YEAR-BOOK OF 
 
 AUSTRIA 
 
 1920 
 
 FROM OFFICIAL SOURCES 
 SECOND SERIES 
 
 1921 
 
 PUBLISHED BY THE RITZ ART & IMPORT COMPANY 
 
 ^EW YORK 
 

 V 
 
YEARBOOK OF 
 
 AUSTRIA 
 
 1920 
 
 FROM OFFICIAL SOURCES 
 SECOND SERIES 
 
 I 
 
 1921 
 P„.USH»:.V TH. .nj .«T . .HPO.T ..HP«V 
 
All rights reserved 
 
 Copyright 1921 by Ritz Art & Import Company 
 
 New York 
 
 _r/3/ 
 
 y^ 
 
 TERMINATED DECEMBER 31, 1920. 
 
 THE FIRST SERIES OF THIS YEAR- 
 BOOK (1919) APPEARED UNDER THE 
 TITLE OF "ONE YEAR OF FREEDOM". 
 
 BT EXCHANOS 
 8TA»irOBD DNJVBKSITT 
 HOOVBB WAH UBRaRY 
 
 iWy3 
 
 Printed by ig. Unger, Vienna IV. 
 
IV 
 
 AFTER THE TREATY OF ST. GERMAIN. 
 
 V The treaty of peace of St. Germain was signed September 10, 
 y approved by the National Assembly October 17, ratified by the 
 President October 25 and came into force July 6, 1920. The 
 peace had created a small helpless state, dispossessed of its most 
 important industrial territories, unable to satisfy even its most 
 urgents wants of life, almost without coal-fields, without raw 
 materials, but with the Metropolis of a vast Empire and with an 
 unnumerable host of functionaries and civil-servants, economically 
 dependent from ill-disposed neighbours, crammed with public 
 debts, inherited from the ancient Monarchy, and, above all, forced 
 to assume all the unbearable burdens, imposed by the treaty. 
 There were only two hopes: the chance of an efficacious help 
 by the Entente for the economic reconstruction, repeatedly and 
 solemnly promised, or the permission to enter in the pale of the 
 great German Mother- country. 
 
 Those hopes encouraged the two political parties, the Social- 
 Democrats and the Christian -Socialists, to ratify the treaty of 
 peace in the National- Assembly. This having done, the two 
 parties formed a coalition for the purpose to save the country 
 from the imminent danger of despair and starvation. 
 
 The first duty proclaimed by all parties in the Parliament 
 was to gain the confidence of the world abroad, especially of the 
 adversaries of the immediate past, by fulfilling loyally, as far as 
 possible, the stipulations of the treaty of peace. The National 
 Assembly hastened to carry into execution its essential provisions, 
 most of them even before the ratification by the co-signatories. 
 
 Besides the manifold tasks resulting from the treaty of peace, 
 as: surrender of the military effects, disbandnient of the Militia 
 and establishment of a new army of mercenaries, there was also 
 other most urgent and difficult business at hand. The food-supply 
 
Duties of the National-Assembly. Public credit. 
 
 was to be secured, the trade maintained or newly started, the 
 agricultural labour revived, the legislative work for the new wants 
 of the democratic Republic initiated and, above all, a constitution 
 to be given. One of the most arduous problems was to enter in 
 friendly relations with the neighbouring states, .which had formed 
 once, with German- Austria, a single economic body, connected 
 by thousands of economic links, cruelly broken by the peace. 
 Commercial treaties were to be negociated, questions of inter- 
 communication to be settled and the mutual prohibition of trade 
 to be abolished or at least mitigated. 
 
 But first of all, the government endeavoured to import, on 
 credit, sufficient quantities of food and raw materials. In fact, 
 owing to the depreciation of the currency, Austria can buy only 
 on credit the means necessary for the reconstruction of the anni- 
 hilated economic life. If Austria cannot import sufficient quantities 
 of coals and raw materials, she cannot produce the manufactured 
 goods destined to pay off her debts contracted for the food-supply, 
 she cannot restore the financial equilibrium and free herself from 
 the charity of the Universe. None of the means, calculated to 
 reduce the public debt, was left out of account: heavy charges 
 on all kind of property, confiscation of a certain portion of per- 
 sonal property, avoidance of all unproductive expenditure &c. 
 But the most incisive financial measures will prove ineffectual 
 as long as Austria cannot import mineral coal and raw-material 
 for her industrial enterprises, nor artificial manure and concen- 
 trated forage for her agriculture; whilst Austria cannot freely 
 export to her neighbours, she cannot recover herself. The economic 
 machine of Austria, stopped by the sentence of St. Germain, can 
 only be restored to motion by the Entente. The Austrian crown- 
 currency, fallen to a fiftieth, even to a hundredth of its original 
 value, has ceased to be a mean of financial transactions in foreign 
 countries. The rate of exchange will not rise far above zero, as 
 long as the furnaces are shut down and the industrial works 
 out of working order. The worthlessness of the currency in a 
 country without proper resources leads to fantastically high prices; 
 the public expenditure rises far beyond all bounds; the minister 
 of finance is obliged to keep in uninterrupted motion the bank- 
 notes-press. The results are: a further depreciation of the currency, 
 a new rising of all prices, fresh requests for higher salaries of 
 
Rate of exchange. 
 
 public and private employees, increase of the deficit, more work 
 done by the banknotes -press; so the vicious circle is closed. 
 Austria can be saved only by abundant credits at long delays, 
 rendering her independent in her imports from the ever-changing 
 rate of exchange by the establishment of a fixed rate of exchange 
 between Austria and the gold -standard countries, as well as by 
 the removal of all hindrances from the free development of her 
 economic life. 
 
 THE FINANCIAL POSITION. 
 
 Austria is not viable under the present conditions! This is 
 a truth proved daily by the rate of exchange of the Austrian 
 krone. Bills from Vienna were sold, December 9, 1919, in Zurich 
 at 2.75 cent, the exchange raised a little in the following months, 
 but had fallen afresh, January 27, to l.eo cent. During another 
 crisis, April 1920, the exchange in Zurich was I.45. The maximum level 
 was attained May 29 with 4.2,; since this date, the exchange 
 retrograded, with a variable speed, but without interruption. 
 December 20, 1920, bills from Vienna were quoted at Zurich 
 1.30, the Viennese bank-note O.90, But the spectacle of the Central 
 exchange office in Vienna is far more pitiable, if the rates of 
 ultimo 1919 and ultimo 1920 are compared. Bills from Amsterdam, 
 London and Zurich have risen 350 "/o, the dollar 400 »/o, the Czecho- 
 slovak crown 250% and the mark more than 300 "/o. 
 
 The fiduciary currency was, December 31, 1919: 12 milliards, 
 December 31, 1920: 30.64 milliards kronen. The rapid multiplication 
 of paper currency depreciates the value of the krone at home 
 and abroad. The depreciated paper money influences directly the 
 public expenditure, but muddles also in a disastrous manner the 
 private household economy. Although the monetary crisis seems 
 to have the effect of a stimulus to exportation, this purely 
 imaginary advantage is largely overbalanced by the difficulties 
 in maintaining in working order the national industry, paralysed 
 by the enormously enhanced prices of raw materials from abroad. 
 Only foreign financial help could set the Austrian industry on 
 its feet, but on conditions not leaving any margin to the Austrian 
 employer. What alone dissipates all delusions about a renewal 
 of Austrian industry, are the growing difficulties in the daily life 
 of the workers, forcing them to claim for ever increasing wages 
 
Inflation. Rapid growth of deficit. 
 
 and making unavailable all attempts at correct calculation by 
 the employer. 
 
 The budget for 1920/21 expects a deficit of I2V2 milliards 
 of kronen. By incisive measures in all branches of public receipt 
 (imports, taxes, railway, post, telegraph and telephone tariffs), 
 these receipts augmented from 6.3 to 20.? milliards of kronen, equal to 
 228"/o, in the previous year. But these receipts were over-balanced by 
 public expenditure, amounting till June 1920, to 33.194 milliards, 
 against I6.873 milliards in 1919/20. In Dezember, these figures 
 were widely overstepped; the further monetary depreciation only 
 had effected a loss of 12 milliards, not 3.9 milliards as provided 
 in the budget; the total deficit was about 25 milliards kronen. 
 
 Besides the losses on the exchange, the expenditure for 
 rationed food supply at low prices and the augmented salaries 
 and pensions are the most important items on the expenditure side. 
 The credits of a total amount of 9 milliards, which the Government 
 was in command of for the period between July 1*' and December 31, 
 1920, were entirely exhausted in November, mostly in the form 
 of treasury-bills at 2V2"/o- In the beginning of November, the 
 Government asked new credits for 3.6 milliards of kronen, for 
 the financial requirements till the end of the year. 
 
 Since the exhaustion of the loan of 48 million of dollars, 
 accorded by an American syndicate, Austria is obliged to buy 
 by her proper means the necessary food-supplies. In this manner, 
 the Austrian State suffers enormous losses by the exchange. 
 For the production of the daily bread (rye-flour mixed with 30»/o 
 of maize), Austria borrowed till the end of 1920: 128,940.000 florins 
 (Neth. Curr.); according to the exchange of ultimo November 1920, 
 this figure corresponds to 2O.44 milliards kronen! 'Whilst the 
 price of the rationed loaf was, since 1914, raised from 33 to 
 600 heller, the State suffers, from this only item, an annual net 
 loss of 18 milliards! — 
 
 Only vegetal fats are managed by the State, and produced 
 from raw materials purchased in foreign countries. The commerce 
 of animal fats has been abandoned to private enterprise, resulting 
 in a formidable rising of prices. At the rate of 678 tons of 
 rationed meat per week, distributed by the Public food-supply 
 to particulars, the State sustains an annual loss of three 
 milliards. 
 
