(Let other nations wage war! You, happy Austria, marry. For Venus will give you those lands which usually Mars bestows.) The Austrian Empire is not an Empire in the generally accepted sense of the term. It is the result of gigantic deals in land, and of equally gigantic matrimonial ventures. Since the earliest times the Habsburgs have cared for land, not for people. They acquired lands right and left, regardless of the nationality of the inhabitants whom they got thrown in. Thus the Habsburgs ruled at one time or another not only the ten nations which constitute Austria-Hungary, but Switzerland, Burgundy, Lorraine, Germany, Holland, Belgium, Italy, Spain, Portugal, North Africa, and the countries of the New World as well. Austria-Hungary is the residue of a much larger fortuitous collection of States and nations. Recognising that Austria-Hungary is neither a State nor a nation, but a collection of States and nations, Austrian rulers speak habitually of their peoples, not of their people, and of their lands, not of their land. The curious genesis of the Habsburg monarchy, and the fact that the so-called Dual Monarchy is in reality a multiple monarchy, is apparent from the title of its ruler, who is called Emperor of Austria, Apostolic King of Hungary, King of Bohemia, Dalmatia, Croatia, Slavonia, Galicia, Lodomiria and Illyria, King of Jerusalem, Archduke of Austria, Grand Duke of Toscana and Cracow, Duke of Lorraine, Duke of Salzburg, Styria, Carinthia, Carniola, the Bukovina, of Upper and Lower Silesia, Modena, Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla, Prince of Transylvania, Margrave of Moravia, Princely Count of Tyrol, &c., &c., &c.

The peoples of Austria-Hungary are organised in two self-governing States, Austria and Hungary. These are loosely connected by various links, and Bosnia and Herzegovina are a joint possession of the two States. If, for simplicity's sake, we credit each of these States with one half of the population of Bosnia and

Herzegovina, we find that their racial composition is as

The ten nations enumerated in this table speak ten different languages-the Serbians and Croats are one race and differ only in religion-and each of them has a strongly marked character and individuality of its own.

A composite State which is peopled by different races can be ruled comparatively easily either on democratic or on autocratic lines; democratically if the different races have full self-government, as they have in Switzerland and Canada, and autocratically if the ruling race constitutes the majority of the population. Austria is ruled by the Germans and Hungary by the Magyars. The Germans of Austria form about one-third of the population. The Magyars are apparently about one-half of the population of Hungary; but their number is greatly overstated. In their anxiety to Magyarise Hungary and to make a good show, they have manipulated the census statistics, as will be shown later on. Hungary has in reality only between 7,000,000 and 8,000,000 bona fide Magyars. In other words, the ruling race, both in Austria and in Hungary, constitutes only a minority. In both halves of the Dual Monarchy one-third of the people rule over the remaining two-thirds. That is not a healthy state of affairs.

Austria and Hungary, like their ally Germany, are nominally constitutionally governed limited monarchies endowed with representative government and all the usual trappings of democracy. In reality Austria-Hungary, like Germany, is an autocracy which is governed by the ruler and for the ruler under the observation of certain Parliamentary forms. In Austria-Hungary and in Germany the Emperor is the State. The Austrian Emperor, like the German Emperor, directs the entire machinery of the government and administration in accordance with his will. Thus in Austria-Hungary, as in Germany, the bureaucracy is the State, and the officials are the servants of the Emperor-King, who appoints and dismisses them. Parliament has no power whatever over the administrative apparatus. The people of the Dual Monarchy are ruled with the assistance of the Civil Service, the army, the exceedingly powerful political police, which spies upon every citizen, the law courts, the school, the Church, and the Press, and all seven are government institutions controlled by the Emperor. Church and Press are no exception to the rule. In Germany the Emperor is the official head, the Pope, of the Protestant State Church. That perhaps accounts for his intimate relations with the Deity. The Austrian Church is Roman Catholic. Its head is nominally the Pope, but in reality it is the Emperor. In a decree published by the Emperor Leopold the Second on March 3, 1782, we read:

Although the priest's province is the cure of souls, he must also be considered as a citizen and as a State official engaged in religious work, for he can directly and indirectly exercise the greatest political influence over the people by working upon their feelings.

