Before the combination of Clericals and Federalists the Parliamentary breakdown of 1870. ministry broke down; they were divided among themselves; Counts Taaffe and Alfred Potocki, the minister of agriculture, wished to conciliate the Slav races—a policy recommended by Beust, probably with the sympathy of the emperor; the others determined to cripple the opposition by taking away the elections for the Reichsrath from the diets. Taaffe and his friends resigned in January 1870, but the majority did not long survive. In March, after long delay, the new Galician demands were definitely rejected; the whole of the Polish club, followed by the Tirolese and Slovenes, left the House, which consequently consisted of 110 members—the Germans and German representatives from Bohemia and Moravia. It was clearly impossible to govern with such a parliament. Not four years had gone by, and the new constitution seemed to have failed like the old one. The only thing to do was to attempt a reconciliation with the Slavs. The ministry resigned, and Potocki and Taaffe formed a government with this object. Potocki, now minister-president, then entered on negotiations, hoping to persuade the Czechs to accept the constitution. Rieger and Thun were summoned to Vienna; he himself went to Prague, but after two days he had to give up the attempt in despair. Feudals and Czechs all supported the declaration of 1868, and would accept no compromise, and he returned to Vienna after what was the greatest disappointment of his life. Government, however, had to be carried on; the war between Germany and France broke out in July, and Austria might be drawn into it; the emperor could not at such a crisis alienate either the Germans or the Slavs. The Reichsrath and all the diets were dissolved. This time in Bohemia the Czechs, supported by the Feudals and the Clericals, gained a large majority; they took their seats in the diet only to declare that they did not regard it as the legal representative of the Bohemian kingdom, but merely an informal assembly, and refused to elect delegates for the Reichsrath. The Germans in their turn now left the diet, and the Czechs voted an address to the crown, drawn up by Count Thun, demanding the restoration of the Bohemian kingdom. When the Reichsrath met there were present only 130 out of 203 members, for the whole Bohemian contingent was absent; the government then, under a law of 1868, ordered that as the Bohemian diet had sent no delegates, they were to be chosen directly from the people. Twenty-four Constitutionalists and thirty Declaranten were chosen; the latter, of course, did not go to Vienna, but the additional twenty-four made a working majority by which the government was carried on for the rest of the year.
But Potocki's influence was gone, and as soon as the European The ministry of Hohenwart. crisis was over, in February 1871, the emperor appointed a ministry chosen not from the Liberals but from the Federalists and Clericals, led by Count Hohenwart and A. E. F. Schäffle, a professor at the university of Vienna, chiefly known for his writings on political economy. They attempted to solve the problem by granting to the Federalists all their demands. So long as parliament was sitting they were kept in check; as soon as it had voted supplies and the Delegations had separated, they ordered new elections in all those diets where there was a Liberal majority. By the help of the Clericals they won enough seats to put the Liberals in a minority in the Reichsrath, and it would be possible to revise the constitution if the Czechs consented to come. They would only attend, however, on their own terms, which were a complete recognition by the government of the claims made in the Declaration. This was agreed to; and on the 12th of September at the opening of the diet, the governor read a royal message recognizing the separate existence of the Bohemian kingdom, and promising that the emperor should be crowned as king at Prague. It was received with delight throughout Bohemia, and the Czechs drew a draft constitution of fundamental rights. On this the Germans, now that they were in a minority, left the diet, and began preparations for resistance. In Upper Austria, Moravia and Carinthia, where they were outvoted by the Clericals, they seceded, and the whole work of 1867 was on the point of being overthrown. Were the movement not stopped the constitution would be superseded, and the union with Hungary endangered. Beust and Andrássy warned the emperor of the danger, and the crown prince of Saxony was summoned
by Beust to remonstrate with him. A great council was called at Vienna (October 20), at which the emperor gave his decision that the Bohemian demands could not be accepted. The Czechs must come to Vienna, and consider a revision of the constitution in a constitutional manner. Hohenwart resigned, but at the same time Beust was dismissed, and a new cabinet was chosen once more from among the German Liberals, under the leadership of Prince Adolf Auersperg, whose brother Carlos had been one of the chief members in the Bürger Ministerium. For the second time in four years the policy of the government had completely changed within a few months. On 12th September the decree had been published accepting the Bohemian claims; before the end of the year copies of it were seized by the police, and men were thrown into prison for circulating it.