Heavy losses in Public food-supply. 
 
 The Public food-supply purchases monthly I.44 millions tins 
 of preserved milk; the purchase money amounted to 100 millions 
 kronen per month, the selling price to 30 millions; thus an 
 annual loss of 840 millions kronen. 
 
 The total expenditure neccesary for the purchase of foreign 
 provisions in the next year (1921) is calculated by the Government 
 at 85 millions of dollar. At the actual quotation of the dollar, 
 the people of Austria could never, by the selling of the entire 
 product of their annual labour, cover the expenses of the bare 
 food-supply. 
 
 The losses sustained by the distribution of rationed food- 
 stuff at low prices are certainly enorm"ous, but they are quite 
 unavoidable. But if this measures were withdrawn and the 
 rationed provisions sold at cost-prices, the prices of all food- 
 stuffs and all other necessities of life would rise to the same 
 level, viz. the price calculated in foreign value and converted 
 into kronen. Very soon, all articles and all services would rise to 
 the parity of international commerce. The State would be obliged 
 to buy all inland commodities at enhanced prices and grant 
 its own servants adequate salaries. But it is just the moderate 
 salaries and wages which enables Austria to export industrial 
 products; these moderate wages are due only to the low prices 
 of the rationed victuals. In the moment the wages should rise 
 to international level, the Austrian industry would work under 
 the highest cost prices, the transport costs for import and export 
 being several times higher for Austria than for any other competing 
 country. An industrial crisis and social upheaval, followed perhaps 
 by bloody struggles, would be the immediate effect. 
 
 The progressive depreciation of the currency raises automatically 
 all prices, even those of national production, for the national 
 labour is dependent in all relations from the foreign countries. 
 The same relation of cause and effect is observable in the 
 expenditure for the public welfare, evaluated in the last budget 
 at 15 milliards kronen. 
 
 It is very difficult to establish the present state of Austria's 
 indebtedness. The total Public Debt of ancient Austria was cal- 
 culated, June 30, 1920, at an amount of 108 milliards, including 
 the losses sustained from the exchange. The share of German 
 Austria in this figure is yet unsettled. Provisionally and subject 
 
8 Public Debt. Plethora of public servants. 
 
 to an ultimate settlement, the Budget Commission had evaluated 
 this share at 48 milliards kronen. The public debt of German 
 Austria was, June 30, 1920, 14,900,000.000 kronen, therefore, the 
 total indebtedness 60 milliards, necessiting an annual interest 
 amount of 5 milliards of kronen. Calculated per head of the 
 population, every citizen of German Austria was indebted, at the 
 above mentioned date, with 10.000 kronen, and even considerably 
 more so to-day. 
 
 The salaries and pensions are evaluated in the budget at 
 8.9 milliards, but have attained, at the end of 1920, nearly 12 
 milliards, equivalent to the moiety of the total annual public 
 receipts. New Austria suffers from an alarming plethora of public 
 servants, owing to the sudden retraction of the frontier-line and 
 the flowing back to Vienna of innumerable servants of all 
 branches of public administration after the collapse. The reduction 
 of this host of public officials will be a matter of serious grief 
 for the young Republic. To pension off indiscriminately all these 
 victims of a force majeure would be a measure as cruel as 
 useless. Out of the total number of 263.141 public officials of 
 all description, about 40.000 could be dismissed without any 
 inconvenience, saving thus about 440 millions of kronen or 2-2 "/o 
 of the annual public deficit, a result out of all proportion with 
 the disastrous effect of such a measure. A certain number of 
 these officials can be employed advantageously in other public 
 services; but a radical reduction must be postponed till the 
 moment, when, with the help of the victorious countries, the 
 economic life of Austria will be restarted. Then, the ill-employed 
 and ill-salaried public servants will run away quite spontaneously 
 in search of a more remunerative position in the industry or in 
 the commerce. 
 
 COMMERCE, INDUSTRY AND COMMUNICATIONS. 
 
 Old Austria-Hungary had, in the last years before the war, 
 a passive commercial balance. Since 1908, the monetary value of 
 the exported raw and manufactured articles was below the value 
 of import-trade; since 1911, ttte bulk of importations outweighed 
 those of exported goods. The deficit in weight was 6V2 millions 
 of metric quintals against 40 millions in 1913. The treaty of peace 
 having ravished from Austria the richest and most flourishing 
 
Imports and Exports. Transit trade. 
 
 provinces, this disproportion between import and export trade was 
 enourmously enhanced. 
 
 During the second semester of 1920, the importations amounted 
 to 20.7 millions of metric quintals, or 558.000 parcels, the expor- 
 ,tations to 5 millions or 347.000 parcels only. Out of that total 
 amount of foreign-borne trade, 70 "/o was the share of the northern 
 States, Germany and Czecho-Slovakia, 16" o of Italy (including 
 the oversea trade via Trieste) and Switzerland, 12''/o of Eastern 
 Europe, Hungary and Yougoslavia, and 2''/o of other countries. 
 The transit trade had engaged 3.4 millions of metric quintals. 
 About two thirds of the whole transit trade was carried in the 
 north-southern route, and one third in the west-eastern route. 
 Commercial statistics of the second semester 1919 and the first 
 semester 1920 show that Germany hojds the first place in import 
 trade and the third place in exportations. But regarding the value 
 the figures of which are not yet published for 1920, it would 
 appear that Germany holds the second place in the import trade. 
 The total amount of importations in the above-named twelvemonth 
 was 45 millions of metric quintals, whereof 18 millions from 
 Germany, 15.i5 from Czecho-Slovakia, 2.2 from Poland, and 2 from 
 Italy. Out of the total amount of 9.8 millions exported goods in 
 the same period, I.9 millions were the share of Germany, 2.5 of 
 Czecho-Slovakia, O.4 of Poland, and 2.8 of Italy. 
 
 FOREIGN COMMERCE OF AUSTRIA 
 
 From January 1st to September 30, 1920. 
 
 (Quantities in metric quintals or in parcels.) 
 
 Import: Export: 
 
 Tnt«i „,.«„ti«P« / in metric quintals (q) . . . .q 35,661,470 8,543.734 
 lotal quantities , ^^^^^^^ ^^^^ g^ ^^^^^^ ^g2,559 
 
 Colonial products q 22.874 792 
 
 Spices , 4.880 319 
 
 Southern fruits, agrumes 79.085 150 
 
 Sugar „ 509.071 72 
 
 Tobacco 29.929 1.183 
 
 Grain, malt, legumes, flour and other milled grains, 
 
 rice „ 3,174.739 26.194 
 
 whereof: 
 
 grain , 1,719.743 26.137 
 
 malt „ 92.495 — 
 
 legumes 238.756 11 
 
10 Foreign trade January to September 1920. 
 
 Import: Export: 
 
 flour q 984.835 25 
 
 other milled grains 79.892 20 
 
 husked rice 59.018 1 
 
 Fruits, vegetables and vegetable products , 1,598.223 99.569 
 
 whereof: • 
 
 fruits , 117.966 35.862 
 
 fresh sugar beet 15.297 37.574 
 
 potatoes „ 812.786 18 
 
 other vegetables , 556.971 2.540 
 
 seeds •„ 32.801 3.135 
 
 hay 43.227 6.257 
 
 Cattle for slaughter and draught St. 11.580 1.757 
 
 Other animals (poultry, fishes) q 7.771 438 
 
 Animal products „ 48.490 8.013 
 
 vifhereof: 
 
 eggs „ 13.513 — 
 
 honey (natural and artificial) „ 13.757 1 
 
 hides and skins , „ 14.198 2.317 
 
 Grease and fat 308.373 12.189 
 
 whereof: 
 
 animal fat „ 192.726 3.343 
 
 vegetable grease „ 115.647 8.846 
 
 Fatty oils 32.943 1.553 
 
 Beverages „ 710.663 119.350 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Beer „ 118.468 43,332 
 
 Wine „ 557.410 70.985 
 
 Articles of food „ 419.226 ' 18.052 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Meat, fresh or preserved, sausages , 119.919 2.436 
 
 cheese 18.754 14 
 
 Salted fishes and others 52.591 — 
 
 Preserved milk 55.4371 
 
 other alimentary preserves „ 101.543' 
 
 Confectionery and sweetmeats 11.411 5.000 
 
 Wood, coal and peat 24,745.029 2,370.812 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Fire-wood „ 1,000.621 14.849 
 
 Timber and lumber , 123.280 2,255.996 
 
 Brown coal and lignite „ 3,635.330 22.190 
 
 Black coal and anthracite „ 18,409.152 103 
 
 Coke „ 1,415.715 74.862 
 
 Raw materials for turners and carvers „ 10.868 2.820 
 
 3.699 
 
Foreign trade January to September 1920. 1 1 
 
 Import: Export: 
 