It may sound strange, but it is a fact that in Austria the Church is a branch of the bureaucracy. The Press of the Dual Monarchy is Government-inspired, Governmentsubsidised, Government-muzzled, and and Government-con

trolled to a far greater extent than it is in Germany. Every Department of State has a Press bureau of its own, and enormous sums are spent by the Government upon the Austrian Press. The judges of the Dual Monarchy, being a part of the Civil Service, possess no real independence. That may be seen by their disgraceful partisan behaviour in political prosecutions, in which they frequently browbeat, fine, and expel from the court not only the witnesses for the defence, but even the defending solicitors.

Austria-Hungary is governed by absolutism, and absolutism can be successfully maintained only if the people are weak and ignorant. Endeavouring to keep the people in ignorance and subjection, the Austrian rulers have habitually favoured the Roman Catholic Church and opposed education. Guided by the principle Cujus regio, ejus et religio,' they have persecuted Protestantism in the most savage manner, recognising in it a revolt of the people against established authority. Herein lies the reason that, although Protestantism took powerful root in the Dual Monarchy in the time of Huss, there are in Austria at present only 588,686 Protestants, as compared with no fewer than 25,949,627 Roman Catholics. While the Austrian people are poor, the Austrian Church is exceedingly wealthy and powerful. Illiteracy in AustriaHungary is very great. From the latest issue of the 'Handwörterbuch der Staatswissenschaften' we learn that of 10,000 recruits only 3 are illiterate in Germany, 2200 are illiterate in Austria, and 2590 in Hungary. Among the oppressed nationalities, for instance, in the Slavonic parts of Austria and Hungary, illiteracy rises to 7000 among every 10,000 recruits. While the Austrian Government always discouraged knowledge and independence among the people, keeping them down by means of the officials, the police, and the Church, it endeavoured to prevent popular dissatisfaction by encouraging amusement and not discouraging vice. The Austrian towns, which might become hotbeds of revolution, are the gayest and at the

same time the most immoral towns in Europe. In 1910 of all the children born alive 18-25 per cent. were illegitimate in Upper Austria, 21.9 in Lower Austria, 23-0 in Styria, 23.6 in Salzburg, and 35.6 in Carinthia. In Vienna the percentage of illegitimate births is on an average about forty, according to the official statistics. Possibly they understate the facts.

While, for the sake of making their peoples obedient, the Austrian rulers forced them by the most savage persecution into a religious uniformity, they had no desire to weld them together into one nation. The old principle of the Habsburg monarchy is Divide et impera.' Francis the Second, who ruled Austria at the time of the Congress of Vienna, said to the French Ambassador:

My peoples are strangers to each other. That is all the better. They do not catch the same political disease at the same time. If the fever takes hold of you in France all of you catch it. Hungary is kept in order by Italian troops, and Italy is kept down by Hungarians. Everybody keeps his neighbour in order. My peoples do not understand each other, and hate each other. Their antipathies make for security and their mutual hatreds for the general peace.

Absolutism is maintained by fear. Absolute rulers in the East and the West habitually distrust their principal advisers, fearing that their power may become too great. Actuated by fear and distrust, the Austrian rulers have usually entrusted the government of the country to mediocrities and nonentities, and have treated with ingratitude the public servants who had rendered the greatest services to their country. If Austria-Hungary entered upon a war in which she was absolutely certain of victory, her armies were commanded by a member of the ruling house, so that the dynasty should receive new glory. If she was likely to lose, the command was given to officers who were afterwards dismissed and disgraced for their incompetence. Generals von Auffenberg, Dankl, and many