Auersperg's ministry held office for eight years. They began Auersperg's ministry, 1871 to 1879. as had the Bürger Ministerium, with a vigorous Liberal centralizing policy. In Bohemia they succeeded at first in almost crushing the opposition. In 1872 the diet was dissolved; and the whole influence of the government was used to procure a German majority. Koller, the governor, acted with great vigour. Opposition newspapers were suppressed; cases in which Czech journalists were concerned were transferred to the German districts, so that they were tried by a hostile German jury. Czech manifestoes were confiscated, and meetings stopped at the slightest appearance of disorder; and the riots were punished by quartering soldiers upon the inhabitants. The decision between the two races turned on the vote of the feudal proprietors, and in order to win this a society was formed among the German capitalists of Vienna (to which the name of Chabrus was popularly given) to acquire by real or fictitious purchase portions of those estates to which a vote was attached. These measures were successful; a large German majority was secured; Jews from Vienna sat in the place of the Thuns and the Schwarzenbergs; and as for many years the Czechs refused to sit in the diet, the government could be carried on without difficulty. A still greater blow to the Federalists was the passing of a new electoral law in 1873. The measure transferred the right of electing members of the Reichsrath from the diets to the direct vote of the people, the result being to deprive the Federalists of their chief weapon; it was no longer possible to take a formal vote of the legal representatives in any territory refusing to appoint deputies, and if a Czech or Slovene member did not take his seat the only result was that a single constituency was unrepresented, and the opposition weakened. The measure was strongly opposed. A petition with 250,000 names was presented from Bohemia; and the Poles withdrew from the Reichsrath when the law was introduced. But enough members remained to give the legal quorum, and it was carried by 120 to 2 votes. At the same time the number of members was increased to 353, but the proportion of representatives from the different territories was maintained and the system of election was not altered. The proportion of members assigned to the towns was increased, the special representatives of the chambers of commerce and of the landed proprietors were retained, and the suffrage was not extended. The artificial system which gave to the Germans a parliamentary majority continued.
At this time the Czechs were much weakened by quarrels Czech dissensions. among themselves. A new party had arisen, calling themselves Radicals, but generally known as the Young Czechs. They disliked the alliance with the aristocracy and the clergy; they wished for universal suffrage, and recalled the Hussite traditions. They desired to take their seats in the diet, and to join with the Germans in political reform. They violently attacked Rieger, the leader of the Old Czechs, who maintained the alliance with the Feudalists and the policy of passive opposition. Twenty-seven members of the diet led by Gregr and Stadkowsky, being outvoted in the Czech Club, resigned their seats. They were completely defeated in the elections which followed, but for the next four years the two parties among the Czechs were as much occupied in opposing one another as in opposing the Germans. These events might have secured the predominance of the Liberals for many years. The election after the reform bill gave them an increased majority in the Reichsrath. Forty-two Czechs who had won seats did not attend; forty-three Poles stood aloof from all party combination, giving their votes on each occasion as the interest of their country seemed to require; the real opposition was limited to forty Clericals and representatives of the other Slav races, who were collected on the Right under the leadership of Hohenwart. Against them were 227 Constitutionalists, and it seemed to matter little that they were divided into three groups; there were 105 in the Liberal Club under the leadership of Herbst, 57 Constitutionalists, elected by the landed proprietors, and a third body of Radicals, some of whom were more democratic than the old Constitutional party, while others laid more stress on nationality. They used their majority to carry a number of important laws regarding ecclesiastical affairs. Yet within four years the government was obliged to turn for support to the Federalists and Clericals, and the rule of the German Liberals was overthrown. Financial crisis of 1873. Their influence was indirectly affected by the great commercial crisis of 1873. For some years there had been active speculations on the Stock Exchange; a great number of companies, chiefly banks and building societies, had been founded on a very insecure basis. The inevitable crisis began in 1872; it was postponed for a short time, and there was some hope that the Exhibition, fixed for 1873, would bring fresh prosperity; the hope was not, however, fulfilled, and the final crash, which occurred in May, brought with it the collapse of hundreds of undertakings. The loss fell almost entirely on those who had attempted to increase their wealth by speculative investment. Sound industrial concerns were little touched by it, but speculation had become so general that every class of society was affected, and in the investigation which followed it became apparent that some of the most distinguished members of the governing Liberal party, including at least two members of the government, were among those who had profited by the unsound finance. It appeared also that many of the leading newspapers of Vienna, by which the Liberal party was supported, had received money from financiers. For the next two years political interest was transferred from parliament to the law courts, in which financial scandals were exposed, and the reputations of some of the leading politicians were destroyed.[[16]]
This was to bring about a reaction against the economic Fall of the Liberal ministry. doctrines which had held the field for nearly twenty years; but the full effect of the change was not seen for some time. What ruined the government was the want of unity in the party, and their neglect to support a ministry which had been taken from their own ranks. In a country like Austria, in which a mistaken foreign policy or a serious quarrel with Hungary might bring about the disruption of the monarchy, parliamentary government was impossible unless the party which the government helped in internal matters were prepared to support it in foreign affairs and in the commercial policy bound up with the settlement with Hungary. This the constitutional parties did not do. During discussions on the economic arrangement with Hungary in 1877 a large number voted against the duties on coffee and petroleum, which were an essential part of the agreement; they demanded, moreover, that the treaty of Berlin should be laid before the House, and 112 members, led by Herbst, gave a vote hostile to some of its provisions, and in the Delegation refused the supplies necessary for the occupation of Bosnia. They doubtless were acting in accordance with their principles, but the situation was such that it would have been impossible to carry out their wishes; the only result was that the Austrian ministers and Andrássy had to turn for help to the Poles, who began to acquire the position of a government party, which they have kept since then. At the beginning of 1870 Auersperg's resignation, which had long been offered, was accepted. The constitutionalists remained
in power; but in the reconstructed cabinet, though Stremayr was president, Count Taaffe, as minister of the interior, was the most important member.
