearly 1000 y ear ® of Magyar domination, have declared thoir independence in their Diet at Agram; tho Roumanians are ready to march into Siebenburgen; and all the other foreign nationalities in Hungary are clamouring for their liberation from the oppressive Magyar yoke. No one will envy President Wilson and his advisors the task of somng-the almost hopelessly knotty problems or Austria-Hungary. And in all the confusion the Hapsburgs are still on their throne, and seem to fancy that hy holding on to it they will eventually save themselves and crown as well.