For the second time the “opposition tamer,” Baron Koller, was appointed
Governor of Bohemia. To Moravia was sent the notorious Bohemiophobe,
Baron Weber. As usual, the press was the first to feel the heel of
these little despots. Public prosecutors throughout Bohemia and Moravia
received instructions to proceed “fearlessly” against opposition
journals. Those prosecutors who replied that they would do their
duty strictly “in accordance with the law” were either removed or
transferred to other posts and replaced by functionaries who were
more mindful of the needs of the government. “It is not necessary
in every instance to set forth the reason for the confiscation of a
newspaper article,” the prosecutors were instructed. “The prosecutors
have a full power to act and they are answerable to no one.” During
the first year of the Auersperg-Lasser Ministry the daily newspaper
“Politik” in Prague was confiscated 83 times by the conscientious
prosecutor. A number of societies were dissolved, though non-political
in character. An agricultural organization that had been founded during
the reign of Maria Theresa and had survived the bitter days of Bach’s
administration, was deprived of its charter because its president,
Prince Charles Schwarzenberg, a Bohemian noble, declined to participate
in the Vienna Exposition unless a separate space was allotted there
to Bohemia, as to Hungary. Every presiding officer of the so-called
District Committees in the provinces, who was suspected of being a
Bohemian sympathizer, was summarily removed. Two of the most noted
journalists, Julius Grégr and J. St. Skrejšovský, who had the courage
to fight the Auersperg-Lasser Ministry openly, were put in jail for an
alleged attempt to defraud the government of a trifling tax with which
newspaper advertisements were assessable. Both languished in jail for
months. As an instance of official meanness, the case of the publisher
of the “Correspondence Slave” should be mentioned. This man received
a long term in prison for failure to pay a newspaper tax amounting to
less than half a florin (20 cents).
And because Bohemian juries almost uniformly acquitted journalists
brought before them for political offenses, prosecuting attorneys
resorted to the expedient of a change of venue to cities inhabited
by Germans. To eminent jurists protesting that a procedure of this
kind was unconstitutional, the Minister of Justice replied that state
necessities justified this course. On one occasion a deputation of
representative citizens of Prague called on Baron Koller to complain
of the arbitrariness of the police. “Gentlemen, I hope you do not wish
me to be uncivil to you. I am exceedingly busy, and inasmuch as I
have nothing to say to you, I must ask you to leave the room in five
minutes.” And when the deputation, incensed over Koller’s brusqueness,
wished to explain, the redoubtable baron exclaimed: “Gentlemen, the
five minutes are up. Leave.” A door was opened, and in the ante-room
stood a sentry with fixed bayonet.
The year 1879 witnessed the end of the “policy of abstinence.” Due,
largely, to Premier Taaffe’s persuasion and promises, Bohemians
re-entered the parliament. From Taaffe and his successors in office
they obtained some political concessions (crumbs fallen from the
opulent table of the master, to repeat a current expression of the
opposition), yet the supreme ideal of the nation, autonomy, is to-day
no nearer fulfillment than it ever was. If they thought that they might
be able to convince Vienna of the injustice of dualism and might by
parliamentary pressure force it to grant to them home rule of which
they had been twice cheated, they had reckoned wrongly. Not only did
they fail to bring Vienna to terms, but they were made to feel that
another foe, powerful and implacable, blocked their way to national
freedom. That foe was Berlin. For it must not be forgotten that, since
the formation of the Triple Alliance, Berlin influence at Vienna,
always great, had become predominant. If the two Teutonic partners were
agreed on any one thing, it was on the proposition that Slavic trees in
Austria should not grow too tall.
To conduct the reader through the maze of purely local happenings that
occurred since Taaffe’s administration would be a long, though not
wholly uninteresting story. Suffice it to say that during most of the
time Bohemians were forced to fight on two fronts--Vienna on one front
and their fellow-countrymen with Pan-German leanings on the other. The
main quarrel between Vienna and Prague during all these years has been
over Home Rule. Shall Bohemians living in the countries comprising the
Bohemian Crown (Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia) be the arbiters of their own
destiny, and shall they govern themselves from Prague by laws made and
enacted by their home parliament? Home Rule is and has been the main
issue; all else is subordinate to it.