Of the political situation in 1905 it was said by a writer in

one of the English reviews: "The Labour Party can dictate

terms to the Ministry, and ensure that its own policy is

carried out by others. It is strongest whilst it sits on the

cross benches. During the few months it was in office it was

at the mercy of Parliament; it left most of the planks of its

platform severely alone, and it had, during that time, less

real power than it has had either before or since. It is not

likely again to take office, unless it can command an absolute

majority of its own members to give effect to its own ideas,

and, indeed, it perhaps would be better for Australia that it

had responsibility as well as power, rather than as at present

power without responsibility. However, if not at the next

general election, the party is bound ere long to get the clear

Parliamentary majority it seeks. Under these circumstances,

great importance attaches to its aims and organisation. …

"To quote from the official report of the decisions of the

last Triennial Conference of the Political Labour

organisations of the Commonwealth, which sat in Melbourne last

July, the objective of the Federal Labour party is as follows:

"(a) The cultivation of an Australian sentiment, based upon

the maintenance of racial purity, and the development in

Australia of an enlightened and self-reliant community,

(b) The security of the full results of their industry to all

producers by the collective ownership of monopolies, and the

extension of the industrial and economic functions of the

State and Municipality. The Labour party seek to achieve this

objective by means of a policy that they invariably refer to

as their platform. The planks of what is called the ‘Fighting

Platform’ are as follows:

"(1) The maintenance of a white Australia.

(2) The nationalisation of monopolies.

(3) Old age pensions.

(4) A tariff referendum.

(5) A progressive tax on unimproved land values.

(6) The restriction of public borrowing.

(7) Navigation laws.

(8) A citizen defence force.

(9) Arbitration amendment."

_J. W. Kirwan,

The Australian Labour Party

(Nineteenth Century, November, 1905)._

A strike in one of the coal mines of New South Wales during

1905 brought the Arbitration Act of that province to an

unsatisfactory test. The dispute, concerning wages, went to

the Arbitration Court and was decided against the miners. They

refused to accept the decision, abandoning work, and the

court, when appealed to by the employers, found itself

powerless to enforce the decision it had made. The judge

resigned in consequence, and there was difficulty in finding

another to take his seat.

The Labor Party secured the passage of an Act which gives the

trades-union label the force of a trade mark. Another

important Act of 1905 modified the Immigration Restriction

Act, so far as to admit Asiatic and other alien students and

merchants, whose stay in the country was not likely to be

permanent, and which, furthermore, permitted the introduction

of white labor under contract, subject to conditions that were

expected to prevent any lowering of standard wages.

The location of a federal capital became a subject of positive

quarrel between the Government of the Commonwealth and that of

New South Wales. By agreements which preceded the federation,

the Commonwealth capital was to be in New South Wales, but not

less than a hundred miles from Sydney. This hundred-mile

avoidance of Sydney was considerably exceeded by the Federal

Government when it chose a site, to be called Dalgety, about

equidistant from Sydney and Melbourne. New South Wales

objected to the site and objected to the extent of territory

demanded for it. Mr. Deakin proposed a survey of 900 square

miles for the Federal District. New South Wales saw no reason

for federal jurisdiction over more than 100 square miles.

Ultimately Dalgety was rejected and a site named

Yass-Canberra, or Canberra, was agreed upon and the choice

confirmed by legislation. It is in the Murray district, about

200 miles southwest of Sydney.

A general election in the Commonwealth, near the close of

1906, gave the Protectionists a small increase of strength in

Parliament, and the Labor Party gained one seat, raising its

representation from 25 to 26. The losers were the so-called

Free Traders, or opponents of protective tariff-making. Their

leader, Mr. Reid, in the canvass, dropped the tariff issue and

made war on the State Socialism of the Labor Party. He held in

the new Parliament a considerably larger following than the

Protectionist Premier, Mr. Deakin, could muster, but it

contained more Protectionists than Free Traders.

{33}

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1906.

Developing the water supply.

See (in this Volume)

CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES: AUSTRALIA.

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1907.

The "New Protection," under the Tariff Excise Act.

See (in this Volume)

LABOR REMUNERATION: THE "NEW PROTECTION."

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1907.

Statistics of state schools.

See EDUCATION: AUSTRALIA.

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1907 (April-May).

Imperial Conference at London.

See BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1907.

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1908 (December).

Population of the Commonwealth.

According to a letter to the London _Times_, from Sydney,

"the population of Australia on December 31, 1908, was

estimated at 4,275,304 (exclusive of full-blooded blacks),

showing an increase of 509,965, or of 13.5 per cent. in the

eight years of federation. That," said the writer, "is not a

satisfactory expansion, and we should have fared better. New

South Wales gained 231,367, or 17 per cent. and Western

Australia 87,143, or 48.4 per cent. but all the other States

fared indifferently. There is reason to hope that in the

change of fashion, Australia will again grow into some favour

with the emigrant from home."

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1908.

Change of Ministry.

Late in the year, the Ministry of Mr. Deakin lost the

provisional support of the Labor party, which had kept it in

control of the Government for nearly four years, and suffered

a defeat in Parliament which threw it out. For the second time

a short-lived Labor Ministry was formed, under Mr. Andrew

Fisher.

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1908.

The Governor-Generalship.

After five years of service as Governor-General, Lord

Northcote returned to England in the fall of 1908 and was

succeeded by Lord Dudley.

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909.

Attitude of the people toward immigration.

Land-locking against settlement.

See (in this Volume)

Immigration: AUSTRALIA.

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909.

A summary of sixty years of growth and progress.

Sir John Forrest, Treasurer of the Commonwealth of Australia,

in his Budget Speech to the Federal House of Representatives,

in August, 1909, surveyed the position of Australia as part of

the British nation,—a continent, he observed, containing two

billion acres, with a coast line of 12,000 miles, no other

nation having right or title to any part of this splendid

heritage of the Southern Hemisphere, which was another home

for the British race. Sixty years ago, said Sir John, the

population of Australia was 400,000 and there were no

railways. Now the inhabitants numbered nearly four-and-a-half

millions, of whom 96 per cent were British. They had

£112,000,000 deposited in banks and deposits in savings banks

to the amount of over £46,000,000, the depositors in these

being one-third of the entire population. They had produced

minerals to the value of £713,000,000. Ten million acres were

under crop. During last year Australia had produced 62,000,000

bushels of wheat. It had exported butter of the value of

£2,387,000 and wool of the value of £23,000,000. Australia had

90,000,000 sheep, 10,000,000 cattle, and 2,000,000 horses. The

oversea trade in 1908 represented £114,000,000.

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909.

Proposed federalization of state debts.

On the 8th of September, 1909, the Government introduced a

Bill in the House of Representatives for the amendment of the

Constitution so as to enable the Commonwealth to federalize

the State debts incurred since the inauguration of the

Commonwealth, in addition to those then existing. The Premier

urged that if the agreement was carried out the Commonwealth

would be freed financially, and if the debts were taken over

the per capita payments would be appropriated to meet the

interest on the debts, the States making up any deficiency.

The Bill was passed by the House on the 7th of October.

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909.

Federal acquisition of the Northern Territory.

A Bill providing for the transfer to the Commonwealth of the

vast unpopulated Northern Territory of the Australian

Continent was before the Parliament of the Commonwealth during

the last summer. In advocating its passage, the Minister for

External Affairs explained that "the area to be transferred

under the Bill was equal to France, Germany, Belgium,

Switzerland, and Italy together. Port Darwin was nearer to

Hongkong than to Sydney, and while the Northern Territory

remained unpeopled it was a perpetual menace to Australia. The

military authorities, Sir George Le Hunte, formerly Governor

of South Australia, and Lord Northcote, formerly

Governor-General of the Commonwealth, had all strongly urged

its effective occupation, and Mr. Roosevelt had advised the

Commonwealth to fill its ‘empty north.’

"By the terms of the agreement the Commonwealth would assume

responsibility for the debt of the territory, amounting to

£2,725,000, and the accumulated deficit of the past

administration, amounting to £600,000. The measure provided

for the taking over of the Port Augusta-Oodnadatta Railway at

a price of £2,240,000, and for the Commonwealth to undertake

the construction of a trans continental line connecting the

territory with South Australia, at an estimated cost of

£4,500,000. The latest reports showed that the interior of the

territory was a fertile and well-watered white man’s country,

the healthiest in the tropical world, and that it was capable

of carrying a large population."

_Despatch from Melbourne to The Times, London._

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909 (May-June).

Opening of the session of Parliament.

Programme of business proposed.

The political situation.

Coalition under Mr. Deakin against the ministry.

Its success.

Resignation of Premier Fisher and Cabinet.

Return of Mr. Deakin to power.

His programme.

The Federal Parliament was opened at Melbourne on the 26th of

May. In the speech of the Governor-General, Lord Dudley, as

reported to the English Press, he stated that "notwithstanding

a decrease in the Customs and postal revenue, arrangements had

been made to pay old-age pensions from July 1. Large financial

obligations would be incurred in the near future and would

demand careful attention. Parliament would be invited to

consider the financial relations between the Commonwealth and

the States, with a view to an equitable adjustment of them.

Proposals would be submitted for the establishment of a

Commonwealth silver and paper currency.

{34}

"The Governor-General went on to refer to the coming Imperial

Defence Conference and the establishment of a General Staff

for the Empire. Engagements had, he said, been entered into

for the building of three destroyers, and Parliament would be

asked to approve a policy of naval construction including the

building of similar vessels in Australia and the training of

the necessary crews. A measure providing for an effective

citizens’ defence force would be introduced at an early stage.

"It being recognized that the effective defence of Australia

required a vast increase in the population, it was proposed to

introduce a measure of progressive taxation on unimproved land

values, leading to a subdivision of large estates, so as to

offer immigrants the inducement necessary to attract them in

large numbers.

"Proposals would be submitted for the amendment of the

Constitution, so as to enable Parliament to protect the

interests of the consumer while ensuring a fair and reasonable

wage to every worker to extend the jurisdiction of Parliament

in regard to trusts and combinations, and to provide for the

nationalization of monopolies."

See (in this Volume),

LABOR REMUNERATION: THE ‘NEW PROTECTION’.

In an editorial article on the situation at this juncture in

Australia, which was, it remarked, "as interesting as it is

obscure," the London _Times_ rehearsed the main facts of

it as follows:

"It will be remembered that towards the close of last year the

withdrawal of its support by the Labour party led somewhat

unexpectedly to the defeat and resignation of Mr. Deakin’s

Cabinet. A Labour Ministry was subsequently formed, and was

enabled by Mr. Deakin’s refusal to combine with the Opposition

against it to prorogue Parliament and get into recess. It has

since elaborated a programme, announced by Mr. Fisher, the

Prime Minister, to his constituents at Gympie, a few weeks

ago, and recapitulated yesterday in the Governor-General's

speech, which strongly resembles in most particulars the

national policy advocated by Mr. Deakin when in power, and

includes besides one or two additional proposals, such as ‘the

nationalization of monopolies,’ more exclusively the property

of the Labour party itself. These latter aspirations are

probably more pious than practical, and are certainly not the

issues on which the Labour Ministry is now to stand or fall.

