Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/303

 .1899.] Austria-Hungary. — Germans and Czechs. [295

has already more Catholics than she can manage. At the meetings held by the German Nationalist parties in connection with this propaganda most of the members wore corn-flowers, the favourite flower of the late Emperor William, and statues of Prince Bismarck were placed on the tribune.

Towards the end of January another stormy scene took place in the Beichsrath between the Germans and the Czechs, in the coarse of which the notorious Herr Wolf was knocked down and beaten by a Czechish peasant deputy. The Beichsrath was then prorogued, and legislation under the fourteenth article of the Constitution (see Annual Bbgistbb, 1898, p. 266) was resumed. A vigorous protest was made against the application of this article to the ordinary legislation of the year by the entire German Opposition with the exception of the Schonerer group, but they made no suggestion as to the paralysis of Parliament which had made such application necessary. The Socialists, too, got up meetings all over the country protesting against the action of the Government, and in some cases even demanding a republic. Several of these meetings were dispersed by the police, not without bloodshed ; and upwards of a hundred municipal councils, chambers of commerce, and other public bodies, joined in the agitation against the Government. At Graslitz, in Northern Bohemia, there was a prolonged fight between the gendarmes and the crowd, in which several persons were killed and wounded. Later on a serious riot broke out at Cilli, in Styria, in which the Slav Vice-President of the Beichsrath and two provincial officials took part against the Germans who had attacked a party of Czech students. All this naturally had a very prejudicial effect on Austrian industry. A considerable number of the lead- ing representatives of the Vienna silk and Bohemian textile industries transferred their factories to Hungary, and there was a distinct fall in the amount of Austrian production during the year. The general industrial depression was moreover increased by the discovery of fraudulent management in some of the great financial institutions of the empire. One of these, the Gahcian Savings Bank at Lemberg, only escaped bankruptcy by some of the nobility and other patriotic citizens making a voluntary subscription to cover its losses, which were occasioned by the illegal manipulation of its funds. Several of the persons impli- cated in these frauds* committed suicide.

In September the Emperor visited Bohemia, and Germans and Czechs, laying aside for the moment their internal dis- sensions, vied with each other in manifesting their devotion to the Sovereign and his house. Both, however, obstinately adhered to their determination not to yield on the language question, and the Germans threatened to place the whole dualist system in peril by refusing to elect members to the delegation from the Austrian and Hungarian Parliaments to vote the Budget for the common expenses and other measures applicable