t of the
empire are parted asunder from those in the south-east by the
Hungarians, who came in from the east, and are of a different stock,
and who have succeeded in establishing the federated kingdom of
Hungary. I will not trouble you with statistical or geographical
details. For my present purpose it is enough to mention that the
subjects of Austria, apart from Hungary, are classed in eight separate
sections, differentiated by separate languages, and that Poles,
Bohemians, Germans, and Italians, are all and each claiming a kind of
home rule within the empire, and show an increasing tendency to group
themselves by distinctions of race. In Bohemia the population is
nearly equally divided between Germans and Slavs, who speak different
languages, have separate schools, and contend violently for political
preponderance. In Moravia and Silesia, where the Slav element is
stronger, the same conflict goes on. In Galicia the contest is between
Poles and Ruthenians, between the Roman Catholic and the Greek
churches. In Hungary proper the Magyars have political predominance,
but the population of German descent and language is more numerous
than the Magyars: in Transylvania, further eastward, the Magyars are
politically overriding the Slav races; in Croatia to the southward a
similar struggle is going on. Throughout every province of the
Austro-Hungarian empire we see the same intermixture of races,
religions, and languages--the more numerous and better united sections
are striving for political ascendency: the weaker sections contend
against them by demanding autonomy. And, as all these various
antipathies and jealousies are represented in the Parliament of the
empire, the peaceful consolidation of the empire into a large national
State is interrupted by resistance under the watchword of separate
nationalities. Religious differences between Roman Catholicism,
Calvinism, and the Greek Church in the Eastern provinces, accentuate
the incoherence. Each separate group takes for its symbol, the
standard round which people rally, a language--German, Polish,
Tcheque, Ruthenian, and so on. They are all being energetically
maintained and jealously preserved in speech and writing in the
schools and the assemblies. Moreover, three different churches, at
least, are rallying their adherents and driving in the wedge of
religious dissension. All these groups go back to the early traditions
and history of the races, they sharpen up old grievance