 Mineral products q 732.231 2,225.008 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Building and quarry-stones , 85.588 55.369 
 
 Minerals , 31.444 889.015 
 
 Dyeing earths 51.050 23.986 
 
 Natural phosphates „ 92.299 — 
 
 Kaolin „ 101.985 2.078 
 
 Clay , 102.214 9.052 
 
 Broken stones „ 16.217 357.210 
 
 Sand • , 135.636 49.644 
 
 Plaster „ 3.791 165.308 
 
 Magnesite 32 470.737 
 
 Pharmaceutical and perfumery products , 343 52 
 
 Colouring and tanning stuffs , 30.144 31.641 
 
 Gums, resins and turpentines „ 47.763 5.854 
 
 Mineral oils, slate-tar . „ 323.874 3.731 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Petrol, refined 62.609 241 
 
 Benzine, refined „ 63.830 1.352 
 
 Lubricant oils „ 159.057 1.339 
 
 Cotton, cotton yarn and cotton goods „ 121.407 52.939 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Cotton „ 82.173 16.093 
 
 Cotton yarn „ 8.907 15.906 
 
 Cotton goods „ • 29.324 ■ 20.033 
 
 Flax, hemp, jute and other vegetable textile products, 
 
 yarns and textile goods „ 27.312 17.711 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Flax „ 1.097 65 
 
 hemp 15.609 2 
 
 jute „ 3.219 — 
 
 flax-, hemp-, jute- and paper-yarns 930 1.981 
 
 textile goods of those , 6.166 10.720 
 
 Wool, woollen yarns and woollen goods 37.159 14.676 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Wool „ 13.465 8.065 
 
 woollen yarns 1.825 4.074 
 
 woollen goods „ 21.860 2.537 
 
 Silk and silken goods „ 3.759 3.170 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Spun silk 1.816 1.932 
 
 silken goods „ 1.938 609 
 
 o ^ H , *u- ^ •„• » 746 7.952 
 
 Ready-made clothmg and mdhnery ^^ 32^^20 469889 
 
 whereof: 
 
 hats and hat-shapes St. 320.372 459.538 
 
 Clothing, linen and fancy goods q 720 7.536 
 
12 
 
 Foreign trade January to September 1920. 
 
 Import: 
 
 Brushes, brooms and sieves q 4.295 
 
 Other goods, manufactured of straw, canes, bark and 
 other materials not specified in the customs- 
 tariff „ 4.371 
 
 Paper and paper goods „ 128.102 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Paper-pulp 39.204 
 
 Cardbord • . „ 22.688 
 
 paper . 40.216 
 
 Paper goods • . „ 18.206 
 
 Rubber, gutta-percha and rubber goods „ 13.807 
 
 Oil-cloth and derivative goods ,, 1.049 
 
 Leather and leather articles 3.846 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Leather • • • ,, 2.600 
 
 Leather articles , 1.246 
 
 Furriery „ 457 
 
 Wooden articles, turners and carvers articles . . „ 34.609 
 whereof: 
 
 Furniture 4.455 
 
 Glass and glass-ware „ 110.440 
 
 Stone industry „ 337.927 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Cement , 292.067 
 
 Earthenware Industry „ 187.392 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Bricks and tiles „ 121.870 
 
 Iron and hardware „ 617.880 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Pig-iron „ 171.254 
 
 Ingots and bars „ 111.736 
 
 Iron-plate and wires „ 83.51 1 
 
 hardware „ 251.379 
 
 Other base metals and derivative articles . . . . „ 56.485 
 whereof: 
 
 raw metals „ 45.928 
 
 foils, sheets, plates, bars and wires . . . . „ 6.115 
 
 wrought articles „ 4.442 
 
 Machines and apparatus in wood, iron and base 
 
 metals 128.565 
 
 Electric machines and apparatus and electric plants „ 10.091 
 whereof: 
 
 Dynamos and electric motors „ 3.820 
 
 Electric lamps „ 1.068 
 
 Export: 
 1.100 
 
 752 
 514.094 
 
 136.51! 
 
 159.492 
 
 176.410 
 
 40.665 
 
 7.620 
 
 1.061 
 
 15.441 
 
 2.073 
 13.368 
 
 702 
 143.694 
 
 56.212 
 
 54.630 
 132.068 
 
 85.895 
 212.459 
 
 190.CI08 
 1,270.243 
 
 553.973 
 183.968 
 
 96.183 
 436.119 
 
 83.397 
 
 62.425 
 
 4.647 
 
 16.325 
 
 153.116 
 38.297 
 
 13.131 
 5.475 
 
Foreign ^trade January to September 1920. 13 
 
 Import: Export: 
 
 r q 8.418 72.907 
 
 Vehicles St. 649 4.668 
 
 . It 105 31 
 whereof: 
 
 Motor-cars ' ■ • q 2.576 44.353 
 
 Goods-waggons for railways -^ „ 3.506 13.249 
 
 Precious metals, precious and hard stones, derivative 
 
 articles and coins „ 250 1.258 
 
 Instruments , 4.262 11.947 
 
 Watches, watch-cases and mechanisms St. 43.794 Ifi.245 
 
 Salt q 113.016 6.597 
 
 Chemical products and agents „ 492.191 324.135 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Manuring salts , 163.906 - 
 
 Carbide of calcium „ 46.644 4.647 
 
 Roasted phosphates „ 63.911 — 
 
 Roasted magnesite „ 747 52.579 
 
 Supersulphate of natrium „ 12 47.002 
 
 Carbonate of soda „ 8 72.266 
 
 Varnishes, colours, drugs and perfumes „ 15.706 20.920 
 
 Candles, soaps and wax-ware „ 8.694 4.376 
 
 Matches „ 296 56.005 
 
 Objects of art and books . . . . ' „ 21.256 16.244 
 
 Waste-substances „ 331.163 376.431 
 
 whereof: 
 
 Scoria „ 32.620 246.637 
 
 Brans „ 126.723 1 
 
 Out of the productive forces of the old Habsburg Empire, 
 German-Austria holds only 23 "A. of the population, 30 "/o of the 
 industrial workers and 20"/,, of the heating surface of the steam- 
 boilers. But only Va 7n of the annual output of coal is the share 
 of German-Austria. Before the war, Austria has imported from 
 Germany (Upper-Silesia) 4.3 million tons of coal annualy. The 
 output of these collieries has lowered to three-quarters of the 
 pre-war amount, but modern Aiistria receives now a quantity far 
 inferior to the share the same provinces had received from there 
 in pre-war times, evaluated at a half of this share. More than 
 leo/o of the total coal-output of Bohemia were consumed by the 
 countries now constituting Austria; to day, Austria receives but 
 a third of this amount and that in brovvn coal of a very inferior 
 quality. This fuel is to be paid at exorbitant rates or in iron-ore 
 and iron-waste of which Austria herself is in a niost urgent need. 
 
14 Lack of coal. Insuffici ency of J jinports. 
 
 ■ ' 'p^ 
 
 Under those conditions, Austria i5'%W/rendered to the discretion 
 of the coal-producing countries, V.able to submit to all conditions 
 and to pay any price. Austr.u must pay the German coal at a 
 rate superior by 100 maAs per ton to rates valid in Germany; 
 for Czecho-slovak coal, Austria is submitted to an extra consumption- 
 tax of 30 "/o, without counting the transport fees, settled arbitrarily 
 by the Czecho-slovak Government. 
 
 The cnr.ventions made between the State or particulars and 
 Czecho-Slovakia, Poland and Silesia in order to secure the 
 necessary fuel, do not cover more than 40 "/o of the required 
 amount. But even this small quantity is never delivered regularly 
 or is not delivered at all, so that during the first nine months 
 of 1920, only 26 "/o of the promised amount was delivered. If 
 Austria could import the whole amount of coal necessary for 
 household an industrial consumption, she would be liable to pay 
 annually, at the exchange-rate of autumn 1920, the gigantic sum 
 of 19 milliards of kronen, inferior to the sum evolving from the 
 exchange-rate of ultimo 1920. 
 
 The total quantity of coal required for industry, communication 
 and household purposes is evaluated at 1,326.950 tons monthly 
 or 15,923.400 tons annually. The total quantity effectivly disposed 
 of (imports and home-production) amounted to 4,824.123 in 1919, 
 and 6,469.000 tons in 1920. January 1919, the percentage was 
 27-2 %, in Decembre 1920: 41gVo- The beneficial influence of this 
 ameliorated situation is exhibited in the following figures, showing 
 the percentage of supplied deficiencies in fuel in different 
 industries: 
 
 January 1920 October 1920 
 
 0/ 0/ 
 
 la /o - 
 
 Textile industries 17-4 40 2 
 
 Leather „ 18-3 439 
 
 Wood „ 5-1 499 
 
 Paper „ 325 522 
 
 Mining „ 207 429 
 
 Salt-works 581 675 
 
 Chemical industries 149 433 
 
 Glass and pottery industries .... 255 48' 1 
 
 Building industries 121 27-1 
 
 Monopoly of Tobacco 267 262 
 
 Alimentary industries 31 9 334 
 
 Metallurgical „ 397 48-3 
 
Industrial stagnation caused by wout of coal. 15 
 
 These satisfactory results have been obtained by using the 
 most strenuous efforts to enhance the importations and to develop 
 the home production of coal. 
 