It will stand or fall by its proposals for the readjustment of

the financial relations between the Commonwealth and the

States, the establishment of a local flotilla designed for

coastal defence, the creation of a citizen army based on

universal training, and the imposition of a progressive land

tax calculated to bring about the subdivision of large

estates.

"This latter proposal is the only one in which the Labour

party cannot claim to be carrying out the spirit, if not the

letter, of Mr. Deakin’s own programme; but, curiously enough,

it does not seem to be the question on which Mr. Deakin has

taken immediate issue with them. He is taking issue, we

gather, first and foremost on the question of defence. The

Labour Ministry is to be censured for refusing to make the

offer of the Australian Dreadnought in the name of the

Commonwealth. In taking this line Mr. Deakin has already made

it clear that he has not in any way modified his previous

views on the necessity of providing immediately for the

creation of an Australian flotilla, but he considers that this

necessity should in no way prevent Australia from adding in

emergency to the strength of the British fleet. Speaking at

Sydney last month, he said: ‘Our defence needs not only our

own flotilla but a fleet on the high seas as well. It is for

us to recognize that by joining New Zealand and making our

offer of a Dreadnought for the Imperial Navy … the

Commonwealth must do its share to prove the reality of

Australia’s federal unity, to prove the unity of the Empire,

to stand beside the stock from which we came.’

"On this point there is no obscurity. It presents a clear

difference of view dividing Mr. Deakin and the two sections of

the Opposition with which he has now coalesced from the policy

of the Ministry in power. But while it provides a rallying

ground from which the coalition may defeat the Ministry, it

provides no subsequent line of united advance. The terms on

which the coalition has been formed seem indeed to contemplate

no definite policy at all."

The coalition against the Ministry of Mr. Fisher, referred to

in the above, accomplished its purpose on the day after the

opening of Parliament, by carrying a vote of adjournment which

the Ministry accepted as a vote of want of confidence, and

resigned. The former Premier, Mr. Deakin, then resumed the

reins of Government, with a following that does not seem to

have been expected to hold together very long. On the

reassembling of Parliament, June 23, the Prime Minister made a

statement of the business to be submitted to the House,

including along with other measures the following: "A Bill

would be introduced establishing an inter-State commission

which, in addition to the powers conferred by the

Constitution, would undertake many of the functions of the

British Board of Trade. It would also undertake the duties of

a Federal Labour Bureau, which would comprise the study of the

question of unemployment and a scheme for insurance against

unemployment. The commission would also assist in the

supervision of the working of the existing Customs tariff. …

An active policy of immigration would be undertaken, it was

hoped with the cooperation of all the States. … The

appointment of a High Commissioner in London with a

well-equipped office was necessary to take charge of the

financial interests of the Commonwealth, to supervise

immigration, and to foster trade and commerce. … The Old Age

Pensions Act was to be amended in the direction of simplifying

the conditions for obtaining the pensions. … The policy of the

Government in the matter of land defence would be founded on

universal training, commencing in youth and continuing towards

manhood. A military college, a school of musketry, and

probably a primary naval college would be established to train

officers. The counsel of one of the most experienced

commanders of the British Army would be sought for with regard

to the general development and disposition of Australia’s

adult citizen soldiers.

"In view of the approaching termination of the ten year period

of the distribution of the Customs revenue provided for in the

Constitution, a temporary arrangement was being prepared,

pending a satisfactory permanent settlement of the financial

relation between the State and the Commonwealth."

{35}

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909 (June).

Federal High Court decision on Anti-Trust Law.

See (in this Volume)

COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.: AUSTRALIA.

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909 (July-September).

The Imperial Defense Conference.

Defense Bill in Parliament.

Proposed compulsory military training.

See (in this Volume)

WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: MILITARY AND NAVAL.

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909 (September).

Coal Miners strike in New South Wales.

See (in this Volume)

LABOR ORGANIZATION: AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1905-1909.

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1909 (September).

Meeting at Sydney of Empire Congress of Chambers of Commerce.

See (in this Volume)

BRITISH EMPIRE: A. D. 1909 (SEPTEMBER).

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1910.

The last year of a troublesome Constitutional Requirement.

Article 87 of the Constitution of the Commonwealth of

Australia (see in Volume VI. of this work), reads as follows:

"During a period of ten years after the establishment of the

Commonwealth, and thereafter until the Parliament otherwise

provides, of the net revenue of the Commonwealth from duties

of custom and of excise not more than one fourth shall be

applied annually by the Commonwealth towards its expenditure.

The balance shall, in accordance with this Constitution, be

paid to the several States, or applied toward the payment of

interest on debts of the several States taken over by the

Commonwealth." This, which has been known as the Braddon

section, has imposed a serious handicap on the Federal

Government. As its working was described recently by an

English Press correspondent, "it made the Commonwealth raise

four pounds whenever it wanted to spend one. It made the

States begrudge the Commonwealth every penny it spent, even

out of its own quarter—for every penny saved out of that

quarter was an extra penny for the States. And it prevented

every State Treasurer from knowing, until the Federal

Treasurer had delivered his Budget speech, how much money he

was likely to get from Federal sources for his own spending."

At the end of the year 1910 the requirement of the Article

will cease to be obligatory, and the Federal Parliament will

be free to make a different appropriation of the revenue from

customs and excise. Meantime the subject is under discussion,

and in August, 1909, it was announced that a conference of the

State Governments had come to an agreement—subject to

ratification by the Federal Government—which provides for the

annual per capita payment of 25s. in lieu of the three-fourths

of the Customs revenue which has hitherto been returned to

them. Western Australia to receive a special extra

contribution of £250,000, decreasing by £10,000 annually until

it ceases. Until the arrangement becomes operative, the

Commonwealth may deduct from the statutory payments to the

States £600,000 annually towards the cost of old-age pensions.

The readjustment of State shares in the Customs revenue is

said to involve an annual loss to New South Wales of

£1,000,000. According to a London newspaper correspondent,

"the main effects to the Commonwealth are the abolition of the

book-keeping system between the States, the power to issue

Australian stamps, telegrams, &c., and the securing of about

£2,300,000 a year, or more, additional revenue. The States

lose revenue to a similar amount, but there is a transfer of

old-age pensions to the amount of nearly £1,000,000, of which

they are relieved. In three of the States, all of which suffer

little by the change, the pensions are new, and a considerable

boon to the people. But more than half the money sacrifice

falls upon New South Wales, and it goes to relieve her less

prosperous neighbours. Well, that is true Federation!

Naturally the Southern States would have nothing but a _per

capita_ distribution from the Commonwealth, and the New

South Wales Ministers agreed to it with their eyes open. At

present the Commonwealth Government secures the further

revenue needed. But whether this agreement will so distinctly

suit that Government as the State populations grow is another

matter."

A Bill for the required amendment of the Federal Constitution

was introduced in the House of Representatives by the Prime

Minister, Mr. Deakin, on the 8th of September. On the 4th of

November, in opposition to the Government, an amendment to the

Bill, limiting the duration of the agreement, instead of

giving it force in perpetuity, was carried in committee of the

whole by the casting vote of the chairman. On the 1st of

December the Bill had its third reading in the Senate.

----------AUSTRALIA: End--------

----------AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: Start--------

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1870-1905.

Increase of population compared

with other European countries.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1870-1905.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1902 (June).

Renewal of the Triple Alliance.

See (in this Volume)

TRIPLE ALLIANCE.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1902-1903.

Notice by Austria of intention to end, in 1904, the

Customs Union which formed part of the Ausgleich, or

Federation Compact of 1867.

Language struggle in Austria.

The difficulties between Austria and Hungary, concerning a

renewal of the Ausgleich, or federation compact of 1867, which

created the dual empire,—some account of which is given in

Volume VI. of this work,—were compromised in 1900 by an

agreement which extended the Ausgleich temporarily until 1907.

See, in Volume VI.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1899-1900.

It was stipulated, however, in the agreement, that if no

permanent settlement of the questions involved should have

been reached by the end of the year 1902, either party to the

_Ausgleich_ should be free to dissolve the Customs Union

that formed part of it after 1904, provided that said party

should have formally denounced the compact prior to January 1,

1902. The formal notice or denunciation was given accordingly

by Austria, whose government gave notice that it would end the

Customs Union unless better terms from Hungary could be

secured. In Hungary the Independence party led by Ferencz

Kossuth, the son of Louis Kossuth, was eager for the break,

desiring no union with Austria beyond that of the two crowns

on one head. The tariff question seemed insoluble, because

Hungary wanted protection for its agriculture, which Austria

believed to be greatly disadvantageous to herself.

{36}

The prime ministers of the two Governments came to an

agreement which was submitted to the two parliaments early in

1903, but obstruction in both bodies prevented any effective

action. On other questions the antagonism was no less

pronounced. The Hungarian Independence party was resolute in

determining to separate the Hungarian from the Austrian army,

making it distinctly Hungarian, under Hungarian officers and

using the Hungarian word of command. This drew from the

Emperor, in September, a public announcement that he must and

would hold fast to the existing organization of the army. At

length, in December, Kossuth agreed, for his party, to abandon

obstruction on condition that Parliament should proclaim, as a

principle, that "in Hungary the source of every right, and in

the army the source of rights appertaining to the language of

service and command, is the will of the nation as expressed

through the legislature." But though obstruction from the

Independence party ceased then it was continued by a Catholic

party, on grounds of personal hostility to the Protestant

Premier, Count Tisza, and the Government, deprived of

authority to recruit the army, kept in service the men whose

term had expired.

An almost equal deadlock of legislation prevailed in Austria,

where the struggle over language questions between Czechs and

Germans went fiercely on; while Croatia was full of rebellious

spirit, excited by the Magyarizing policy of its Hungarian

governor.

Twice, during 1903, the Hungarian administration underwent a

change, the Szell Ministry giving way in June to one headed by

Count Kuen Hedervary, he, in turn, being displaced by Count

Tisza in October. The latter was a son of Koloman Tisza, who

had formerly held the reins in Hungary for many years.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1903-1904.

Concert with Russia in submitting the Mürzsteg Programme

of reform in Macedonia to Turkey.

See (in this Volume)

TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1904.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1904.

Paralysis of Government in both divisions of the dual empire.

Legislation in both Austria and Hungary was paralyzed

throughout 1904 by obstructive oppositions which nothing could

pacify. In Austria it was the battle of Czech against German

for language rights; but, in the end, the German Premier, Dr.

Körber, lost the support of his own race, by allowing Italian

law-classes to be formed in the University at Innsprück, with

a faculty of their own. He resigned on the last day of the

year, and was succeeded by Baron Gautsch.

In Hungary the obstruction was maintained by a combination of

three parties,—the Independence Party of Ferencz Kossuth,

which is irreconcilable in its repudiation of the union with

Austria, the Liberal-Conservative Separatists, so-called, led

by Count Apponyi, and a Catholic People’s Party, under Count

Zichy. The extraordinary attitude of these practical

anarchists, as they would seem to be, is indicated by a

performance at the opening of the session of the Hungarian

Parliament on the 13th of December, 1904, which is described

in the _Annual Register_, as follows:

"They entered the House before the usual time of meeting,

assaulted the police when they endeavored to prevent some of

the members from mounting the President’s platform, tore down

the woodwork, destroyed the furniture, and finally had

themselves photographed, with the ex-Premier Baron Banffy at

their head, in the midst of the ruin they had wrought. This

extraordinary scene was described by M. Kossuth as ‘a symbol

of the political maturity of the Magyars, who, after asserting

their rights, refrain from excesses;’ and by Count Apponyi as

‘an evidence of the importance attached to continuity of legal

right in Hungary.’ When the broken furniture was removed and

the House was restored to something like its former

appearance, the members returned; but all the attempts of the

Government to speak were howled down by the Opposition." The

Opposition which accomplished this paralysis of Government in

Hungary numbered, in its three divisions, only 190 members,

out of 451.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1904-1909.

