Page:Guide to the Bohemian section and to the Kingdom of Bohemia - 1906.djvu/13

11 ancient constitutional rights of some of the countries united under the rule of the house of Habsburg. A decree published on October 20th 1860 established diets with limited powers. The composition of these parliamentary assemblies was to a considerable extent modelled on that of the ancient diets of Bohemia and other parts of the empire.

This decree was favorably received in Bohemia but the hopes, which it raised in the country fell, when a new imperial decree was published on February 26th 1861. This new decree established a central parliament at Vienna, to which were given very extensive powers and which was based on an electoral system, that was in every way partial to the German minority of the population of Bohemia. The Bohemians indeed consented to send their representatives to Vienna, but they left the parliament in 1863 stating that that assembly had encroached on the power, which constitutionally belonged to the diet of Prague.

Two years later the central parliament of Vienna was suspended and on the following year—1866—the Austro-Prussian war produced a complete change in the constitutional position of Bohemia. The congress of Vienna had in 1815 declared that Bohemia formed part of the Germanic federation which was now established; this was done without consulting the estates of the country, as had been customary even after the battle of the White Mountain on the occasion of important constitutional changes. The treaty with Prussia concluded at Prague on August 23th, excluded from Germany all the lands ruled by the house of Habsburg. As a natural result German influence has since that period declined in Austria, and in Bohemia in particular. While Hungary now obtained almost complete independance, the new constitution of 1867, which applied only to the German and Slavic parts of the Habsburg empire, was based on a system of centralism and its purpose was to maintain