Parliament was dissolved in the summer, and Taaffe, by private negotiations, first of all persuaded the Bohemian feudal proprietors to give the Feudalists, who had long been excluded, a certain number of seats; secondly, he succeeded where Potocki had failed, and came to an agreement with the Czechs; they had already, in 1878, taken their seats in the diet at Prague, and now gave up the policy of "passive resistance," and consented to take their seats also in the parliament at Vienna.
On entering the House they took the oath without reservation, Count Taaffe. but in the speech from the throne the emperor himself stated that they had entered without prejudice to their convictions, and on the first day of the session Rieger read a formal reservation of right. The Liberals had also lost many seats, so that the House now had a completely different aspect; the constitutionalists were reduced to 91 Liberals and 54 Radicals; but the Right, under Hohenwart, had increased to 57, and there were 57 Poles and 54 Czechs. A combination of these three parties might govern against the constitutionalists. Taaffe, who now became first minister, tried first of all to govern by the help of the moderates of all parties, and he included representatives of nearly every party in his cabinet. But the Liberals again voted against the government on an important military bill, an offence almost as unpardonable in Austria as in Germany, and a great meeting of the party decided that they would not support the government. Taaffe, therefore, was obliged to turn for support to the Right. The German members of the government resigned, their place was taken by Clericals, Poles and Czechs, Smolka was elected president of the Lower House of the Reichsrath, and the German Liberals found themselves in a minority opposed by the "iron ring" of these three parties, and helpless in the parliament of their own creation. For fourteen years Taaffe succeeded in maintaining the position he had thus secured. He was not himself a party man; he had sat in a Liberal government; he had never assented to the principles of the Federalists, nor was he an adherent of the Clerical party. He continued to rule according to the constitution; his watchword was "unpolitical politics," and he brought in little contentious legislation. The great source of his strength was that he stood between the Right and a Liberal government. There was a large minority of constitutionalists; they might easily become a majority, and the Right were therefore obliged to support Taaffe in order to avert this. They continued to support him, even if they did not get from him all that they could have wished, and the Czechs acquiesced in a foreign policy with which they had little sympathy. Something, however, had to be done for them, and from time to time concessions had to be made to the Clericals and the Federalists.
The real desire of the Clericals was an alteration of the school The Clericals. law, by which the control of the schools should be restored to the Church and the period of compulsory education reduced. In this, however, the government did not meet them, and in 1882 the Clericals, under Prince Alfred v. Liechtenstein, separated from Hohenwart's party and founded their own club, so that they could act more freely. Both the new Clerical Club and the remainder of the Conservatives were much affected by the reaction against the doctrines of economic Liberalism. They began to adopt the principles of Christian Socialism expounded by Rudolf Mayer and Baron von Vogelfang, and the economic revolt against the influence of capital was with them joined to a half-religious attack upon the Jews. They represented that Austria was being governed by a close ring of political financiers, many of whom were Jews or in the pay of the Jews, who used the forms of the constitution, under which there was no representation of the working classes, to exploit the labour of the poor at the same time that they ruined the people by alienating them from Christianity in "godless schools." It was during these years that the foundation for the democratic clericalism of the future was laid. The chief political leader in this new tendency was Prince Aloys v. Liechtenstein, who complained of the political influence exercised by the chambers of commerce, and demanded the organization of working men in gilds. It was by their influence that a law was introduced limiting the rate of interest, and they co-operated with the government in legislation for improving the material condition of the people, which had been neglected during the period of Liberal government, and which was partly similar to the laws introduced at the same time in Germany.