Effects in Europe and on the Triple Alliance of the

Russo-Japanese War.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1904-1909.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1905.

Action with other Powers in forcing financial reforms

in Macedonia on Turkey.

See (in this Volume)

TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1908.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1905.

Hostility to the Serbo-Bulgarian Customs Union.

See (in this Volume)

BALKAN STATES: BULGARIA AND SERVIA: A. D. 1902.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1905-1906.

Continued deadlock, seated mainly in Hungary.

Resignation of Count Tisza.

The Fejervary Ministry.

Dissolution of the Hungarian Parliament.

Kossuth and his allies take office.

Universal male suffrage adopted in Austria.

The deadlock of political forces in the Dual Empire was

prolonged through another year, Hungary being the main seat of

the block. Elections for the Hungarian Diet, in January, went

heavily against the Ministry of Count Tisza and strongly in

favor of that section of the Opposition which bore the name of

the Independence Party and which was led by Ferencz Kossuth.

Count Tisza resigned, and the Emperor-King endeavored to make

terms with Kossuth, Apponyi, and Andrassy under which the

Government might be carried on with parliamentary support.

This proved impracticable, especially by reason of the

insistent demand of the Opposition for a separation of the

Hungarian from the Austrian part of the imperial army, and the

determination of the sovereign not to yield to that demand.

Count Tisza and his colleagues were kept in office until June,

despite a heavy vote of censure in the Diet, and then the

Emperor appointed as Premier General Baron Fejervary, who

commanded no more support than his predecessor had done. The

majority in the representative chamber denounced the Ministry

as unconstitutional, and issued a manifesto, calling on the

people to withhold taxes and military service from this

simulacrum of Government, which had no lawful claim to either.

This was accepted as good counsel by great numbers of people,

and grave embarrassments resulted from the non-payment of

taxes.

{37}

In the August number (1905) of _The American Review of

Reviews_ Count Albert Apponyi, leader of one of the parties

united more or less in the Hungarian Opposition, gave the

Hungarian side of the political issues with Austria. In part,

he wrote: "The writer had the honor of delivering at St.

Louis, at the Arts and Science Congress of last year, a short

historical account of our relation with the Austrian dynasty.

There are to be found the chief facts, which show:

(1) That our forefathers called that dynasty to the Hungarian

throne, not in order to get Hungary absorbed into an Austrian

or any other sort of empire, but, on the contrary, under the

express condition of keeping the independence and the

constitution of the Hungarian kingdom unimpaired;

(2) that this condition has been accepted and sworn to by all

those members of the dynasty (Joseph II. alone excepted) who

ascended the Hungarian throne;

(3) that, nevertheless, practical encroachments on our

independence, followed by conflicts and reconciliations, have

been at all epochs frequent;

(4) but that a juridical fact never occurred which could be

construed into a modification of that fundamental condition of

the dynasty’s title to Hungary. …

The physical person of the ruler is, in truth, the same in

both countries, but the juridical personality of the King of

Hungary is distinct and, as to the contents of its

prerogative, widely different from the juridical personality

of the Emperor of Austria. Hungary is the oldest

constitutional country on the European Continent. The royal

prerogative in her case is an emanation of the

constitution,—not prior to it,—and consists in such rights as

the nation has thought fit to vest in her king. In Austria, on

the other hand, the existing constitution is a free gift of

the Emperor, and has conferred on the people of Austria such

rights as the Emperor has thought fit to grant to them. The

title of ‘Emperor of Austria-Hungary’ … [sometimes used] is

simply nonsense. The time-hallowed old Hungarian crown has not

been melted into the brand-new Austrian imperial diadem. That

imperial title does not contain, to any extent, the Hungarian

royal title. The Emperor of Austria, as such, has just as much

legal power in Hungary as the President of the United States

has. He is, juridically speaking, a foreign potentate to us.

"On these fundamental truths, no Hungarian—to whatever party

he may belong—admits discussion. … The Liberal party,

vanquished at the last elections, does not in the least differ

from the victorious opposition as to the principles laid down

in these pages; it only advocated a greater amount of

forbearance against the petty encroachments which practically

obscured them. That policy of forbearance became gradually

distasteful to the country; seeing it shaken in the public

mind, the recent prime minister, Count Tisza, formed the

unhappy idea of gaining a new lease of power on its behalf by

a parliamentary _coup d’état_. The rules of the House

were broken, in order to prevent future obstruction, chiefly

against military bills. This brought matters to an acute

crisis. The parliament in which that breach of the rules had

taken place became unfit for work of any sort, the country had

to be consulted, and down went the Liberal party and the

half-hearted policy it represented with no hope for revival.

"The army question, with its ever-recurring difficulties, is a

highly characteristic feature of the chronic latent conflict

between the Austrian and the Hungarian mentality. It amounts

to this, that, as we are a nation, we mean to have an armed

force corresponding to our national individuality, commanded

in our language, and serving under our flags and emblems. It

would be unnatural for any nation, and would be, in fact, an

abdication of the title of ‘nation,’ to renounce such a

national claim. The Austrians, on the other hand,—and,

unhappily, their influence is still prevalent in this

question,—not yet having abandoned the idea of a pan-Austrian

empire, uncompromisingly adhere to the present military

organization, which makes the German language and the imperial

emblems prevalent throughout the whole army, its Hungarian

portion included."

In September, 1905, the Emperor-King summoned the chiefs of

the opposing coalition to Vienna and renewed his endeavor to

make terms with them; but his own conditions, relative to the

army, to the language of command and service in it, to the

tariff relations between Austria and Hungary, and to other

matters of dispute, were apparently as uncompromisable as

theirs, and only intensified the bad feeling in the country.

A little later the Fejervary Ministry announced a programme of

policy which offered concessions and many excellent measures,

but all save one of them were scorned. That one was a proposal

of universal suffrage, with direct secret balloting, which in

both Hungary and Austria had now become a subject of wide

popular demand. The agitation for it became clamorous in the

later months of the year, especially in the Austrian towns.

But the leaders of the Hungarian Opposition were supposed to

be personally hostile to universal suffrage. "As

representatives of the most educated, wealthy, and powerful

race in the kingdom, they have long enjoyed absolute political

control. But universal suffrage," says a contemporary

journalist, "would so increase the non-Magyar elements in

Parliament as to deprive the Magyar leaders of much of their

ascendency. At present these leaders are strong enough to

defeat the King’s magnificent programme, announced by Baron

Fejervary. But such a defeat would place them in an

embarrassing position. They would have definitely assumed an

attitude which belies their name of Liberal."

The Fejervary programme was well planned to be troublesome to

the opponents of the Government. While not surrendering to

their demand for the Magyar language of command in the

Hungarian part of the Imperial army, it proposed that the men

who do not speak that language should be trained in it as far

as possible. And it included a number of other most important

measures: for compulsory free education; for compulsory

insurance of workmen; for small farm grants to the peasantry;

for the conversion of mortgage debts that weigh on small

landowners, and for various taxation reforms. Evidently the

Opposition endeavored to keep public attention and public

feeling focused on the claim for a distinct Hungarian army,

with the Magyar language for its word of command. Kossuth, the

dominating leader of the coalition against the Government,

defined the argument for this claim. No mention, he said, is

made of any common army in the agreement on which the Dual

Empire is founded. The Hungarian Constitution vests in the

Emperor of Austria, as King of Hungary, "all those things

which refer to the commanding and administration … of the

Hungarian army."

{38}

But the Constitution does not hint that the Hungarian army

should be commanded in German. It has not specifically

forbidden such a thing, but in another part of the

Constitution it is provided that the language of public

services in Hungary shall be Hungarian. And is not the army a

"public service"? he asked. Besides, he explained: "A century

ago the Hungarian magnates, generally, paid for their own

soldiers, and ours was not, in the beginning, a State army.

When the combination with Austria came about, the officers

were of all nations, and the Austrians brought in many of

their own. To tell the truth, our own Hungarians were too

lazy—there is no other word for it—to take the trouble to

reorganize and start a Hungarian army, so they left it to the

Austrians for the time being. It was for this reason, and with

the consciousness of this defect, that Article XI. expressly

left the language of command to be determined,

constitutionally, later. But we also expressly confined it

within the limits of our own Constitution … and we spoke of a

Hungarian army, not a common one."

The year 1906 opened with the discords of the situation in

Hungary rather heightened than lessened, and on the 19th of

February the Emperor dissolved the Hungarian Parliament,

announcing that he did so for the reason that the parties of

the Opposition had "persistently refused to take over the

Government on an acceptable basis without violating the Royal

rights as by law guaranteed." Disturbances on the occasion

were prevented by strong forces of soldiery and police. Two

days later the Austro-Hungarian tariff and a commercial

treaty, both of which had been refused ratification in

Hungary, were promulgated as of force, pending future action;

and by various other arbitrary measures the Emperor-King

assumed the right to prevent a governmental collapse. This

attitude on the part of the sovereign appears to have produced

a change of attitude among his opponents; for early in April

M. Kossuth and Count Andrassy entered into an arrangement with

him for the formation of a Ministry by themselves and their

associates of the Coalition, with the understanding that the

army question should be put aside until after the election of

a new Parliament, to meet in May. At that session they

promised to pass the budget, the new international commercial

treaties, to maintain in every way the existing condition of

things between Austria and Hungary, to permit the passage of a

bill providing for universal manhood suffrage, and then for

Parliament to terminate its labors, allowing the election of a

new one under the universal suffrage system, the Cabinet to be

re-formed conformably to the desires of the parliamentary

majority. Thereupon the Emperor-King requested Dr. Alexander

Wekerle, a former Hungarian Prime Minister, to form a Cabinet,

including in it Kossuth, Apponyi, Andrassy, and Zichy. At the

election, held soon after, the Independence party won about

250 out of 400 seats. The new Parliament was opened on the 22d

of May.

In Austria, the grand event of 1906 was the franchise reform,

which extinguished the whole system of class representation

and established a representative Parliament on the broad basis

of a manhood vote. "Every male citizen who had completed his

twenty-fourth year and was not under any legal disability was

entitled to be registered as a voter after one year’s

residence. Every male, including members of the Upper House,

who had possessed Austrian citizenship for at least three

years and had completed his thirtieth year, was eligible for

election as a deputy; but members of the Upper House elected

to the Lower could not sit in both at once. Voting was to be

direct in all provinces. In Galicia, however, every

constituency would return two deputies, each voter having one

vote, so as to permit of the representation of racial

minorities, the population being composed of Poles and

Ruthenians. Voting was to be obligatory under penalty of a

fine wherever a provincial Diet should so decide. This Bill

was passed, in the face of the opposition of the Conservative

and aristocratic members of both Houses and of the extreme

representatives of the various nationalities, mainly through

the influence of the Emperor. He regarded it as the only way

to get rid of Parliamentary obstruction, and the best means of

stimulating loyalty to the dynasty."