 The output of the Austrian collieries has augmented since 
 1919 by a fifth (from 2 to 2V2 millions of tons), thanks to the 
 indefatigable excertions of the owners and the good-will of the 
 miners, having sacrificed even their Sunday rest, notwithstanding 
 the serious difficulties arising from the inadequate and insufficient 
 food -supply. This comparatively important rise in the annual 
 output proves that the Austrian collieries could double their 
 production in a short lapse of time by a sustained cooperation of 
 all interested parties. It is true, Austria will always be dependent 
 from foreign imports of coal and will never be capable of satisfying 
 the demands, especially in gas-coal, the collieries in the Austrian 
 area yielding almost exclusively brown-coal or lignite of a very 
 inferior description, only a twentieth producing first class black coal. 
 
 Owing to the insufficiency of coal-imports, the products of 
 the Austrian industry are reduced to about a quarter of pre-war 
 quantities. The paper manufacture, once one of the most flourishing 
 branches of Austria's industry, working exclusively on inland 
 raw-materials, was occupied in 1920 only with 20% of its entire 
 capacity, the textile industry with 25. to 30Vo. The electrical 
 industry, having hitherto always worked for exportation, had 
 attained in 1920 only a third of its pre-war export-amount. The 
 production of salt is reduced to 400/0, nay to 30"/'o. The iron-ore 
 mines had an annual output of 600.000 tons, in 1920 they had 
 produced only 50.000 tons, a twelfth of the pre-war production. 
 The "Alpine Montan-Gesellschaft", to-day the biggest industrial 
 concern in Austria, wants a monthly supply of at least 5000 waggons 
 of coke. The Austrian collieries not being able to supply any 
 part of this want, the Alpine Society is reduced to 250 waggons 
 from Germany and 1000 waggons from Silesia (Mahrisch-Ostrau) 
 per month. Therefore, the Society was obliged to blow out six 
 blast-furnaces out of the seven in working before the war. In the 
 face of this penury of coal, the most stringent measures of 
 economy must remain ineffectual. 
 
 The coal disaster has directed the views of the public to 
 the exploitation of what is called the white coal, viz. the hydraulic 
 powers of running water. German-Austria disposes of an enormous 
 
16 Hydraulic powers in Austrian Alps. 
 
 amount of this latent forces. The kinetic forces of the great 
 rivers in the Austrian Alps are calculated, on the strength of 
 scientific observations made during a period of several years, at 
 1,700.000 H. P., the total amount of all the water-courses at 
 about 3 millions H. P., whereof 2,250.000 H. P. economically 
 productive! Only by electrifying the traction of the Austrian 
 Railways in the Alps, an annual quantity of 7 millions tons of 
 coal out of the" total 15 millions could be spared. As long as 
 the coal and petrol were available at very moderate rates and in 
 practically unlimited quantities, the question of the white coal was of 
 secondary importance, the remunerative working of electrical 
 power having been very often questioned owing to local conditions. 
 On the other hand, the military authorities had been against the 
 electric traction of the whole network of railways in the Alps. 
 As the matter stood, only 10 "/o of the available hydraulic forces 
 were utilised at the beginning of the war. 
 
 The plant for electrical traction of the Austrian State-railways 
 in the Alps, about 650 kilometers or a seventh of the total length 
 of State-railways in Austria, could be realised by the construction 
 of five generating central stations; this work would demand about 
 five years. Also private initiative has seized the opportunity, 
 notwithstanding the deplorable monetary conditions. Thirty-seven 
 new stations generating electic power by hydraulic forces are under 
 construction or in working order since 1920. In order to provide 
 Vienna with electric current, the Danube will be utilised, along 
 with the productive gradient of the Enns and Ybbs rivers, yielding 
 an approximate amount of 280 to 400.000 H. P. But the construction 
 of electric force stations requires both coal and capital; therefore 
 all these schemes could not be realised without the support of 
 foreign capital. The lucrativeness seems to be above all doubts, 
 as only a fifth of the total demand of electric force is supplied 
 by the existing stations. The cost of construction per H. P. was 
 1601^ in 1913, but only 100 -J in 1920, owing to the depreciated 
 Austrian currency. 
 
 Besides coal, there are many other important raw materials 
 wanting in Austria. Only wood, magnesite, iron ore and salt 
 are superabundant. But the lack of coal hempers a rational 
 exploitation of the riches in iron ore, making impossible to restart 
 the blast furnaces. The cement production suffers from the same 
 
Languishing industries. Railways. |7 
 
 causes, as the brick and tile industry too. The wood-industry 
 and furniture manufacturing, once very flourishing, have worl<ed 
 especially for exportation. In 1919, the sudden fall of the Austrian 
 krone has offered a momentary chance for exportation; but a slight 
 bettering in the exchange had stopped at one stroke this movement; 
 since then, in spite of an ever increasing depreciation of the 
 Austrian currency, the chance has never reappeared. Austria has, 
 in his Viennese manufactures, a large stock of skilled workers 
 in all branches of higher craft; the Vienna fancy articles, once 
 renowned far abroad in all quarters of the world, were produced 
 by men of a refined taste and high manual skill. But now, those 
 articles of a comparatively high price are not more at the reach 
 of the financial means of the average Austrian, and cannot be 
 exported for the sake of prehibitory measures against articles of 
 luxury in almost all countries. 
 
 Other branches of business, once very remunerative, cannot 
 be restarted without the importation of raw materials, e. g. the 
 textile, metallurgic, chimical, electrical, or alimentary industries. 
 Most of these establishments had worked principally for export- 
 trade and could offer all rational securities for foreign investments 
 in raw-materials and coal. 
 
 AUSTRIAN RAILWAYS. 
 
 (besides those in the territories occupied by foreign 
 Powers January 31, 1920). 
 
 length in kilometers 
 single lines double lines 
 
 State Railways ^ worked by the State .... 4.289-968 1.093-275 
 
 I worked by private Companies . 2149 2149 
 
 Private Railways worked by private Companies . 1.971199 434-168 
 
 6.263-316 1.529 592 
 
 The new frontier-lines, dictated by the Peace-treaty, had 
 severed from Austria several junctions of first importance. Big 
 establishments for the passenger and goods-service near the 
 frontiers have been lost; the new frontier stations are neither calculated 
 nor suitable for their new functions. The great lines of inter- 
 national traffic have been broken up, and only worthless stumps 
 remained on Austrian territory. A merchant, wishing to send his 
 articles to Italy, is obliged to handle four different railway-tariffs 
 and to calculate in four different currencies. The railway merchandise- 
 
18 Austria blocked by neighbours. 
 
 tariffs are exceedingly higfi, a consequence of the economic 
 pressure in autumn 1920. Now they are about fifty times as 
 high as in 1914. In spite of these rates, the expenditure exceeds 
 the receipts by 1,400,000.000 kronen, In the neighbouring States, 
 the tariffs are not less prohibitive in proportion to the rate of 
 exchange. After ail, the oscillations of the exchange paralyse all 
 efforts to establish rational business calculations. The existing 
 difficulties owing to trade regulations, official interference in all 
 commercial matters, export or import prohibitions, are infinitely 
 enhanced by the intolerable and humiliating vexations in passport 
 and personal control matters on the frontier, paralysing all 
 personal commercial intersourse. 
 
 Like the other industries, the transport business suffers from 
 lack of coal. Between the industry, unable to maintain the means 
 of communication in good repair, and the means of transport being 
 quite inadequate, there is a vicious circle very difficult to overcome. 
 
 Eastern 1920, the total lack of coal had caused an entire 
 interruption of the railway service for several weeks. Since then, 
 the situation had ameliorated a little; a stock of coal, sufficient 
 for a few days, had been accumulated in order to avoid the 
 irrational management, inavoidable when the stocks are almost 
 completely exhausted. Also the railway workshops have been set 
 in working order lately. 
 
 THE UNEMPLOYMENT. 
 
 Owing to the general industrial crisis, many of the Austrian 
 workmen are reduced to idle during several months in the year. 
 Even the most skilled hands in the luxury branches, e. g. in the 
 graphic arts, are obliged to shift. In order to reduce the growing 
 number of unemployed workers, the Government had enacted in 
 1919, that every industrial business must engage a surplus of 
 one fifth of the average pre-war numbers of workers. But in con- 
 sequence of the lack of raw materials, neither this surplus nor 
 the ordinary number of workers could be employed continuously; 
 therefore the costs of production increased disproportionately. But 
 owing to the exhaustion of the international stock in manufactured 
 goods in the beginning of 1920 and the fall in the exchange of 
 Austrian currency, exportation was nevertheless possible, reducing 
 sensibly the number of unemployed. 
 
