AUSTRIA: A STUDY IN CONFUSION
was rejected not only by Mr. Stanek, the President of the Bohemian Club, but also by the Czech Socialist leader, Mr. Šmeral, who also had an interview with Dr. Seidler. On 6 August the Polish Club passed a resolution declaring that the formation of a parliamentary government was “unreal” at present, that no Pole would enter it, and that, in the words of their declaration of 16 May, a united and independent Poland with an access to the sea remained their unalterable demand. A similar resolution was adopted by the Jugoslav Club on 7 August, declaring the solidarity of all Southern Slavs with the Czechs and supporting their refusal of national autonomy within the existing provincial boundaries. They further declared that “the absolutist régime in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the oppression of the Jugoslavs in Austria constituted an insurmountable obstacle to parliamentary collaboration with a governmental majority.” And as to the Germans, only the Nationalists—National Verband—who were promised four seats, were in favour of Seidler’s proposal, while the Social Democrats and Christian Socialists opposed it. Thus the prospect of a Parliamentary Cabinet supported by an organised Government majority faded, and the only alternative was, therefore, the appointment of a permanent bureaucratic Cabinet. Dr. Lederer, the Viennese Correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt, rightly points out that neither Emperor Charles nor his advisers have yet succeeded in taking even the first steps towards a new order in Austria. We commend the statement to confiding English Austrophils.
A still better analysis of the present situation in Austria is given by Prince Lichnowsky—late German Ambassador in London—in the Berliner Tageblatt on 29 July. Discussing the possibility of the exclusion of Galicia and Dalmatia from Austria, which would give the Germans an absolute majority in the Reichsrat, he declares that “the preservation of Austria from Teschen to Trieste as a uniform State in which every nation could freely develop, yet where the first and leading role would be played by the Germans is for us a question of the utmost political importance.” With regard to the demand of the Bohemian Club, he says that “the enlarged kingdom of Bohemia would, if the Bohemian State-right is realised, possess a similar position to that of Hungary in 1867. . . . We should see a State springing up between
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