Two changes of Ministry occurred in Austria during 1906, Baron

Gautsch, as Premier, giving way to Prince Hohenlohe in April,

and the latter resigning in June, to be succeeded by Baron

Beck. Count Goluchowski, who had been Austro-Hungarian

Minister of Foreign Affairs since 1895, resigned in October,

because of ill-feeling against him in Hungary, and was

succeeded by Baron Aehrenthal.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1906 (January-April).

At the Algeciras Conference on the Morocco question.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1907.

Effects of universal and equalized suffrage in Austria.

Elections were held in Austria a few months after the passage

of the law which introduced equal and universal male suffrage,

and the character and disposition of the elected Reichsrath,

which met in June, 1907, afforded indications of some

remarkable effects from the extension and equalizing of the

franchise. It was expected, of course, to popularize the

Reichsrath, and break the domination of the upper classes in

that body; but, according to reports, it has done much more.

Prior to 1896, the members of the Abgeordncten or lower house

of the Reichsrath, then numbering 353, were all divided into

four sections, elected by four classes of people, as follows:

85 elected by the owners of large landed estates, 22 by

chambers of commerce and manufactures; 115 by town taxpayers

assessed for five florins of annual tax, and by doctors of

universities; 131 by country taxpayers assessed for five

florins yearly. In that year the membership was enlarged by an

addition of 72, who were to be representatives of the whole

people, elected by universal male suffrage, while the old

classified representation remained as before. The new law has

swept away the whole system of a classified representation,

and the representative house is now leveled to one footing, as

a body of deputies from the people at large.

The most conspicuous effect of this in the elections appears

to have been a sudden break of the power which the German

element in the much-mixed population of the Austrian dominion

has been able to exercise hitherto. Hence, it must be the fact

that the Germans hold far more than their proportion of the

property which the old system represented, and derived from

that, formerly, a weight in the Reichsrath which their numbers

cannot give them on the equalized vote.

{39}

Altogether, in the various Cisleithan states—the two Austrias

proper, Bohemia, Moravia, Galicia, Silesia, Salzburg, Tyrol,

Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, Istria, Dalmatia—they form a

little more than one third of the total population, the other

two thirds being mainly Slavonic, in many divisions,

principally Czech, Polish, and Slovene.

Ten years ago the Austrian Reichsrath was offering a spectacle

of factious disorder so violent that it drew the attention of

the world, and was made entertaining as well as interesting by

Mark Twain, then a resident for some months at Vienna and

writing descriptions of the scenes of tumult that went on

before his eyes.

See in Volume VI. of this work

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1897 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

The specially bitter race quarrel was over a language question

between the Germans and the Czechs. The Czechs had succeeded

in forcing the government to give their own tongue its

rightful public use in Bohemia, where the German had displaced

it officially for along time past. The determination of the

Germans in the Reichsrath to undo this change practically

paralyzed that legislature for a number of years, and seemed

to be driving the realm of the House of Austria to inevitable

wreck.

Indeed, some factions of the Germans made no concealment of

their wish for such a wreckage, out of which the German Kaiser

at Berlin might pick the pieces that it pleased him to take.

They have never doubted the sympathy and countenance of their

kinsmen in the neighboring empire, and that has emboldened

them to an attitude which a minority, in other circumstances,

would hardly take.

Within the last few years there has been a quieting of the

antagonism; but most observers of the state of things in

Austria have looked for serious troubles to arise, whenever

the great personal influence of the present Emperor is

withdrawn by his death. The imperial dominion of the Austrian

archdukes could not be dissolved and its parts redistributed

without subjecting the peace of Europe to such a trial as it

never yet has gone unbrokenly through. If the Germans lose

disturbing power in the Reichsrath, as the late elections are

said to indicate that they will, and if racial factions give

place to political parties, as a consequence of the equalized

and universalized suffrage, then Austria may possibly be

welded into a nation, and her neighbors may not be tempted to

quarrel over her dismembered remains.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1907.

Final negotiation of a new financial Ausgleich.

Adjustment of the vexed questions of tariff, joint debt,

and revenue quotas.

The long struggle toward a readjustment of the

_Ausgleich_ or Agreement of 1866 between Austria and

Hungary, on its financial side, was brought to a close on the

8th of October, 1907, by the signing of a new agreement that

day. It continued the common customs arrangement until 1917,

and provided that commercial treaties concluded with foreign

powers must be signed by the representatives of both Austria

and Hungary—a concession by Austria to Hungary. Hitherto the

Austrian Minister of Foreign Affairs had conducted such

negotiations. On its part, Hungary made the minor concession

of conforming its stock exchange laws to those of Austria.

Previously, excise duties had been common to both states;

henceforth they were to be left to each state to be determined

and levied. In the joint fiscal burden, Hungary’s contribution

was increased from 34.4 per cent to 36.4 per cent. Provision

was made for a court of arbitration, composed of four Austrian

and four Hungarian members, who must chose a ninth member as

chairman.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1908-1909.

Hungarian politics.

The State Bank question.

Split in the Independence party.

M. de Justh, a new party leader.

Attitude of M. Kossuth.

Deadlock returned.

The complete deadlock of legislation in Hungary from 1904 into

1906 was overcome but partially, and not for long, by the

patched-up coalition which started the wheels of Government

anew, under Dr. Wekerle, in April, 1906, as related above. In

the course of the next two years the Wekerle Ministry

accomplished some useful legislation, besides achieving the

ratification of the important tariff and commerce agreement

which settled long-troublesome disputes with Austria; but its

very slight coherent energy was exhausted soon,—too soon for

its promise of universal suffrage to be fulfilled.

Practically, it seems to have been at the end of its

capabilities for some time before the spring of 1909, when, in

April, it resolved to resign, and began an effort to escape

from office which went on through the year without success.

The Crown could induce no one to take from Dr. Wekerle the

impossible task of government, and kept that unfortunate

gentleman in his powerless place.

In Austro-Hungarian politics a new contention had now been

developed, which divided the Independence party, led hitherto

by M. Kossuth and Count Apponyi, so that it acquired on the

new question a third more extreme sectional chief, in the

person of the President of the Chamber, M. de Justh. The

followers of M. de Justh were demanding the transformation of

the existing joint State Bank into two autonomous banks,

connected in operation, but distinctly Hungarian in one

organization and Austrian in the other. This demand was

opposed in Austria as determinedly as the obnoxious demand for

army use of the Hungarian language in Hungarian regiments, and

the Crown would give sanction to neither. Apparently, neither

Kossuth nor Apponyi would act with M. de Justh on the bank

question, and the Independence party lost, consequently, its

advantage as the largest of the various parties in the

Chamber.

In November, when a test of numbers occurred at a conference

of the party, the following of M. de Justh was found to be

largely in the majority. A resolution demanding the separate

Hungarian State Bank was adopted by 120 votes against 74,

despite a declaration by M. Kossuth that he would quit the

party if it took that stand. According to a Press report of

what occurred at the conference, the burden of Kossuth’s

speech to the conference was "that without his name and his

leadership the party would never have obtained the majority,

and that many of those who were about to vote against him owed

their seats in Parliament to his recommendation. His speech

was indeed a scarcely-veiled threat that when deprived of the

support of his name his opponents would find themselves

forsaken by their constituents. The defeated minority

proceeded forthwith to constitute itself as the ‘Independence,

1848, and Kossuth party,’ as distinguished from the

‘Independence and 1848 party,’ over which M. de Justh now

reigns supreme."

{40}

Immediately after his triumph at the party conference M. de

Justh resigned the presidency of the Hungarian Chamber and

presented himself for reelection. In that test he suffered

defeat, the combined forces of the Andrassy Liberals, the

Clerical People’s party, and the Kossuth group casting 201

votes against 157. The Croatian Deputies abstained, owing, it

is said, to a promise made to them by Dr. Wekerle that, if

they remained neutral, he would deliver Croatia from the

oppressive rule of the Ban, Baron Rauch. The political

situation in Hungary was thus more than ever confused.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1908-1909.

The "Greater Servia Conspiracy."

Alleged treasonable movement of Servians in Croatia.

The Agram trials.

The following telegram to the newspaper press, from Agram,

Austria, October 5, 1909, reported the conclusion and the

result of a long prosecution which had drawn wide attention

and excited deep feeling in many parts of Europe for a full

year:

"After a trial lasting seven months, sentences were handed

down to-day in the cases of fifty-two school teachers,

priests, and other persons charged with connection with what

is known as the ‘Greater Servia conspiracy.’ The prisoners

were accused of high treason in participating in a movement

for the union of Croatia, Slavonia, and Bosnia to Servia, even

carrying the propaganda among the troops of the

Austro-Hungarian army. Thirty of the accused are condemned to

terms of rigorous imprisonment varying from four to twelve

years, and twenty-two were acquitted. The persons condemned

have given notification of appeal."

On the 31st of December it was announced from Vienna that all

but two of the condemned had been set at liberty pending their

appeal, this being consequent on the revelations of forgery in

the documents on which they were convicted.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1908-1909 (OCTOBER-MARCH)

at close of article.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1908-1909.

Arbitrary annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Violence to the Treaty of Berlin.

The European disturbance and its settlement.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1808-1809 (OCTOBER-MARCH).

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1909.

The language quarrel in Austria.

"Amid deafening uproar from the Czech Radicals, the Austrian

premier has submitted to the Chamber [February 3, 1909] two

bills for the regulation of the Bohemian language question.

The bills, which in present circumstances appear to have

little chance of becoming law, divide Bohemia into 239

judicial and 20 administrative districts. Of the former, 95

are German, 138 Czech, and the remainder mixed, while of the

administrative districts five are German, 10 Czech, and five

mixed. In the German districts German is to be the predominant

language, and in the Czech districts Czech, while in the mixed

districts, which include Prague, the two languages are placed

on an equal footing. Provision is, however, made for the use

of either language if necessary throughout the whole

province."

NEW YORK EVENING POST.

A telegram to the same journal from Vienna, March 10,

reported:

"The Lower House of the Austrian Parliament, which closed on

February 5, after a scene of extraordinary turbulence arising

from old racial ill-feeling between the Germans and the

Czechs, reopened to-day with every promise of a continuance of

the disorders. The galleries of the House were crowded with

partisans of the two factions, and as soon as the ministers

appeared hostile shouts came from the Czech and radical

benches, drowning the cheers of the members of the Left party

and the Poles.

"Premier von Bienerth, amid an incessant tumult, declared the

nineteenth session opened, saying he hoped the work would be

crowned with success and the proceedings not disturbed. His

statement sounded ironical in face of the unbroken uproar."

The following is a later Press despatch, November 2, from

Vienna:

"The Emperor has accepted the resignations of the two Czech

Ministers in the Austrian Cabinet, and has sanctioned the laws

adopted by the Diets of Upper and Lower Austria, Salzburg and

Vorarlberg, to establish the unilingual German character of

those provinces. In the name of the Czech people the Czech

National Council addressed yesterday a telegram to the Emperor

begging that the laws might not be sanctioned, since, runs the

telegram, they affect the honour of the Czech people and must

cause constant racial strife both in the provinces and in

Vienna, ‘which is not only the capital of Lower Austria, but

is also the capital of the whole empire and of all its races.