Unemployment. J 9 
 
 The oscillations of unemployment are shown in the following 
 table: 
 
 RATES OF UNEMPLOYED WORKERS: 
 
 1918 1919 
 
 Dez.l^'Feb. P' Apr. 1^' May 1" June P' Aug. 1** Oct. 1=' Nov. 1" 
 Vienna (town) . 24503 113905 126906 131500 127556 113379 96300 73023 
 Whole Austria . 45675 161803 178562 185238 170935 133400 112340 87107 
 
 1920 
 
 Feb, 9 MayP' June 5 Jule 3 Aug. 14 Sept. 11 Oct. 23 
 Vienna (town) . 51979 35956 16005 18321 20550 17964 13028 
 Whole Austria . 64483 46850 20510 22956 24184 21056 15046 
 
 Against the total number of actual industrial workers, only 
 S-bVo are unemployed. Between November 18, 1918 and March 15, 
 1920, the State had paid 370 millions of kronen in assistance 
 to unemployed workers; taking in account the additional expenditure 
 by the Vienna Municipality, the total amount of assistance to 
 unemployed was about 447 millions. In order to substitute the 
 official and obligatory assistance by the State, enacted by an 
 emergency law after the collapse of the Empire, the law of May 
 1*' 1920 instituted the obligatory insurance against unemployment. 
 The public treasury, the employers and the employed have each 
 an equal share of one third in the expenditure of this service. 
 The public sick -fund -offices are charged with the receipt and 
 management of these contributions, collected simultanuously with 
 those for the sick-fund. The subsidies are granted all workers 
 having been actually employed in industrial enterprises during twenty 
 weeks in the twelvemonth preceding the unemployment. In the 
 future, the subsidies will not be paid for more than twelve 
 consecutive weeks. The maximal amount of subsidy is fixed at 
 80% of sick-subsidy for married workers and at 60"/ii for 
 bachelors. The Government is authorised to enhance, transitorily, 
 the subsidies to lOO'/o and 75''/o respectively, and to protract 
 the term of subsidies to twenty consecutive weeks. 
 
 SUBSISTENCE. 
 
 Austria is wanting not only raw materials but also food- 
 stuffs. The old Austrian Empire too had been dependent on 
 importations, although 37 o/o of the entire population had provided 
 
 2* 
 
Scarcity of 
 
 themselves with food (as against 19»/o in German-Austria). In 
 pre-war time, out of 144 i<ilogr. of flour per head and year, 
 46 kilogr. were to be imported from abroad. 
 
 German-Austria in her present frontiers produced formerly 
 about a fifth of her total consumption of grain. In consequence 
 of the ruthless exhaustion of the soil during the war and of the 
 lack of artificial manure, the crops have materially diminished, 
 so that in 1919, German-Austria had harvested only 4.5 millions 
 of m. qu. of grain; this figure, after substracting 15% for seeds, 
 and counting 72 "/o as the outcome of the milling process, means 
 a daily ration of 103 grammes of flour per head and day, against 
 a daily pre-war consumption of 386 grammes per head. German- 
 Austria was thus able to provide in pre-war times only 27% of 
 her want. For the exceptionally fine harvest of 1920, the Ministry 
 for Agriculture calculated a total crop of grain of 5.3 millions 
 of m. qu. 
 
 Arable fields 
 18.026 
 
 DISTRIBUTION OF SOIL IN SQUARE KM 
 
 Meadows and 
 
 Pasturages 
 
 21.155 
 
 Gardens 
 957 
 
 Vineyards 
 510 
 
 Forests 
 29.763 
 
 Unproductive 
 
 7.780 
 
 HARVESTS ON 17.906 SQUARE KM OF TILLED LAND: 
 
 (official communication to the Commission of Reparations) 
 in millions of m. qu. 
 
 absolute ^^^'^°^ P''°P^"' !°' '^"'"^" 
 
 consumption 
 
 1-27 
 
 0-10 
 
 225 
 
 040 
 
 Wheat 
 
 1-68 
 
 Oats 
 
 218 
 
 Rye 
 
 301 
 
 Barley 
 
 113 
 
 Maize 
 
 0-73 
 
 Potatoes 
 
 8-31 
 
 Sugar 
 
 — 
 
 Pulses 
 
 005 
 
 3-60 
 008 
 0-04 
 
 HARVESTS ACCORDING TO OFFJCIAL ESTIMATIONS 
 
 per hectar 
 
 Average 1909/18 1920 
 m. qu. 
 
 Wheat 12-4 10 
 
 Rye 11-8 99 
 
 Barley 11-4 108 
 
 Oats 10-5 8-5 
 
 Potatoes 78-2 75 
 
Grain and flour. Live stock. 21 
 
 For the needs of the non-agricultural populations, the farmers 
 are obliged to deliver to Authority a contingent of 110.000 tons 
 of grain. Suppose the whole amount of this contingent were 
 delivered — but that is not true — 570.000 tons would be 
 lacking to cover the entire want. For the feeding of cattle and 
 for industrial purposes, more 100.000 tons of maize and barley 
 are required. But it is necessary to bear in mind that only a 
 pound of flour and two and a quarter pound of bread is the 
 official weekly ration per head. In 1913, Vienna consumed eight 
 millions of kilogr. of bread in the week, in 1919 only 2V2 millions; 
 in 1913, one million of kilogr. of flour was consumed weekly in 
 Vienna, in 1919 only half a million. Between July 1920 and 
 July 1921, 73.400 tons of potatoes ought to be delivered to the 
 authorities by the farmers. Counting 60 kilogr. at least per head and 
 year, this figure shows a deficit of 247.500 tons for German-Austria, 
 without counting the feeding of cattle and the seed. ' The only 
 four sugar -factories existing within the territories of . German- 
 Austria, (180 in the whole Empire) have an output of 12.000 tons 
 per year. But the minimum consumption, at the war-rate of 
 0.75 kilogr. per head and month, as against 2 kilogr. in pre-war 
 times, requires an additional amount of 100.000 tons, not counting 
 the quantity of 38.000 tons for industrial purposes. 
 
 In consequence of the terrible diminution of the live stock 
 during the war and the severance of vast agricultural tracts of 
 first importance by the Treaty of Peace, the dairy service of 
 German-Austria is utterly disabled. In 1913, Vienna was povided 
 with 850.000 liters of milk per day, but nowadays only with 
 60.000 liters. To supply the deficit, Vienna wants 540.000 chests 
 of tins of preserved milk at least. 
 
 Austria is now able to provide only 24.000 tons of meat. 
 The amount of importations to cover the deficit would be 17.000 
 tons for the year ending with July 1921, at the basis of 120 
 grammes per head and week (in pre-war time: 595 grammes); 
 only 2600 tons of fats were raised during 1920. 
 
 Even when the Government had succeeded in making the 
 necessary conventions about the imports of food-stuffs, the schemes 
 for the food-supply are very often frustrated by difficulties in 
 transport-matters, resulting in a serious crisis in the subsistence 
 of the people, like that during November 1920. The bread was 
 
22 Dearth. Average prices. 
 
 totally unfit and uneatable, so that the public refused to buy it; 
 without a prompt help from Germany and Switzerland, the daily 
 bread and flour rations could not have been maintained. 
 
 There was much talk about the exorbitant workers' wages 
 in Austria in the foreign press, owing to misrepresentation and 
 deliberately false reports, in order to show the luxury of the daily 
 life of the Austrian worker. In reality, the proportion between 
 wages and prices of the first necessities is far more unfavourable 
 now than before the war. The same observation is to be made 
 for the public and private servants and all persons living on fixed 
 salaries. The public servants are enjoying, it is true, the favour 
 of not being exposed to unemployment, but their salaries are far 
 from raising to the level of the wages of qualified factory-hands, 
 working in enterprises under a momentary bloom. All classes of 
 Austrian people are generally underfed and therefore, their working 
 capacity is enormously shattered. 
 
 The prices of rationed food-stuffs have risen, since pre-war 
 time, about twentyfour-fold, the other first necessities of life 
 much more, without considering the prices of the back-door- 
 trade. 
 
 The following comparative table, containing the average 
 weekly expenditure of an average Austrian family of three members 
 offers an impressive picture of the astonishing prices of victuals, 
 noted in the second half of December 1920, but materially surpassed 
 now, excepted the rationed victuals. 
 
 
 
 1914 
 
 1920 
 
 
 
 austrian 
 
 crowns 
 
 3 kilogr. of 
 
 wheat-flour 
 
 1.20 
 
 150.- 
 
 5 
 
 rye-flour 
 
 -.90 
 
 250'.- 
 
 Vo „ „ 
 
 pore 
 
 1.20 
 
 190.- 
 
 * » » 
 
 cabbage 
 
 -.16 
 
 7.- 
 
 1 „ „ 
 
 rice 
 
 —.44 
 
 60.- 
 
 ' ji » 
 
 peas 
 
 -.40 
 
 32.- 
 
 * » >> 
 
 lentils 
 
 -.56 
 
 62.- 
 
 * » » 
 
 groats 
 
 -.44 
 
 50.- 
 
 * W " 
 
 peeled grains 
 
 -.36 
 
 32.- 
 
 ' » « 
 
 fat 
 
 1.80 
 
 250.- 
 
 3 
 
 potatoes 
 
 -.30 
 
 30.- 
 
 * J} f> 
 
 salt 
 
 -.14 
 
 8.50 
 
 1 dekagr. „ 
 
 cummin 
 
 -.02 
 
 1.— 
 
 3 pairs of 
 
 ittle sausages 
 
 —.50 
 
 60.- 
 
Prices and wages. Death- and birth-rates. 23 
 
 1914 1920 
 
 ^ austrian crowns 
 
 '/a liter of beer - .16 4.50 
 
 '/, „ „ wine —.20 U.— 
 
 1 „ „ milk —.20 14.— 
 
 3 eggs —.30 36.— 
 
 total 9.28. 1251.— 
 
 These figures show the rise of the expenditure on subsistence 
 to the hundred and tirthy-fold, compared with pre-war prices. The 
 salaries and wages have been left far behind this dearness. Sir 
 William Goode calculated the rise of the wages of industrial 
 workers at twenty to thirty times, of railway-men at twelve to 
 fourteen times, for State-officials, bank-clerks and others at ten 
 times the pre-war level. 
 
