REFORM IN AUSTRIA.

Southland Times, Issue 1010, 26 August 1868, Page 3

REFORM IN AUSTRIA.

The new era has fairly dawned in the Austrian Empire. The Emperor Francis Joseph has at last accorded his imperial sanction to the three bills which have given the greatest umbrage to Eome and to the whole priest party in Vienna. The Official Gazette has announced that the bills on schools, marriages, and religious denominations had all become laws of the Empire, and due proclamation of the same important fact had been made in the Beichsrath. During the debates on these measures in the Upper Chamber many admirable speeches were delivered. The Austrian Government and the Eeichsrath have come to an arrangement about the tax on coupons, and a very bad' arrangement it is. No general propery-tax is to be imposed, but only an income-tax on national coupons of sixteen per cent., that is, in fact, a composition at the rate of 17s. in the pound. The French Government is remonstrating warmly, aud it is said the stock exchanges will resist; but the bondholders seem contented, and bonds have gone up. It is as a precedent that the measure is so dangerous, as it may be copied by Governments less able to plead poverty I than the Austrian.