These laws are a dangerous beginning of constitutional changes

in your Majesty’s glorious empire.’ A copy of the telegram was

sent to the Polish leader, Dr. Glombinski, with an 'expression

of the deepest regret that members of the Polish party should

have supported as Ministers these anti-Slav laws.’"

A revival of turbulent obstruction to legislative proceedings

in the lower house of the Austrian Reichsrath led, at last, in

December, to the enactment of rules which so enlarge the

powers of the speaker as to enable him to suppress factious

obstruction and to suspend deputies who outrage the decencies

of behavior in the Chamber. The measure was limited in its

operation to a year, but is expected to be prolonged.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1909 (December).

Alleged plan of a Federated Triple Monarchy.

"There has been circulated in Paris a curious document, full

of figures, supposed to be based on authentic information.

This document relates to the plan attributed to Prince Lentur

and Count d’Aehrenthal to change the dual monarchy of

Austria-Hungary into a triple monarchy. Croatia,

Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Dalmatia, according to the scheme,

would be united into an independent and constitutional

kingdom, corresponding to the old Illyria. The double state,

Austria-Hungary, would be changed into a three-fold

Austria-Hungary-Illyria. A Slav nation would thus stand side

by side with the Teutonic nation of Austria and the Magyar

nation of Hungary. Its extent would be a good deal smaller, a

little more than one-third, of the other two, and its

population about a quarter of the Hungarian and one-sixth of

the Austrian. According to this document, which is declared to

have strong claims to be considered authentic, this change

would no doubt be followed by a further one. Bohemia and

Moravia would also want home rule. The monarchy would thus

become a kind of Federal state. Hungary alone would remain

standing strong and united as the centre and leader of this

federation."

_New York Evening Post,

December 29, 1909._

{41}

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1909-1910.

The Hungarian situation.

Late in December, Dr. de Lukacs, who had served in the former

Szell Ministry, was persuaded by the Crown to undertake the

formation of a Government which might hope to secure some

measure of parliamentary support, and on the 4th of January he

was formally appointed Prime Minister; but his undertaking

ended on the 11th, when he resigned, and Count Khuen Hedervary

was heroic enough to accept the apparently hopeless task. The

Hedervary Ministry suffered defeat on the 28th of January,

when a vote of no confidence was carried by M. de Justh, and

the King thereupon prorogued the chamber until March 24. A

majority of the members, however, remained in session until

they had adopted a resolution declaring the Government to be

unconstitutional and forbidding the payment of taxes to it.

Such is the Hungarian situation at the time this record of

events goes to print—February, 1910.

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1910.

The Archduke Franz Ferdinand,

Heir Apparent to the thrones.

Since the tragically mysterious death (January 30, 1889) of

the Emperor’s only son, Rudolph, the heir apparent to the

several Hapsburgh crowns has been the Archduke Franz

Ferdinand, son of the Emperor’s brother, the late Archduke

Karl Ludwig. In order to contract a morganatic marriage, some

years ago, he renounced the right of his children to the

imperial and regal succession; but it is believed that he will

force the regularizing of his marriage and the annulling of

his renunciation, as he is reputed to be a man of strenuous

will. According to report, also, he is strongly

anti-democratic and reactionary, and extremely likely to give

trouble as a sovereign to this democratic generation.

----------AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: End--------

AUTOCRAT:

Title denied to the Czar by the Third Duma.

See (in this Volume)

RUSSIA: A. D. 1906-1907.

AZAD-UL-MULK.

See (in this Volume)

PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.

AZEFF:

The Russian police spy and agent provocateur.

See (in this Volume)

RUSSIA: A. D. 1909 (JANUARY-JULY).

AZUL, Party of the.

See (in this Volume)

PARAGUAY.

B.

BABISM.

See (in this Volume)

PERSIA: A. D. 1908-1909.

BACON, Robert:

Secretary of State.

See (in this Volume)

UNITED STATES: A. D. 1905-1909.

BADEN: A. D. 1906.

Introduction of universal suffrage.

See (in this Volume)

ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: GERMANY: A. D. 1906.

BAEYER, Adolf von.

See (in this Volume)

NOBEL PRIZES.

BAGDAD RAILWAY, The.

See (in this Volume)

RAILWAYS: TURKEY: A. D. 1899-1909.

BA HAMED, Late Grand Wazeer of Morocco.

See (in this Volume)

MOROCCO: A. D. 1903.

BAHIA HONDA:

Coaling and naval station leased to the United States.

See (in this Volume)

CUBA: A. D. 1903.

BAHIMA, The.

See (in this Volume)

AFRICA: ITS COLONIZABILITY.

BAILEY, L. H.:

On Country Life Commission.

See (in this Volume)

UNITED STATES: A. D. 1908-1909 (AUGUST-FEBRUARY).

BAKHMETIEFF, Madame:

Her humane work in Macedonia.

See (in this Volume)

TURKEY: A. D. 1902-1903.

BAKHTIARI, The.

See (in this Volume)

PERSIA: A. D. 1908-1909.

BAKU: Destruction of Oil Industry.

See (in this Volume)

RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).

BALDWIN ARCTIC EXPEDITION.

See (in this Volume)

Polar Exploration.

BALFOUR, Arthur J.:

Becomes Prime Minister of England.

See (in this Volume)

ENGLAND: A. D. 1902 (JULY).

BALFOUR, Arthur J.:

His puzzling attitude on Mr. Chamberlain’s declaration for

preferential trade with the Colonies.

Correspondence on Mr. Chamberlain’s resignation.

See ENGLAND: A. D. 1903 (MAY-SEPTEMBER).

BALFOUR, Arthur J.:

In the "Dreadnought" debate of 1909.

See (in this Volume)

WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: NAVAL.

BALFOUR MINISTRY:

Its resignation.

See (in this Volume)

ENGLAND: A. D. 1905-1906.

----------BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: Start--------

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1903-1907.

Complaint of European non-action by Christian subjects

of Turkey.

See (in this Volume)

TURKEY: A. D. 1903-1907.

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: Bosnia: A. D. 1908.

Arbitrary annexation to Austria-Hungary.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1908-1909 (OCTOBER-MARCH).

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: Bulgaria:

The influence of Robert College.

See (in this Volume)

EDUCATION: TURKEY, &c.

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1901.

The Bulgarian committee which directs revolutionary operations

and assassinations in Macedonia.

See (in this Volume)

TURKEY: A. D. 1901.

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1903.

Alleged promotion of revolt in Macedonia.

See (in this Volume)

TURKEY: A. D. 1902-1903.

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1905-1908.

Barbarities of Bulgarian bands in Macedonia.

See (in this Volume)

TURKEY: A. D. 1905-1908.

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1908.

The race struggle in Macedonia.

See TURKEY: A. D. 1908 (MARCH).

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1908-1909.

Independence of Turkey declared and won.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1908-1909 (OCTOBER-MARCH).

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1909.

Prince Ferdinand assumes the title of King.

On the acquisition of complete Bulgarian independence, Prince

Ferdinand was said at first to be intending to assume the

title of Tsar; but that intention, if it had been formed, was

changed, and he took the title of King.

{42}

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: Bulgaria and Servia: A.D. 1905.

Customs Union Convention between the two States.

Anger and Hostility of Austria.

Dictatorial demands on Servia.

The frontier closed to trade.

"Servia and Bulgaria, in July, 1905, signed a Customs

Convention, creating a customs union and breaking down the

tariff barriers between the two countries. The age is the age

of union in business, in finance, in every department in life.

… Not only has the Customs Convention between the two

countries, which is, after all, but the first step towards a

real zollverein, demonstrated the trend of international

development, but it has enabled the world to see clearly the

relations existing between the small Balkan States—unprotected

by any guarantee of neutrality—and their great neighbours. It

has been made clear that, despite all the many protestations

in Vienna of goodwill to the Balkan States, Austria does not

wish to see real progress in that part of Europe. And what is

true of Austria is true also of Russia. …

"True to her unvarying policy, Austria no sooner heard of the

Customs Convention than she set to work to destroy it,

claiming that it damaged her commercial interests. By her

unjust attempts at coercion, plain and undisguised, Austria

brought into being a political bond between Bulgaria and

Servia which was not in existence at the time of the signature

of the Customs Convention. …

"In the past Servia has fallen more and more completely under

the domination of Austria; her geographical position and her

internal troubles made her an easy prey for Vienna, and had it

not been for the desire of Russia to share the dainty morsel,

Servia would in all probability have gone ere this to join the

Servian provinces of Bosnia and Hersegovina as an integral

part of the Austrian Empire. Her commerce is almost solely

with Austria or Hungary, and her finances are under the

control of a French-Austrian syndicate. It might therefore

well seem incredible that the small State, bound thus hand and

foot to the oppressor, should dare to oppose her desire for

liberty to the Austrian desire for gain, political,

commercial, or financial. But just as under the Turkish rule

the Servians began to fight for freedom in small bands, so the

Customs Convention with Bulgaria represents the first blow for

economic and political freedom. … While the Convention

represents an effort on Servia’s part to free herself from the

thrall of Austria, it was not directed against that country.

It seeks rather to open up new markets and new means of

export, for which there was sufficient reason in the fact that

there was no increase in the export of Servian goods to

Austria during the last few years, some of which even showed a

decrease. Commercial development demanded that new markets

should be sought and a new route via Bulgaria to the Black Sea

ports be opened up. …

"On January 8th the Austrian Minister in Belgrade presented a

note from his Government making it a condition that in order

that the negotiations for a commercial treaty should not be

suspended, the Servian Government should engage not to bring

the Customs Union before the Skouptchina before the conclusion

of the treaty. At the same time he indicated the disastrous

results of refusal on Servia’s part. The Servian Cabinet

accepted the Austrian proposals as to the postponement of the

presentation of the Customs Union to the Skouptchina, and

promised also to consider the modification of the Convention

in so far as these modifications were not contrary to the

nature of the Customs Union. The Austrian Minister recommended

a change of the reply, because his Government would not accept

it as it stood. On the Servians refusing to make any change,

he gave them till the afternoon of the next day to repent,

with the alternative that the treaty negotiations would be

broken off and the frontiers closed. … Servia insisted upon

maintaining her dignity as a nation, while expressing her

readiness to meet Austria in every possible economic way.

Furious at the Servian refusal, the Viennese authorities

ordered the closing of the frontiers to Servian cattle, pigs,

and even fowls. This last restriction was contrary to the

existing treaty of commerce between the two countries which

does not expire till March 1st, 1906. The cattle and pigs were

excluded under the arbitrary veterinary convention, it having

been found that a pig had died of ‘diplomatic swine fever,’ a

contagious disease, prevalent when Servia opposes Austrian

desires. The cool indifference with which Austria ignored her

treaty obligations with Servia led to a profound feeling that

it was hardly worth making sacrifices in order to obtain a new

commercial treaty, which could be as equally well ignored.

Patriotic fervour waxed great in Servia, and the people

prepared to make a good fight for their liberty. But it was

never overlooked that the relations with Austria were of great

and vital importance."

_Alfred Stead,

The Serbo-Bulgarian Convention and its Results

(Fortnightly Review, March, 1906)._

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: Herzegovina: A. D. 1908.

Annexation to Austria.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1908-1909 (OCTOBER-MARCH).