 This disproportion between income and expenditure, enhanced 
 from time to time by fresh waves of general dearth, leads ineluctably 
 to permanent unrest and claims for higher wages, endangering 
 the economic and public life by strikes, it was only thanks to the 
 discretion of the workers and employees and thanks to the conciliatory 
 interference of the Syndicates and public Authorities that Austria 
 was exempted till to day from serious social troubles. 
 
 But nobody is capable to prevent the physical consumption ' 
 of the people, a chronic disease diminishing the working power 
 and destroying the very root of the vital energies. The figures of 
 the vital statistics show a vivid picture of this serious illness. 
 
 During the war, the number of living births was steadily 
 diminishing in Austria, the number of deaths, above all the deaths 
 by tuberculosis increasing. The increase of deaths affected all 
 classes of ages of both sexes. After the war, there have been 
 many notable changes in the figures. The number of living births 
 augmented, between 1918 and 1919, from 90.921 to 109.392, viz. 
 more than 20"/o. All the provinces shared this increase; in Vienna, 
 there were 5090 more births in 1919 than in 1918. The number 
 of deaths (civil population) decreased from 161.113 to 123.837 
 between 1918 and 1919, viz. more than 23''/o. But it is necessary 
 to insist upon the fact that in 1919, the influenza had taken away 
 in Austria more than 20.000 persons, but in 1920 had lost most 
 of its virulence. The death-rate decreased equally in all the province.^; 
 in Vienna, it was 4.713. 
 
 ik.<V 
 
24 A people destined to extinction. 
 
 Notwithstanding the increase of living births, the birth-rate 
 is very small; but the death-cate is very high, although the deaths 
 having decreased. In 1919, for every 1000 inhabitants, there were 
 returned 18 living births and 2O.4 deaths, resulting in a deficit of 
 2.4 births. During several months, a slight amelioration was 
 ascertained; but in November, the death-rate was higher than in 
 any year — november 1918 excepted — since long ago. The highest 
 figures are concerning the heart- and vascular-diseases, not more 
 the tuberculosis as in the previous period. But in Vienna, the 
 tuberculosis is still growing (9809 deaths in 1919 against 8950 
 in 1918). 
 
 The excessively high death-rate in Austria is therefore not 
 due to epidemics, but to the dearth and general misery. The 
 infectious diseases, the Health-office is able to combat, have not 
 increased. 
 
 Only a general reconstruction of the public life could ameliorate 
 the public health in Austria. The large majority of the people live 
 in a state of utter misery; the number of those, whose chronic 
 enfeeblement has turned to an incurable disease is growing every 
 day. The Austrian people has not yet been stamped out totally 
 by sheer famine, but the birth-rate has fallen to a level only 
 Kown in aborigenes of remote countries, condeinned to extinction. 
 Amidst the thousands of underfed children and women, the "white 
 death", the tuberculosis is making terrible ravages. 
 
 ALIMENTARY AND HYGIENIC SITUATION OF THE YOUTH. 
 
 The long war and, more than the war, the consequences of 
 the great struggle, had a pernicious influence on the alimentary 
 and sanitary conditions of the youth. 
 
 The children having been reared during life war are, generally 
 speaking, visibly deficient in bodily strength, tallness and weight; 
 rickets have enormously increased and materially contributed to 
 the rise of the juvenile death-rate. 
 
 The Austrian youths have been, in recent times, often examined 
 by medical men in the course of the general works of charity, 
 especially in view of the distribution of meals and the returns 
 of these inspections have been minutely registered. 
 
 The census of nursing mothers and suckling babies is 
 entrusted to the "Maternity-offices". The school-boys and girls 
 
Languishing children. 25 
 
 have been repeatedly examined by the official school-physicians, 
 responsible for the medical supervision of public schools, as 
 well as by physicians appointed by private charitable institutions 
 and by physicians in the service of the numerous foreign orga- 
 nisations for Austria's help. The children above 14 of age have 
 been examined in the higher schools and art and crafts schools, 
 by the physicians of the educational staff, many of these juveniles 
 also by physicians in foreign service. 
 
 The mothers, not being able to buy artificial or ready made 
 foodstuffs, nurse their babies at the breast as long as possible, 
 six months, nay nine or twelve months. The sanitary condition of 
 these babies is therefore quite satisfactory. 
 
 But the sanitary condition of the little children (from one 
 to six years of age) is extremely bad, almost everything wanting, 
 or being too expensive, such a child is in need of after the suckling 
 period, in the open country, conditions are somewhat better, but 
 much the worse in industrial centres, above all in Vienna. 
 
 in spite of the humanitary work of the "Society of Friends" 
 for the rescue of little children, the returns of the medical 
 examinations, made in the beginning of the winter 1920, were 
 most unsatisfactory. 85.000 boys and girls were examined; 107o 
 only were returned in the class "good", 907o as shattered in their 
 physical strength. 18% of those boys and girls were returned 
 as sick, thereof 5% suffering from chronic diseases, condemned 
 to a life-long sickness. 
 
 Also the dwellings of those ill-fed children were visited; 
 42% of these dwellings are unfit, dark, ill-aerated, damp or 
 crowded, 47% thereof not containing berth-accommodation for the 
 children. 
 
 The number of underfed boys and girls is as equally high 
 in the so-called middle-classes, living on fixed salaries or occupied 
 in free vocations, as in the industrial working classes. Even in 
 the classes of commercial and industrial employers, the alimentary 
 conditions are not much better. 
 
 Out of 50.000 children of less of six years of age under 
 medical inspection, 33% suffer from rickets, 147o from anaemia. 
 The comparatively small figures of tuberculosis is due to the 
 fact that only ambulant children were returned, children in bed 
 not being included in the census. 
 
26 90% of little children underfed. 
 
 Detailed particulars have been obtained for the alimentary 
 conditions of the Vienna school-going youths (from 6 to 14 years 
 of age). About 130.000 girls and boys have been examined in 
 Vienna, 90.000 in Lower-Austria. In spite of the munificent 
 help from foreign countries, the alimentation of this class of youth 
 is highly deficient. Only 28 "/o of all these boys and girls were 
 classified as "good" and "middling", 72 "/o as "bad" and "very 
 bad". The beneficial influence of foreign help is clearly shown 
 by the fact that girls, largely favoured by foreign families and 
 other benefactors and staying much longer time in foreign countries, 
 have a comparatively very large share in the "good" and "middling" 
 classification. 
 
 44% of all boys under medical inspection were returned as 
 "very bad", against 38 "/o of girls; the classification "bad" was 
 returned for 33 Vo of boys and 28% of girls, "good" for T'/o of 
 boys and 14Vo of girls. 
 
 About 85.000 examined school-boys and girls were returned 
 "very bad", 65.000 "bad", against 20.000 (10 Vo) "good". 
 
 The classification had been established on the basis of 
 exhaustive and minute measurements and weighing. 
 
 MEDICAL ASSISTANCE FOR THE YOUTH. 
 
 The unhappy state of things appealed to an effective organi- 
 sation of official alimentary and medical help for the children. 
 An exhaustive scheme for assistance was drafted, the existing 
 charitable organisations incorporated in the official work and 
 the private institutions largely provided by the State with victuals, 
 fuel and money in the measure of available means. 
 
 In several larger towns. Children's Assistance-Boards were 
 founded, in all provinces a Provincial Children's AsSistance-Board 
 is working, in Vienna, the works of private charity are amalgamated 
 in two great corporations: the "League of voluntary Childrens 
 Assistance" and the "Charitas". The supreme board for all matters 
 concerning infantile and children's assistance is incorporated in 
 the Ministry for Social Administration. 
 
 The Inland Children's Assistance is divided in the following 
 branches: 1. Food-help for nursing mothers and suckling babies, 
 2. Assistance for homes, asylums and similar institutions for 
 abnormal, crippled, tuberculous and rickety children; 3. distribution 
 
Public and private assistance for children. 27 
 
 of meals for children (monetary assistance for working expen- 
 diture); 4. holiday organisations; 5. Collecting office. 
 
 All nursing mothers and suckling babies are officially entitled 
 to receive State-subsidies. The number of babies assisted by these 
 subsidies in form of food-stuffs were 194.034 (only in towns and 
 industrial centres, but excluding Vienna). 
 
 Austria enjoys a very large number of private institutions 
 of every description for assistance to children. In the first instance, 
 the orphanages, orphan-asylums and homes are to be mentioned, 
 numbering in ail 120; furthermore, 50 educational institutions, 
 and about 80 infant-homes and asylums. For suckling babies and 
 little children : about 200 creches and children's homes, the same 
 number of kindergartens, 200 day-time shelters for school-children, 
 20 apprentices' homes and 100 evening-homes for girls and boys 
 employed in industrial or commercial work. A certain number 
 of holiday-institutions, especially for children engaged in business, 
 have been transformed lately in standing country -homes. This 
 most beneficial progress was obtainable only by the means of 
 foreign help. Also disabled and crippled children are provided 
 for by some deaf- dumb and blind children's homes, lately also 
 by the foundation of a kindergarten and a home for deaf-dumb- 
 blind children. 
 
