THE PROSPECTS OF AUSTRIAHUNGARY.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LVI, Issue 80, 25 August 1914, Page 7

THE PROSPECTS OF AUSTRIAHUNGARY.

A PERPETUAL STRUGGLE. Xo throne in Europe places such a responsibility on its occupant as that of Austria-Hungary. The power of the Tsar is more autocratic, but its ordinary exercise is less laborious and less decisive. The ruler of a congeries of II considerable (and other smaller) races, none of which have a majority, each of which overlaps others, and most of which have allinities with foreign States, has a perpetual struggle against internal and external perils. His personal position is practically the one unitary institution in his realms, save for tiic far more doubtful unity of the common Austroflungarian Army. For the lifetime of most of us this throne has been occupied by the present Emperor-King, now nearly 84 years of age; and for the past t,wo:nty-(ive years his Heir-Apparent was tin; Archduke Francis Ferdinand, who was murdered in Bosnia recently. Until about ten years ago, the Archduke, always reserved, was very widely unpopular, and the prospect of 'his accession inspired general anxiety. Latterly it has become possib. : to appraise him more fully and on the whole favorably; and his removal at the time when the Emperor's own liteis unlikely to last much longer means that the people of Austria-Hungary and the Foreign Offices of Europe are. alike thrown back from the known to tire unknown. The young Archduke, Charles Francis Joseph, Who now step- into his place, and who might become Emperor almost any day, is for most statesmen, 'national or international, an entirely unmeasured quantity. It is not, however, accurate to speak of him as an unprepared youth, for he is 27 years of age, and has been the heir-presumptive to the crown for eight years. The napsburg family is nothing if not solicitous about the training of its frture heads;; and the Jesuit educators- whom it employs,'however'unhappy may liave been their influence in some cases, are undoubtedly among the ablest in t-lie world. People therefore, who wish the Austro-ITungarian -State in one form or another to continue (as probable most Englishmen do who value the continuance of a balance of power in Europe) need not yet begin mourning as those without hope. Apart, from the personal qualities of statesmanship displayed by the present Emperor, the things which have kept the fragments of his political mosaic, to--1 gether, and which seems likely to do so after his death, is the knowledge, transcending all their bitter mutual animosities, that united they stand and divided they must fall. Xotiiing could be harsher in its expression, for instance, than the hatred which the Magvars who rule Ilungarj entertain for the Austrians. ■But they know that if Hungary seceded, it would, even if its were a homogenous ■State, be a State of '2O odd millions outclassed in a world of great Powers. They know that these tilings are, with themselves in an actual minority among the subjects of the Iron Crown, the ,"i.\m, result would be a revolt of CroathiSlavonia. pel-ban 11 , -balanced jbv a rising ! of the Sli-- 'itl the nWB would be probably . ,tli Itouniauia. Russia, and Sen ..l'ccted to the eniaiK'ipa- | tion from ...agyar rule of the large pop- • illations in which those countries are 1 respectively interested. The consei quenccs would be so much worse for the ,'Magyaras than those of their present as- | sedation willi iiated Austria that they I will not- hastily break with the latter, j however persistently they flout ami (b ; I cry it. 'l'Le same is true of most of j the ether races composing the Dual M;n----l archy. Excepting certain "irridentist" elemciits. the Italian*, 'he Orthodox j Serbs, smile of the Roumanians, and j'some of tile Hut henians) which straighr- ' forward!v want to be annex'*! to I foreign Slates, ihoy all feel that. liowI ever uncomfortable be the bod in which I they lie, they could only change it for j worse. The business of an Austro-llun-I gariau monarch is to give visible exprcsI sion to ttiis feeling, to be the focus of I an "Aiistro-llmigarian patriotism." and 'at, the same time to mitigate the mutual discomforts as far as possible, and work gradually towards a fair partnership between the competent races. The problem is ;i euriotiH inversion of that, prc- ' sented by the Rritish Isles and their self-governing dominions. Cur ta'k is to preserve, in spite of geography, a unity originating in that of race and language. The task of the llapsburgs lis to preserve, in spite of race and luu- | guage, a unity originating in that of j grographv. iiotli will ge benelie 'lit • tasks, so far as their \-iieccss involves a genuine reconciliation of narrower I with larger patriotisms, of sponlaiiietv with co-operation, of liberty with peace. Great, though gradual, progress has already been achieved under the present Emperor. It is now casv to realise how different Austria looks to-day from the Empire whose throne he ascended in 18-tS. Under Mc.lteruich she presented much the same menace to AYestern Liberalism as some eon-Hler* Russia to present now. Straddling across the continent, not only ruling her own domains, but figuring at the same time as the leading power in Germany and the leading power in Itoly, with an internal constitution finite Russian in its autocracy and a basis of peasant serldom identical with the Russian ba-is, she well earned the maledictions of the prophets of liberty. To-day all that is changed; the blows from outside—.Magenta, Solferino, Koniggrat/. were i'ollewed by a succession of reform-; within; first the concession in lSiiT. of a joint sovereignty to the Magyars, and then a series of concessions in Austria itscll culminating 40 veins later in the grant of universal suffrage for the Kei.-hrath, vhiWi has final 1\ abolished the overlordship of the German minority, and together with the devolution of powers to the provincial Diets gone far to pui the Austrian half of the 'Dual Monarchy on a satisfactory' constitutional footing. The only | one of these changes which cries out for 'revision to-dav is that, of ]Sti", which enabled the Magwir oligarchy, the class miuoritv of a race minority, to rivet its yoke— one of the heaviest ill Europe ---mi the re--t of ihe populations of 11'iuislcithania. hi short. Cue chief element of oppression in the llapsburg dominions to-day is not the Austrian, so long the bugbear of AVestt rn Liberalism, bilt the Hungarian, so long (and never very deservedly) that Liberalism's romantic ' hero. It is impossible but. that reform in Hungary should come, though very little has conie ill 40 ; ,cars. The .Magyar aristocrats are, a masterful class, l>ut there is too much corruption in their ranks for them to hold their ground indefinitely. Meanwhile, one of the most plans- | iblc improvements wuiild be to take j the "autonomous'' kingdom of CroatiaSlavoiiin, which was most unwisely plaeI ed under Hungary in ,1S!!7, and, combining it with the oth- r areas (Dahnat.ia and Rosnia-Hcr/.egovina I which, like it. are almost exclusively inhabited by people of Serb language and race, to a third douriiii of (he >pt>n- | archy co-ordinated with Austria and | Hungary. This is the so-called policy of I'"Trialism," of which the late Archduke i was believed to he a partisan. The population in the districts rfecrrcd to

sceted into Roman Catholics and Orthodox under the head of religion) that its emancipation in this way could \ effected without prejudice to other race solutions elsewhere in the Monarchy, and it would promote rather than hinder, an ultimate federalism. It has only of course, become fully possible since the definite annexation of Bosnia-Herze-govina. There are two main obstacles —the resistance of the Magyars and the rival agitation to attract the Aus-tro-llungarian Serbs into the orbit of fomented by Russia, and pursued' by the agency of the Orthodox Church, that the late Archduke seems to have fallen a victim. The greatest friend to the emancipation of the Serb-Croat race within the manorehy, he was the greatest foe to its withdrawal from the monarchy into an independent nation. Thus is explained the apparent paradox that the most. Slavophile prince who ever approached the Austrian throne was murdered by a Slav partisan. Will i.is successor take up the running?— Ne'.v Statesman.'