The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1918. AUSTRIA BREAKING AWAY

Dominion, Volume 12, Issue 30, 30 October 1918, Page 4

The Dominion. WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 30, 1918. AUSTRIA BREAKING AWAY

One of to-day's cablegrams, whidi reports the opening of an Allied Conference at Paris, assumes that its 1 first and most important business will be to determine the line of action to be adopted in reference to Germany's latest Note. It seems likely, however, that the Allied political leaders and military chiefs will find more urgent claims made I upon their attention _ by the | Austro-Hungarian application for an armisticc. Germany, with . her sham political reforms and lier insincere overtures, is still manifestly, playing for advantage. The men now directing her policy are'intent, evidently, upon gaining by trickery and deceit what they no longer hope £o gain by force of arms. The case of the Dual Monarchy is different. At their_ face value some of to-day's reports imply that the Austro-Hun-garian Government is on the point of surrendering' at discretion, and these reports . are not discredited - by the fact that the Austrian . armies are stated to be fighting well in the region ofthe Anglo-Italian offensive. The battle east of the Piavc has not dc- - veloped far enough yet to afford a real test of the enemy's romaining powers of resistance. On the other hand it is definitely asserted that Austria is seeking an armistice on the conditions ."laid down by President Wilson—conditions which involve the dissolution of tho Dual Monarchy as ii. is at present constituted. Kep'orts to this effect await final confirmation, but they are quite consistent with what _ is known about $ie internal political conditions of the Monarchy and its military prospects. At worst tho - collapse now said to be imminent is delayed, ancl there is every reason to believe that it cannot be delayed very much longer. . A measure of doubt appears in regard to the reports transmitted. today only because there- can_ be 1 no question hcnceforth of treating the Hapsburg Empire as an entity. The voice of its own people has decreed that in the interests of justice and humanity'it must be broken into its elements. No Government acknowledging the rule of the Hapsburg Emperor can pretend to speak with authority for the peoples of Austria and Hungary. Such a Government represents only the vile tyranny whidi by brutal oppression has ' enclosed the people of varied nationality who inhabit the Monarchy in common'bonds of servitude to Germany. If the overtures now being made assume that it is possible to preserve the identity of the Hapsburg Empire while making detail and partid concessions to its subject nationalities they can only be rejected as scornfully by the Allies as they will be by an overwhelming proportion of the population of the Monarchy itself. No composition is possible with the Emper6k Karl and those wh6 sharo with him the responsibility and the infamy of attempting to maintain and perpetuate the hateful tyranny of which he is the living representative. All the Allied nations now uphold the view expressed by Professor Masaryk when he declared that no peace was,possible without the liberation of. his own country, Bohemia, and all other small nations which have been under oppression. To the Allies and to its own people the Dual Monarchy is not an Empire, but a series of States which have been 'brought into a forced and unnatural union, and must, -henceforth be given full freedom to establish their independence-and separate identity. So far as the essential issues at stake are concerned, the men who still pretend to speak for Austria-Hungary are witnout standing at home or abroad. Some of them, if justice is done, will be called to account for crimes as blade as any the war has witnessed. This apart, what is demanded o? them is that they should stand aside and leave the people they have so foully wronged to determine their own fate. The Allies, certainly, can treat with them on no other terms. Whether in the circumstances any such comprehensive surrender as is foreshadowed to-day is practicable may be doubted. Apparently, however, tho rulers of the Monarchy are intent on making terms with the Allies. As news stands they have stated that they are ready for an armistice on all fronts on the conditions laid down by President Wilson, and "without awaiting the results of other negotiations. '• As it reads, this last phrase means that the Eiiperor Karl and his Ministers have determined to cast off the alliance with Germany, which in its latest form makes Austria-Hungary a completely subordinate province of that country alike from the military and the economic point of view. If the terms of the latest Austrian proposal arc correctly reported, tho removal of the Dual Monarchy from the ranks of tho belligerents is in near prospect. The Allies, however, arc bound-to adhere strictly to their demand for the complete liberation of the subject races. It is hardly necessary at this time of day to dwell upon the facts which justify this attitude. That there arc complex questions of racial distribution and sovereignty to be settled in tho areas included within the frontiers of the Dual Monarchy is largely beside the point. The principle whicli must guide Allied action is that which was stated centuries ago by John Huss: "I have affirmed and yet affirm that Bohemians should by right have the chief placo in the offices of the Kingdom of Bohemia, even as they that are French-born in

the Kingdom of France and the Germans in their own countries, whereby the Bohemian might have the faculty 'to rule his people, and tho Germans bear rule over the Germans." Departing in any way from this standard or allowing themselves to bo diverted_ from the fullest practicable application of the principle' of nationality, the Allies would be guilty of compounding and in a degree perpetuating some of the most terrible crimes ever committed. Tho present day representatives of Hapsburg . tyranny arc branded in some respects with an even darker guilt than that which has made Germany's name a byword all over the world. Germany, generally speaking, has practised her v/orst infamies abroad. But it is branded on the record of the House of Hapsburg_ that it is impossible to distinguish between ■ tho hideous crimcs an'd outrages which during this war have been committed by Austrian armies in invaded territory and those which have been committed simultaneously within the Austrian frontiers. Something has been made known lately about the horrors of massacre and outrage visited upon the unhappy population of Serbia, but a close parallel is to be found in the treatment meted out by the instruments of the degenerate Hapsburg tyranny to its own .subject races. It should go without saying that there can be no half-measures in dealing with the men against whom such an indictment is to be kid. The course that simple justice demands—the absolute liberation of all the subject races of the Dual Monarchywill at the same time afford the best guarantee of future peace. With Austria-Hungary out of the war and dismembered there will be an end of Pan-German schemes, and _ Germany will be faced by a barrier of free nations which she will endeavour in vain to pass.