 The sanatorium for tuberculous children in Vienna, called 
 "Spinnerin am Kreuz" (400 beds) has enjoyed the special care 
 of private benefactors. Thanks to the munificence of the Swedish 
 Red Cross, this institution has lately very effectivly developped 
 its activity. Another institution, virtually a day-time home for 
 100 tuberculous children, yielded similarly good results, also thanks 
 to foreign help (Society of friends, League of American and of 
 Danish Women). In the same manner, the Sanatorium of Grimmen- 
 stein (400 beds) for children suffering from tuberculous osteo- 
 maiaxia, is kept in working order by the Swedish Red Cross. — 
 
 The Vienna school-children have been afforded with a holiday- 
 stay in the country. With the help of the Youth's Assistance Board 
 and private charity, most of them were enabled to sojourn six or 
 eight weeks in a holiday -colony or in special homes. A con- 
 siderable number of children were sheltered by farmers against 
 a slight allowance. In all, about 50.000 Viennese children spent 
 a holiday in Austria. 
 
28 Foreign help. Maternity-offices. 
 
 A Christmas-Collection, organized by the Minister of Social 
 Administration and devoted to the Assistance of the Youth, had 
 yielded many millions of kronen. A similar enterprise made by 
 the Society of Friends, had also resulted in a very large sum 
 of money. 
 
 in spite of all these exertions, neither the Assistance of the 
 State and the Municipality of Vienna nor private Charity can 
 possibly triumph over the steadily increasing misery in this battle 
 to provide the strict necessary amount of food and to rescue the 
 youth from sickness and death. 
 
 But the early succour from abroad, beginning already in 
 autumn 1918 and concentrating all its efforts to the salvation of 
 the youth, was the greatest blessing in this terrible struggle. 
 
 The effectual work of the foreign Committees in favour of 
 the Austrian Institutions of Assistance for the Youth is divided 
 as follows: 1^' help for the pre -school age; 2^ help for school- 
 boys and girls by sending them in foreign country during the 
 holidays, by distribution of meals, clothes, linen, footgear and 
 victuals. (The two last-named actions extend the help also to 
 juveniles.) 
 
 Suckling babies and little children (till six years of age) are 
 under the special care of the Society of Friends, whose action 
 had begun with the guidance of the Director of the State Maternity- 
 Office and extended its beneficial influence in ever increasing 
 proportions. The census of suckling-babies and little children is 
 carried through by the Maternity-Offices, having been in existence 
 before the break-down of the Empire and multiplied since. The 
 total number of such offices stands now at about 350, whereof 
 in Vienna 42, in Lower Austria (without Vienna) 173. The suckling- 
 babies, since lately also the little children, are weighed once in 
 every week in the Maternity-Offices, are maintained under careful 
 medical control and are provided, against a little contribution 
 by the parents, with certain foodstuffs indispensable for the rearing 
 of a baby, e. g. groat, cocoa, preserved milk, or fresh milk 
 (only for sick babies). There, the babies are also provided with 
 babies-linen and -clothes. 
 
 TheBritish Vienna Emergency Relief Fund had aimed especially 
 the reform of the boarding-system for childern. To this effect, a 
 large sum of money had been delivered by this fund to grant 
 
Austrian children in foreign countries. 29 
 
 the boarding persons higher allowances for their pupils. Hospitals 
 habitually send their convalescent children in boarding-houses in 
 the country in order to have at their command any available bed 
 for children wanting immediate medical assistance. 
 
 But perhaps the most touching example of international 
 solidarity in distress and calamity is the wide-spread action of 
 boarding Austrian children in foreign countries. During 1919, 
 about 40.000 Austrian children enjoyed foreign hospitality. In the 
 first place, it was Switzerland, having sheltered, fed and clothed 
 more than 20.000 children, Holland with almost 10.000, other 
 countries, as Sweden, Danmark, Germany and Italy with the rest. 
 During 1920, this work of charity developed enormously; in 
 January, February and July, about 90.000 Austrian children stayed 
 in foreign countries (total number till to-day 124.000), almost all 
 of them in families. Switzerland and Holland go ahead also in 
 1920, followed by Danmark, Germany, Luxemburg, Sweden, Norway, 
 Italy, Spain and Roumania (Transsylvania), finally England, Belgium 
 and France. 
 
 The average duration of a child's stay in foreign country 
 was about three months, but in many cases (especially in Sweden, 
 Norway and England) much longer, six to twelve months. Many 
 childern are urgently invited to return in the next year; the recently 
 dispatched railway-trains contained many children going for the 
 second time to their fosterers. Quite recently, also little children 
 under six years of age are sent in foreign countries, and many orphans 
 have been adopted there. 
 
 In the average, after a stay of two months abroad, a sensible 
 increase in weight has been ascertained; the average increase for 
 such a time is about 3 — 4 kilogr., in certain cases till 5 and 
 6 kilogr. After a stay of four to five months, certain children had 
 gained 10—16 kilogr. in weight. But all return home, bodily and 
 mentally restored and invigorated. 
 
 A great number of foreign fosterers are in the habit of 
 sending regulary food-supplies to their departed darlings, or remit 
 to them money-orders enabling them to buy the necessary victuals. 
 Many of the children are coming back richly provided with linen 
 and clothes, others are helped by parcels of such articles, regularly 
 sent to them. 
 
30 Soup-kitchens for children. 
 
 Not only these advantaged children, but many others are 
 provided with victuals, shoes and clothes by foreign charitable 
 institutions. Above all, the Society of Friends, under the leadership 
 of Dr. Clark, must be mentioned; they take care in the first instance 
 for pregnant and nursing women, for suckling babies and little 
 children; in the second line the Swiss Committee, the Danish 
 Womens Ring, and the American Help for Children. The "dollar- 
 parcels" containing victuals of the said American Help are 
 distributed to Hospitals, Asylums, Convalescent-Homes and similar 
 charitable institutions. An other work, destined to distribute fuel, 
 had been organized by British initiative. At Christmas, the foreign 
 works distributed large quantities of clothes, shoes and victuals. 
 
 Quite recently, the foreign help had shaped in the form of 
 assuming the management of a certain given Austrian institution 
 exhausted of all monetary means due to the general impoverishment. 
 In this manner, the Swedish Red Cross manages the Vienna 
 Hospital for tuberculous children "Spinnerin am Kreuz", the Dutch 
 childern's Committee the Home at Neulengbach for juvenile girls 
 and, during the summer holidays, the student's home at 
 St. Wolfgangsee. The Dutch Huisvestings -Committee maintains 
 in Vienna and at Gollersdorf a Children's Home. A New-York 
 German-American Committee for Help manages the Convalescent's 
 Home for rickety cildren at Tivoli near Vienna. Another New- 
 York-Committee (Vienna Milk Relief) inaugurated lately a Home 
 in the barracks of the War-Hospital Grinzing in Vienna. 
 
 The school-boys and girls, suffering doubly, being ill-fed and 
 therefore improper to fulfill the claims of the school, have been 
 particularly helped by the distribution of meals, organized by the 
 American Help for Children. 
 
 This magnificent action, inaugurated two years ago in the 
 then existing popular kitchens in Vienna, had been extended in 
 such a manner as to distribute now 300.000 daily rations, repre- 
 senting a monetary value of 4,500.000 kronen a day. Of this 
 figure, 151.000 rations are distributed in Vienna, 45.000 in Lower 
 Austria, 13.000 in Salzburg, 12.000 in Tyrol, 5.000 in Vorarlberg, 
 36.000 in Styria, and 11.000 in Carinthia. Also apprentices (in 
 Vienna almost 14.000 rations) are now included in this work. 
 The selection is operated by an exhaustive medical examination; 
 
General house-hunting. 31 
 
 only underfed or suffering childern are entitled to enjoy the 
 distributions. 
 
 Swedish, Norwegian and Dutch works are concerned in the 
 distribution of meals for about 20.000 juveniles. 
 
 THE SCARCITY OF DWELLING-HOUSES. 
 
 The lack of adequate housing is one of the most deplorable 
 legacies of the great war. Especially in Vienna, the crisis has 
 attained dreadful proportions, endangering seriously the public 
 health. The two primary causes are: the deadlock in the building 
 trade since the outbreak of the war and the reduction in the 
 number of available dwelling houses, caused by the steady decay 
 and dilapidation of houses, the proprietors not being able to 
 provide for the necessery repairs. 
 
 January 31, 1920, the number of habitable houses in Vienna 
 was 43.180, showing an increase of only 6.33 "/o compared with 1910, 
 against the normal increase of 13.8''/o between 1910 and 1900. 
 