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: Montenegro: A. D. 1905.

Prince Nicholas’s Constitution, and his operation of it.

"When Prince Nicholas heard that the Czar had promised his

people a Constitution, he, disciple of Russia in all things,

determined to outdo Nicholas II., and, as a matter of fact,

granted his little country [December, 1905] a more liberal

Constitution than that which Russia enjoys. In Russia certain

things were not to be discussed in the Duma. In Montenegro,

everything could be discussed. When this principle began to be

put in practice, however, although in the most loyal and

respectful manner, the Prince took offence and began to

imprison politicians who dared to ask for information about

the financial condition of the principality. As a consequence,

he made himself unpopular among what in Russia would be called

the ‘intelligencia,’ but, being a man of far stronger

personality and more striking genius than the Czar of Russia,

he is still feared and obeyed. He is, in fact, an old soldier

with all the old soldier’s preference for barrack discipline

as the only method of rule, and in thinking that he understood

what is meant by the words ‘constitutional government’ he

deceived himself, for he does not understand, and being an old

man surrounded by flatterers, he is perhaps less able to

understand now than he would have been thirty years ago.

"If he had been more adaptable, and had taken greater pains to

instruct his people in the methods of parliamentary

government, the constitutionalist movement might have been a

success, but unfortunately he withdrew from Cettinje in a

‘huff’ when the Skupschina passed some criticisms on the

government, and declined to coöperate with the deputies,

though they were all very anxious to have his advice. It is

stated, on the other hand, however, that the Skupschina

interpreted in too large a sense the Constitution that had

been granted to them."

_Special Correspondent New York Evening Post,

Cettinje, December 15, 1908._

{43}

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1908-1909.

With Servia against Austrian annexation of Bosnia

and Herzegovina.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1908-1809 (OCTOBER-MARCH).

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: Roumania: A. D. 1866-1906.

Development of the country under King Charles I. and

his admirable Queen.

"The efforts of King Charles have been principally devoted

towards internal improvement. Railways have increased and

improved since the State purchased them in 1886, at an outlay

of 237,500,000 francs. Then there were 1,407 kilometres; in

1903 these had increased to 3,177. In the Dobrudja, given to

Roumania after the war with Turkey, the King has created a

great commercial port at Constantza, whence the grain and

petroleum of Roumania can flood the market. From here will

radiate a Roumanian merchant marine, which will bear the

Roumanian flag to all parts of the world. Agriculture has been

carefully cherished, and to-day the country is one of the

principal grain-exporting countries of the world, and the lot

of the peasant, formerly so low, has been improved. An

educational system has sprung into being, owing much to the

direct support and inspiration of the Royal family. The

finances have been put on a stable footing, and although the

nation has already acquired a sufficiency of debt, the future

is not at all dangerously beset. Thanks to the discovery of

extensive petroleum fields, Roumania has been strengthened and

raised from the position of a country relying solely on the

rain and sun for its prosperity; while thanks to the King’s

indefatigable efforts and unceasing watchfulness, the

petroleum industry has been protected from becoming the

monopoly either of the ruthless Standard Oil Trust or of the

politically guided and government-supported German Bank. Had

King Charles done nothing else for Roumania, his determined

and wise action in this question would have earned him all

praise. But whether it be in the question of the Danube, with

its international Commission, or of the transformation of the

twelve enormous Crown lands, dispersed over the kingdom, into

national and social models, to see and follow—a work due

principally to M. Kalindero—the King’s interest in all things

which directly or indirectly touch Roumania is unabated.

"And what manner of man is this, who has thus created a

European State out of the remnants of a land cursed by a

Turkish rule and Phanariot sway? First and foremost he is

always a Hohenzollern, swayed by his obedience to duty, and

based upon that Hohenzollern saying: 'It is not enough to be

born a prince, you must show that you are worthy of the

title,' and second, he is ever a true Roumanian, who has

caught much of the inspiration of those great former Roumanian

leaders and warriors. His youth was one of discipline and

healthy education, while the influence of his father on his

character can never be overestimated. Every inch a king, he

never forgets that he is always also a man—personal

animosities never cloud his national judgment. An

indefatigable worker and on an organised plan tending towards

definite ends, King Charles devotes his whole time to his

never-ceasing task. By his marriage to Princess Elizabeth of

Wied’ [known in literature as Carmen Sylva] ‘a marriage so

non-political as to make it a political event of the first

importance,’ he brought to Roumania a queen who made herself

beloved of all, and speedily became the centre of all

charitable ideas and works."

_Alfred Stead,

King Charles I. of Roumania

(Fortnightly Review, July, 1906)._

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1902.

Oppression of the Jews.

Appeal of the United States to the signatories

of the Treaty of Berlin.

On the 11th of August, 1902, Mr. John Hay, Secretary of State

in the Government of the United States, addressed a

communication to the American Ambassadors and Ministers in

Great Britain, France, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia,

Italy, and Turkey, whose governments were parties to the

Berlin Treaty of 1878, directing that it be read to the proper

ministers in the governments of those countries. The

communication related to the treatment of the Jews in

Roumania, which had long been a matter of deep concern to the

United States, not only from sympathy with the persecuted

people, but also because of the state in which it drove them

as emigrants to this land. An abridgment of Secretary Hay’s

despatch, published at the time, renders its substance as

follows:

"As long ago as in 1872 this country protested against the

oppression of these Jews under Turkish rule. The Treaty of

Berlin it was supposed would cure this wrong by the provisions

of its forty-fourth article, which prescribed that ‘in

Roumania the difference of religious creeds and confessions

shall not be alleged against any person as a ground for

exclusion or incapacity in matters relating to the enjoyment

of civil and political rights, admission to public

employments, functions and honors, or the exercise of the

various professions and industries in any locality whatsoever.

These prescriptions, however, have, in the lapse of time, been

rendered nugatory as regards the native Jews of Roumania.

Apart from the political disabilities of the Jews in that

country, and their exclusion from the liberal professions,

they are denied the inherent rights of man as a breadwinner in

the ways of agriculture and trade. They are prohibited from

owning land or from cultivating it as common laborers; they

are debarred from residing in the rural districts, and many

branches of petty trade and manual production are closed to

them in the cities. They have become reduced to a state of

wretched misery. The experience of the United States shows

that the Jews possess in a high degree the qualities of good

citizenhood. No class of immigrants is more welcome to our

shores when coming equipped in mind and body, but when they

come as outcasts, made doubly paupers by physical and mental

oppression in their native land, their migration lacks the

essential conditions which make alien immigration either

acceptable or beneficial. Many of these Roumanian Jews are

forced to quit their native country, and the United States is

almost the only refuge left to them. They come hither unfitted

by the conditions of their exile to take part in the new life

of this land, and they are objects of charity for a long time.

Therefore the right of remonstrance against the acts of the

Roumanian Government is fairly established in favor of this

Government. This Government cannot be a tacit party to what it

regards as an international wrong. It is constrained to

protest against the treatment to which the Jews of Roumania

are subjected. The United States is not a signatory to the

Treaty of Berlin, and cannot, therefore, appeal

authoritatively to the stipulations of that treaty, but it

does earnestly appeal to the principles consigned therein,

because they are the principles of international law and

eternal justice."

{44}

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1907.

Agrarian and anti-Semitic riots.

Serious riotings of the peasants of Roumania, in both Moldavia

and Wallachia, occurred in April, 1907. Before the rising

could be suppressed more than 100,000 troops were employed;

the capital, Bucharest, was in a state of siege, and martial

law was proclaimed throughout the country. At first the

character of the uprising seems to have been purely agrarian.

The peasants demanded land at low prices and tried to throw

off the yoke of the middlemen, who are mostly Jews. As the

revolt spread, villages, farms, and even some towns were

plundered and destroyed by wholesale. Hundreds of peasants

were killed, and in several sections a state of real war

existed for more than a week. King Charles issued a

proclamation to his people promising the redress of their

grievances. The Conservative ministry resigned on March 24 and

a Liberal government was at once formed under the presidency

of Dr. Sturdza.

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: Servia: A. D. 1901-1903.

Royal Constitution-making and unmaking.

The character of the Servian monarchy, and the value to the

nation of its king-made Constitution, may be judged from the

following report, May 12, 1903, to the State Department of the

United States Government, by its Minister at Athens, who has

the care of American interests at Belgrade: "The Servian

constitution now in force is that which was granted the

country by King Alexander on April 6-19, 1901. Under this

constitution the influence of the radical party had gradually

increased to such an extent that the King thought it was

dangerous to the welfare of the country. For some time there

were rumors to the effect that a new constitution was in

contemplation and would probably be put into force on the

anniversary of its predecessor. More or less excitement was

caused by these reports, and in consequence the King

determined to act at once.

"On the afternoon of March 24—April 6 last [1903] a royal

proclamation was issued to the Servian people, explaining the

King’s views of the situation, suspending the constitution

referred to above, annulling the ukase of April 6, 1901, and

all subsequent ukases relating to the election of senators,

retiring all the members of the council of state, dissolving

the Skupshtina (national chamber of deputies), annulling the

election of all senators chosen for the period 1901-1906,

annulling various laws relating to the liberty of the press,

the election of deputies, etc., and putting into force certain

laws which had previously been repealed.

"The next morning a second proclamation was issued, putting

the same constitution in force again, and directing the life

senators to elaborate a provisional law for the election of

senators and deputies, who should hold office, respectively,

until September, 1909, and May, 1907.

"The date for the elections has been fixed for the first part

of June. It is considered probable that the Radical members of

the Government (four ministers, I believe) will soon withdraw

from the cabinet."

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1903.

The murder of King Alexander, Queen Draga, her brothers,

and two ministers of state.

The military plot.

King Alexander, who received the Servian crown, as a mere boy,

by the abdication of his father, the erratic King Milan, in

1889, began his reign autocratically, but attempted twelve

years later, to propitiate popular favor by the grant of a

liberal constitution, in 1901.

See, in Volume I. of this work,

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1879-1889.

This failed, however, to win the good will of his subjects,

and he annulled it in April, 1903, with much of the

legislation it had produced. This intensified public feeling

against him, and against his unpopular Queen,—the former

lady-in-waiting at his mother’s court, Madame Draga Maschin.

This marriage in 1900 is related in:

See in Volume VI. of this work

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: SERVIA.

There were fears of an intention to force recognition of Queen

Draga's brother as heir apparent to the crown, and feeling in

the army became especially bitter against both king and queen.

The outcome was an awful tragedy of murder on the night of

June 11, 1903, when a party of officers broke into the palace

and slew, with barbaric ferocity, the King, the Queen, the

Queen’s brothers, the Prime Minister, and the Minister for

War. The following account of the horrible tragedy appeared in

the next issue of _The Contemporary Review:_

"All traces of the midnight carnage in the palace of Belgrade

have been cleared away. The Pretender for whose benefit it was

perpetrated comes in. First proclaimed in the midst of the

still warm corpses, the title of military acclamation has been

ratified by a National Assembly, convened by the Pretorians

almost simultaneously with the massacre to meet three days

after that event, and in the palace where Colonel Maschine and

his lieutenants, acting in the names of outraged national

dignity and social purity, put to shame human nature,

Karageorgevich, whose career as a Pretender in some points

resembles that of Louis Napoleon, accepts the proffered crown.

The telegraphic agencies have informed us that order reigns at

Belgrade, and that Peter I. has entered his capital amid

demonstrations of public joy. The representatives of the Press

of Europe, numbering about a hundred, were, through the

civility of a palace official who witnessed the nocturnal

invasion, taken through the theatre of one of the most

revolting crimes of modern history. They were minutely

informed of the circumstances connected with it, saw the

smashed doors and floors where dynamite tubes had exploded,

the pistol shots in walls and ceilings; the timepieces shaken

by the explosion had stopped at five minutes past one on the

morning of the 12th June. The palace official took them into

the little wardrobe room in which the King and Queen had

hidden themselves, and, when found, met their doom, unshriven,

offering no resistance. …

{45}

"Officers who had studied in the Zurich Polytechnic school

knew how to use dynamite without injury to themselves when

they wanted to break in doors massive as those of a church.

Those who had been told off to cut the electric wires

communicating with lamps had indiarubber gloves. They searched

by the light of composite candles they had brought in their

pockets for the hiding-place of the King and Queen. When they

discovered the fugitives, some of the officers held high the

candles for their comrades to lay on and not spare the

unfortunate pair. There was no attempt to resist. All

Alexander wanted was ‘to die with Draga,’ and this elevated

him into the region of romance. It may hereafter furnish a

theme to Servian bards. Another modern circumstance makes

one’s flesh creep. The bodies, flung out of a window, lay on a

garden walk until dawn, when a soldier received an order to

wash them there with a fireman’s hydrant, and when they had

been cleansed to lay them on the tables of the palace kitchen

for dissection. The surgeons had been requisitioned to come

there at five o’clock. …

"At the post-mortem in the palace kitchen at Belgrade, the

surgeons counted in the body of Alexander six revolver wounds,

each deadly, and forty-two sword wounds. Draga received two

pistol balls and sixty-two sword cuts and slashes. She had

been cut to pieces, but they left her face unmutilated.

And—still more frightful—her corpse bore black and blue marks

that testified to a merciless pounding with strong fists. The

regicides gave so many conflicting accounts of their adventure

that one did not know what to believe. It is now certain that

the King and Queen were defenceless, that they at once on

being aroused by the dynamite took refuge in her wardrobe

room, and that they never sought to escape by the roof, and

did not run through a long suite of rooms, slamming the doors

after them. They had not a moment’s time to utter a prayer.

"Draga’s brothers received a five minutes’ respite to make

their souls. Nicodemus, the eldest, for whom Mademoiselle Pach

mourns in Brussels, asked for cigars and for leave to embrace

his brother. He and Nicholas faced unflinchingly a firing

party, casting away the cigar ends as they stood before a

wall. …

"Colonel Maschine, who figures as the ringleader in the

conspiracy, had been in the inner circle of King Milan, who

thought him a valuable officer. Milan, a man with considerable

ability and without his match in playing an intricate and

difficult diplomatic game, had been educated in his mother’s

fast set in Vienna, and at a Paris lycée. … Military force as

a means of government recommended itself to his barbarous

mind. It may be that he saw in Maschine a man suitable for

_coup d’état_ work. An ostensible reason for taking him

into favour was Maschine’s bravery in the campaign against

Bulgaria and his personal fidelity to Milan, as twice evinced

in saving his life. The partiality of the King buoyed up

Maschine’s hopes of a brilliant military career. Death

overtook Milan, who so often had escaped poison and assassin’s

bullets, on his way to Belgrade, where he was to have set

Alexander aside and remounted the throne. His unexpected

decease blighted the colonel’s prospects, inasmuch as Draga

gained thereby uncontrolled influence over the King. She and

the Maschines had long kept up a bitter feud. Barbarians like

to brood over their grievances, real or imaginary. Colonel

Maschine could not forget or forgive, and his pride prevented

him from trying to propitiate her when she let him know that

he thought her more intractable than she really was. He had

set about the slander that she poisoned her first husband, and

then made believe he committed suicide. This story had been

told by the Colonel to Milan. Alexander, when his father

repeated it to him, called it a ‘machination,’ the name he

ever after gave to slanders and libels that came to his

knowledge about Draga. He refused to hear calumnious tales,

but could not prevent anonymous letters passing into the hands

of his secretary, and spoke of the Court of Russia as being

stupidly turned against his wife by ‘machinations.’ One can

understand from this why Colonel Maschine became the soul of

the horrible conspiracy, and bent his whole mind to carry out

a plan which has succeeded, through his perfect generalship as

to _ensemble_, the minutest attention to details, the

widest prescience, the coolest head and an utter

unscrupulousness."

_Ivanovich,

The Servian Massacre

(Contemporary Review, July, 1903)._

In the same issue of _The Contemporary_, Dr. Dillon

wrote: "A graphic version of one scene of the tragedy, which

was given to me by one of the murderers, Adjutant N., is as

follows:

‘We were wild with passion, trembling with excitement,

incapable of receiving any impressions from the things and

people around us. Hence we cannot say who shot the King in the

head, who in the heart. But I have a vivid recollection of

some things. I remember turning out the electric light and

going to fetch candles to light my comrades on the way. That

done I remained together with them to the end. I remember our

breaking into the King’s bedroom, finding it empty, and then

looking into the Queen’s wardrobe room, where we found the

pair. Who fired first? I don’t know; nobody knows. At first we

did not fire at all. We drew our sabres and cut off the

fingers of the King and Queen; four fingers were hewn from the

King’s hand. Then we fired.’"

_E. J. Dillon,

Servia and the Rival Dynasties

(Contemporary Review, July, 1903)._

The hideous crime which ended the reign of King Alexander

excited horror everywhere except in Servia. There it seemed to

be approved and rejoiced over universally, even the head of

the national Servian Church, the Metropolitan of Belgrade,

officiating at a thanksgiving service and commending the army

for what it had done. Senators and Deputies of the Skupstchina

filled the vacant throne by the election of Prince Peter

Karageorgievitch, descendant of Kara Georg (Black George), the

primary hero of the later struggle of the Servians with the

Turk. King Alexander had been of the house of Milosh

Obrenovitch, founder of the Obrenovitch dynasty, which

supplanted that of Kara Georg.

See in Volume I. of this work,

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES:

14TH-19TH CENTURIES: SERVIA.

Prince Peter, then in exile at Geneva, accepted the

blood-stained crown, and was welcomed at Belgrade on the 24th

of June. Foreign governments, except those of Russia and

Austria-Hungary, gave no recognition to the new sovereign for

some time; but, said a writer in _The Fortnightly Review_

of the next month, "no thrill of horror has been manifested by

the ‘dear brothers ’ and ‘cousins’ of the royal victims; on

the very day of the holocaust, when the mangled corpses of a

King and Queen were being exposed to the outrages of frenzied

fiends, there was never a pause in the pomp and circumstance

and revelry of European Courts.

{46}

But the ghastly details of the deed have appealed to the

melodramatic instincts of the vulgar, arousing a morbid

indignation throughout every land. What honest person could

fail to be stirred by the story of the conspirators, sitting

over their wine under the verandah of the Srbski Kruna,

uproariously urging the gipsy band to play Queen Draga’s March

before they sallied forth to hack her to pieces with their

swords; by the airy apologies of the baffled murderers when

they roused a citizen for axes and candles, wherewith to track

down their victims in the sleeping palace; by the thought of

the ill-starred young Sovereigns lying in their own gardens,

riddled with bullets, sighing through the small hours for the

long-delayed relief of death? In the pages of ancient or

mediaeval history, even in sensational fiction, such hellish

horrors could not fail to arouse intense emotion; in the cold

glare of the twentieth century they are brought home so

vividly that we are almost eye-witnesses."

_Herbert Vivian,

A ‘Glorious Revolution’ in Servia

(Fortnightly Review, July, 1903)._

A general election in September gave the Radicals a decisive

majority in the Skupstchina, and a Radical Ministry under

General Gruiteh was formed.

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1904.

Coronation of King Peter.

King Peter was anointed and crowned with due ceremony, at

Zicha, on the 9th of October, 1904. Representatives of all the

Powers in Europe except Great Britain did honor to the

occasion by their presence; thus condoning the foul crime

which smeared the new King’s crown with blood. The officers

who committed the crime had been dismissed from their palace

posts, but rewarded by military promotion.

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1908-1909.

Attitude toward Austria on the annexation of Bosnia and

Herzegovina.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1908-1909 (OCTOBER-MARCH).

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1908-1909.

The alleged "Greater Servia Conspiracy."

The Agram Trials.

See (in this Volume)

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1908-1909.

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: A. D. 1909.

Renunciation of the crown by the Crown Prince.

The following note was addressed to the Prime Minister of

Servia by the Crown Prince, George, on the 25th of March,

1909: "Driven by unjustified insinuations based on an

unfortunate occurrence, I beg in defence of my honour, as well

as of my conscience, to declare that I renounce all claims to

the Throne, as well as any other privileges to which I am

entitled. I beg you to take note of this, and to take the

necessary steps that this action may receive the necessary

sanction. I place my services as a soldier and citizen at the

disposal of my King and Fatherland, ready to give my life for

them.

—George."

The "unfortunate occurrence" alluded to was the death of one

of the Prince’s servants from injuries which the Prince was

believed by the public to have inflicted, as he was reputed to

have a brutal temper.

BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: Servia and Bulgaria: A.D. 1905.

Customs Union Convention.

See above:

BULGARIA AND SERVIA.

----------BALKAN AND DANUBIAN STATES: End--------

BALLINGER, Richard A.:

Secretary of the Interior, United States.

See (in this Volume)

UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909 (MARCH).

BALLINGER, Richard A.:

Action against Water Power Monopoly.

See (in this Volume)

COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL, &c.:

UNITED STATES: A. D. 1909.

BALLOONS, Dirigible.

See (in this Volume)

SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT.

BALTIC FLEET, The Russian:

Its voyage and destruction.

See (in this Volume)

JAPAN: A. D. 1904-1905 (OCTOBER-MAY).

BALTIC PROVINCES:

Peasant insurrection.

See (in this Volume)

RUSSIA: A. D. 1905 (FEBRUARY-NOVEMBER).

BALTIMORE: A. D. 1904.

Destructive fire.

Next to that at Chicago in 1871, the most destructive fire

among the many that have devastated the cities of the United

States occurred at Baltimore on February 7th and 8th, 1904. It

burned for thirty hours, in the heart of the city, the center

of its business, destroying some 2600 buildings and consuming

property to the estimated value of $75,000,000.

BAMBAATA.

See (in this Volume)

SOUTH AFRICA: NATAL: A. D. 1906-1907.

BANNARD, Otto T.:

See (in this Volume)

NEW YORK CITY: A. D. 1909.

BARCELONA: A. D. 1902.

General strike and battle with soldiery.

See (in this Volume)

LABOR ORGANIZATION: SPAIN.

BARCELONA: A. D. 1909.

Revolutionary outbreak.

Trial and execution of Professor Ferrer.

See (in this Volume)

SPAIN: A. D. 1907-1909.

BARCELONA: A. D. 1909.

Riotous hostility to war in Morocco.

See MOROCCO: A. D. 1909.

BARGE (ERIE) CANAL, The.

See (in this Volume)

NEW YORK STATE: A. D. 1898-1909.

BARNATO, Harry.

Bequest for cancer research.

See (in this Volume)

PUBLIC HEALTH.

BARRETT, Charles Simon:

President of the National Farmers’ Union.

See (in this Volume)

LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES: A. D. 1902-1909.

BARRETT, John.

See (in this Volume)

AMERICAN REPUBLICS, INTERNATIONAL BUREAU OF.

BARRETT, John.

Delegate to Second International Conference of

American Republics.

See (in this Volume)

AMERICAN REPUBLICS.

BARTHOLDT, Richard.

See (in this Volume)

WAR, THE REVOLT AGAINST: A. D. 1904-1909, and 1907.

BARTON, Sir Edmund:

Premier of Australia.

See (in this Volume)

AUSTRALIA: A. D. 1903-1904.

BAST, The taking of.

See (in this Volume)

PERSIA: A. D. 1905-1907.

BASUTOLAND:

See (in this Volume)

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1904, and 1909.

BAVARIA: A. D. 1906.

Introduction of direct voting.

See (in this Volume)

ELECTIVE FRANCHISE: GERMANY: A. D. 1906.

BEATIFICATION OF JOAN OF ARC.

See (in this Volume)

PAPACY: A. D. 1909 (APRIL).

BECHUANALAND: A. D. 1904.

Census.

See (in this Volume)

SOUTH AFRICA: A. D. 1904, and 1909.

BECK, Baron.

See (in this Volume)

AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1905-1906.

BECQUEREL, Henri.

See (in this Volume)

SCIENCE, RECENT: RADIUM;

also, NOBEL PRIZES.

"BEEF TRUST," The:

Investigations and prosecutions by the U. S. Government.

See (in this Volume)

COMBINATIONS, INDUSTRIAL: UNITED STATES:

A. D. 1901-1906; 1903-1906; and 1910.

{47}

BEERNAERT, M.

See (in this Volume)

NOBEL PRIZES

BEHRING, Emil Adolf von.

See (in this Volume)

NOBEL PRIZES.

BEIRUT:

Joy over the restored constitution of Turkey.

See (in this Volume)

TURKEY: A. D). 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).

----------BELGIUM: Start--------

BELGIUM: A. D. 1870-1905.

Increase of population compared with other European countries.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1870-1905.

BELGIUM: A. D. 1900-1904.

Municipal systems of insurance against unemployment.

See (in this Volume)

POVERTY, PROBLEMS OF: UNEMPLOYMENT.

BELGIUM: A. D. 1902.

Popular opposition to the plural vote.

Demand for constitutional revision defeated.

General strike in the country.

Substantially universal but not equal suffrage is given to the

male citizens of Belgium by the Constitution of the kingdom as

revised in 1893.

See in Volume I. of this work,

CONSTITUTION OF BELGIUM.

All have one vote, but certain classes of persons, qualified

by property ownership, tax-payments, education, office-holding

or professional dignity, are given one or two supplementary

votes. Opposition to this political inequality had been

growing from the first, until it united the Socialist and

Liberal parties in a demand for the revision of the

Constitution, not only to abolish the plural suffrage, but to

introduce proportional representation and compulsory

education. The agitation attending this demand brought about,

in April, a general strike throughout the country of workmen

in all departments of industry, to the extent of 350,000. The

Government resisted the demand, maintaining that the system of

plural voting had not been sufficiently tried, and the bill

for constitutional revision was defeated in the Chamber of

Representatives, after a bitter debate, by 84 votes to 64.

The situation was described as follows by Mr. Townsend, the

American Minister to Belgium, in a despatch of April 19:

"The struggle between labor and capital in Belgium has become

extremely acute in the past few years. A large industrial

population, confined to a small superficial area, with long

hours of labor and small wages, have combined to produce a

feeling of discontent among the working classes, who, perhaps

unjustly, blame the existing Government for a condition of

affairs which may be due to economic conditions rather than

political. This is a factor which may be largely responsible

for the rapid growth of Socialism in Belgium during the past

few years. Liberals and Socialists have combined to fight for

universal suffrage, and have raised the cry ‘one man one vote’

as a panacea for the existing ills.

"The Clericals maintain that the existing system of plural

voting meets the present requirements of the country; that it

places a premium on education, and acts as a check to the

power of the ignorant, who are prone to resort to violence and

disorder. The more moderate Liberals in the House of

Representatives expressed a willingness to accept a compromise

in the shape of a total abolition of the triple vote, granting

one vote at 25 years and a second vote to married men of 35 or

40 years, with legitimate issue. The Clericals, however, would

not consider a compromise and opposed revision in any form.

"During the past fortnight, while the debates on the subject

of revision were being held in the House of Representatives,

the socialists and workingmen have held nightly meetings at

the Maison du Peuple, and have frequently paraded the streets

shouting for universal suffrage and ‘one man one vote.’ The

Liberal members, as well as some of the socialist leaders in

the House, have cautioned the paraders to be calm, to avoid

violence and disorder. But the ranks of the paraders have been

swelled by the addition of the representatives of the very

lowest and criminal classes of the population, the result

being a conflict with the police followed by the breaking of

windows and other damages to property. Shots were exchanged

between the gendarmes and rioters, several of the latter being

killed and wounded. Similar scenes were at the same time

enacted in other towns in Belgium, consequently the Government

called out the troops. Order has been restored, but the

streets of Brussels, as well as the large towns, are lined

with soldiers. A general strike has taken place in all the

industrial centers of Belgium, with the avowed object of

forcing the Government to grant universal suffrage, but

without success. The feeling of unrest is very general all

over the country."

_Papers relating to the Foreign Relations of

the United States, 1902, page 85._

BELGIUM: A. D. 1903.

Enactment to compensate workmen for injurious accidents.

See (in this Volume)

LABOR ORGANIZATION: BELGIUM: A. D. 1903.

BELGIUM: A. D. 1903.

Agreement for settlement of claims against Venezuela.

See (in this Volume)

VENEZUELA: A. D. 1902-1904.

BELGIUM: A. D. 1903-1905.

King Leopold’s administration of the Congo State.

See (in this Volume)

CONGO STATE: A. D. 1903-1905.

BELGIUM: A. D. 1904.

Liberal gains in the elections, at the expense of the

Catholics and Socialists.

Belgian elections, in May, reduced the majority by which the

Clericals still retained control of the Government, and took

six seats in the representative chamber from the Socialists,

adding in all nine to the representation of the Liberal party.

The latter continued, with no success, its demand for a

revision of the Constitution, especially for the abolition of

the plural vote, which gives the Church party its majority in

Parliament, while its voters are an actual minority of the

nation.

Belgian feeling on the subject of the charges of brutal

oppression in the Congo Free State was deeply stirred, and its

current ran strongly against the accusers of the King. The

public in general appears to have been fully persuaded that

interested motives were actuating the whole criticism of Congo

administration, and that the stories of inhumanity to the

natives were wholly false.

BELGIUM: A. D. 1906.

At the Algeciras Conference on the Morocco question.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1905-1906.

BELGIUM: A. D. 1908.

North Sea and Baltic agreements.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1908.

BELGIUM: A. D. 1908 (October).

Annexation of the Congo State.

See (in this Volume)

CONGO STATE: A. D. 1906-1909.

BELGIUM: A. D. 1909.

New military law.

Compulsory service with no substitution.

See (in this Volume)

WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: BELGIAN.

BELGIUM: A. D. 1909 (October).

The Government’s programme of reforms in the Congo State.

See CONGO STATE: A. D. 1909 (OCTOBER).

{47}

BELGIUM: A. D. 1909 (December).

Death of King Leopold.

Accession of King Albert.

On the 17th of December, 1909, King Leopold died. He was

succeeded on the throne by Prince Albert, son of his brother,

the Count of Flanders. Of the new King, who was born in 1875,

it was said by The Times, of London: "The happiest

expectations are cherished in Belgium for the new King’s

reign. He has shown, together with his gracious Consort, that

desire to identify himself with the interests of the humblest

of his subjects which we are accustomed to admire among the

characteristic merits of our own Royal Family. He was

naturally precluded by his position from taking any part in

the controversies connected with the Congo, but it may

reasonably be thought that if his uncle’s life had been less

prolonged the constitutional difficulties raised by the ‘Congo

question’ would have been avoided. He is known to have been

painfully impressed by the need of reform during his recent

visit to the colony."

----------BELGIUM: End--------

BELL, Richard:

Secretary of the Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants.

See (in this Volume)

LABOR ORGANIZATION: ENGLAND: A. D. 1907-1909.

BENEDICTINES: Forbidden to teach in France.

See (in this Volume)

France: A. D. 1908.

BENGAL: A. D. 1905.

Partition of the Province.

See (in this Volume)

INDIA: A. D. 1905-1909.

BEQUESTS.

See GIFTS.

BERESFORD, Admiral Lord Charles:

On the "Dreadnought."

See (in this Volume)

WAR, THE PREPARATIONS FOR: DREADNOUGHT ERA.

BERKELEY, California:

Perfect example of the "Commission Plan" of Government.

See (in this Volume)

MUNICIPAL GOVERNMENT: CALIFORNIA.

BERLIN: A. D. 1903.

Sweeping victory of Socialists in Imperial election.

See (in this Volume)

GERMANY: A. D. 1903.

BERLIN: A. D. 1905.

Strike in electrical industries.

See (in this Volume)

LABOR ORGANIZATION: GERMANY.

BERLIN TREATY OF 1878, Violations of the.

See (in this Volume)

EUROPE: A. D. 1908-1909 (OCTOBER-MARCH).

BETHMANN-HOLLWEG, Dr. von:

Appointed Chancellor of the German Empire.

See (in this Volume)

GERMANY: A. D. 1908-1909, AND 1909 (OCTOBER-DECEMBER).

"BIG SIX," The.

See (in this Volume)

Combinations, Industrial: United States: A. D. 1903-1906.

The "Beef Trust."

BIRRELL, Augustine,

President of the Board of Education.

See (in this Volume)

ENGLAND: A. D. 1905 (DECEMBER), and 1905-1906.

BIRRELL, Augustine,

Chief Secretary for Ireland.

Proposed Councils Bill for Ireland.

See (in this Volume)

IRELAND: A. D. 1907 (MAY).

BISWAS, Ashutosh, Assassination of.

See (in this Volume)

INDIA: A. D. 1907-1908.

BITUMINOUS COAL STRIKES.

See (in this Volume)

LABOR ORGANIZATION: UNITED STATES.

BJORNSON, Bjornstjerne.

See (in this Volume)

NOBEL PRIZES.

BLACK HAND, The.

See (in this Volume)

CRIME AND CRIMINOLOGY.

BLERIOT, Louis.

See (in this Volume)

SCIENCE AND INVENTION, RECENT: AERONAUTICS.

BLIND, Karl:

On the "Young Turks."

See (in this Volume)

TURKEY: A D. 1908 (JULY-DECEMBER).

"BLOC," Chancellor Bülow’s:

Incongruous coalition in the German Reichstag.

See (in this Volume)

GERMANY: A. D. 1906-1907.

Its break.

See GERMANY: A. D. 1908-1909.

"BLOODY SUNDAY."

See (in this Volume)

RUSSIA: A. D. 1904-1905.

BOARDS OF CONCILIATION.