 During 1920, the crisis had become even more alarming 
 than in the previous years. Very often, two families are compelled 
 to dwell, with their children, in a single lodging, composed of 
 a chamber and a kitchen. All family-affairs, births, illnesses, deaths 
 come to pass in the presence of all inhabitants in a single room, 
 used very often as kitchen too. Very often also, the members of 
 a numerous family are scattered about in every direction, provi- 
 sionally harboured by friends or relatives, whilst the furniture 
 are deposited in a warehouse. But this warehousing of furniture 
 is far too expensive for the means of an average middle-class 
 household in Vienna; thus, the furniture is sold piecemeal to the 
 broker and in the very moment of getting a lodging, there is no 
 furniture available. A specific and curious difficulty is arising 
 from the lack of dwellings: neither the public authorities nor 
 private enterprises can engage employees to come to Vienna, not 
 being able to provide the required rooms to dwell in. Repeatedly, 
 the Government was unable to nominate at a vacant professorship 
 in the higher schools for the same reason. 
 
 Also in the suburban districts of Vienna, the houses of all 
 descriptions are overcrowded; the cottages and country-houses, 
 calculated only for dwelling purposes in the summer-time, therefore 
 without fire-places, are now occupied also during the winter-time. 
 
32 Bankruptcy of the building trade. 
 
 The reports of Public Assistance inspectors are crammed with 
 heartrending particulars about the misery of inadequate dwellings: 
 childern born and reared in underground rooms, live in obscurity 
 and dampness, the fuel, niggardly distributed by authority, barely 
 sufficing to prepare the frugal meals. The immediate consequence 
 is an overwhelming infantile mortality and an overcrowding of the 
 hospitals with sick children. 
 
 The Vienna Municipality had made laudible efforts to reanimate 
 the building trade by assuming the net losses of construction or 
 granting the interests and redemption of invested capitals. The 
 construction of a cluster of little dwelling houses, built under 
 these conditions in Vienna, Margarethengiirtel, containing 1 1 1 
 small and medium lodgings, was continued till 35 dwellings were 
 finished. But the enormous rise in the prices of material, transport 
 and labour, calculated in 1919 at 11 millions for the whole 
 enterprise, had the effect that the building expenditure for one 
 small dwelling stands to-day at 300.000 kronen, thus the total 
 expenses for the whole work at above 23 millions of kronen. It 
 is hoped that this expensive experiment will be finished in the 
 first months of 1921. In autumn 1920, a settlement, managed _by 
 the Municipality of Vienna in the region of "Schmelz", was 
 finished. It is a considerable cluster of little two-storied dwelling 
 houses, containing in all 305 little and medium sized lodgings. 
 The total expenditure was 100 millions of kronen, thus the average 
 cost of each dwelling about 300.000 kronen. For another settlement, 
 the expenditure was sensibly less; it is a colony near Vienna, 
 at Gross-Jedlersdorf, founded by the "Cooperative Society of cheap 
 dwelling-house constructions". The total amount of expenditure 
 for 160 lodgings, whereof 24 are now inhabited, will be 22 millions 
 of kronen, thus the average cost of each one 137.000 kronen. 
 But this enterprise had begun and continued working before the 
 war. Owing to the uncalculable sums spent without chance of 
 recovery in the building trade, those experiments will prove utter 
 failures for a long space of time to come. 
 
 After the bankruptcy of the building trade, private initiative 
 was challenged: the architect being unable to build a house, the 
 would-be dweller must put his own hands to the work, without 
 calling for help to others, and build for himself a clay cottage 
 or a log- house. The Vienna Municipality entered in communication 
 
Habitation-office. Undesirable aliens. 33 
 
 with Private Initiative Societies in order to furnish them with the 
 required building plots either on tenancy orby expropriation. The next 
 future will vouchsafe information respecting the viability of this scheme, 
 particularly if the Municipality will be able to rise the sums necessary 
 to cover the expenses of expropriation and building materials. 
 
 Presently, the Habitation-office is engaged only in the 
 registration and assignment of available and exigible lodgings, 
 apartments and Hotel-chambers by virtue of the Provincial by-law 
 of June 30, 1919. The outcome of this activity was: 11.703 lodgings 
 and 4918 single rooms, whereof 7840 lodgings and 2370 single 
 rooms were assigned till the end of 1920. But this stock will be 
 soon exhausted, the subsequent inspections hot yielding but very 
 scanty results. The Habitation-office was indeed endeavouring to 
 increase the number of available lodgings by declaring exigible 
 the lodging of foreigners under charge of offence against the laws 
 (concealment of articles of first necessity, back-door trade 6cc.). 
 But hitherto, these measures proved ineffective, IMe term of option 
 for the Austrian nationality being fixed at January 15, 1921, and, 
 on the other hand, the expelled individuals not being able tb leave 
 Vienna, in default of passports and visa. Hence, the very legitimate 
 hope of the indigenous Viennese population to get rid of these 
 immigrants from Poland, mostly of a very doubtful respectability, 
 has vanished. Moreover, those immigrants, living from the rationed 
 food delivered by Government, are a heavy burden to public 
 expenditure. Without considering these difficulties, the Succession 
 States continue to expulse Austrian subjects, causing them heavy 
 losses, as they are obliged to abandon their moveables. The 
 cantonments at Gmund, built during the war for the fugitives of 
 invaded border-districts, and those at Sigmundsherberg, received 
 in 1920 a large number of those exiles, mostly railway-men 
 expulsed from Czecho-Slovakia. Until this day, the cantonments 
 at Gmund are occupied by hundreds of hornless railway employees, 
 now serving in Austria. 
 
 Austria has not yet succeeded to get rid of the numerous 
 Polish immigrants, hurried up to Vienna from Galicia during the 
 war, charged with fraudulous enhancement of prices, concealment 
 of food-articles, illegal trade and similar crimes. Poland has 
 hitherto refused to deliver them the passports and Czecho-Slovakia 
 refused to give permission of transit without these documents. 
 
34 Revival of national industry. 
 
 LEGISLATION AND ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 Although the National Assembly realised the fact that Austria 
 could not disentangle herself by using her proper means out of 
 her desparate situation, the Assembly did not deterr from tempting 
 even the impossible to save the country from a certain collapse 
 and prepare for it a better future. The Assembly voted, amongst 
 many others, a law about home-colonisation and a law encouraging 
 agriculture. The working collieries were developed and abandoned 
 collieries restarted. But the insignificance of the coal-fields in 
 the Austrian Alps made it inevitable to concentrate all efforts 
 and all means available in the working of the so-called white 
 coal, viz. the hydraulic forces, of which German Austria commands 
 an inexhaustible amount of latent energy. 
 
 An "Hydraulic and Electric Power office" was created and 
 a law providing the electric traction for the Austrian railways 
 was voted. 
 
 In view of a revival of the national industries, a system of 
 exchanging raw materials with manufactured goods made out of 
 those materials was organized. A joint -stock company, "Treuga", 
 was commissioned to procure, under the control of the Government, 
 to the industrial enterprises the financial means necessary to buy 
 the raw materials from abroad and. from oversea. The "Treuga" 
 cooperates with a corporation of banking concerns in Holland, 
 the so-called Reconstruction concern, and is called to supplant 
 the bureaucratic apparatus, instituted in time of war with the 
 view of procuring to the Government the necessary raw materials 
 from foreign countries. For safeguarding the legitimate interests 
 of the foreigners a right of ownership is vested in the manu- 
 factured goods in favour of the foreign creditor till effective 
 delivery of those goods. The Cornmission for reparations has 
 desisted from their rights of mortgage upon the raw materials 
 thus procured. 
 
 The Committee, instituted within the pale of the Government 
 to investigate and prepare for, the socialisation of industrial labour 
 did very soon ascertain the impossibility of such schemes in the 
 present political and economic situation of Austria. Therefore, 
 the Comittee proposed first the creation of certain enterprises 
 based upon joint interests of the State or Municipalities and 
 
Attempted socialisations. 35 
 
 managed by private enterprise, but to renounce provisionally arty 
 expropriation in industrial matter. The first trial was made with 
 the "Combined boot- and leather factories", managed by the State 
 jointly with the Wholesale Business of the Association of Cooperative 
 Societies of Austria and the Society of Agricultural Commerce. 
 This enterprise has manufactured or mended in six months one 
 pair of footgear for the third part of the whole population of 
 Austria. The exportation of driving-belts had procured in the 
 same time a net benefice of eight millions kronen. 
 
 The Office of drugs, organised by the State with the cooperation 
 of the United Hospitals of Vienna has incorporated also a certain 
 number of other private enterprises in view of the ultimate 
 monopolisation of the drug-commerce in Austria to the advantage 
 of the unpecunious classes of the people. 
 
 The final effect of all this activity is, in the hope of its 
 promotors, to create socialised model enterprises, yielding a 
 considerable benefit for the Treasury. 
 
 To the sphere of purely fiscal reforms belongs the law on 
 the Great Fortune-tax (Capital-levy) and other minor acts. 
 
 During the early years of the war, public opinion was 
 unanimous about the necessity of discharging the immense burdens 
 of war by an impost upon the property itself. An official inquiry 
 made by the State-Council immediately after the armistice to 
 elucidate the question of an impost upon the fortune and a tax 
 upon the surplus-value of all taxable objects resulted in the vote 
 of the advisability of both taxes, to be devoted exclusively or 
 chiefly to the repayment of the war-loans. But the debasement 
 of the currency had a quite unexpected effect: the interests for 
 war-debts, once the gravest problem of the Treasury, had fallen 
 into insignificance compared with the daily expenses for food 
 or fuel. To raise the necessary funds for this purposes had 
 become the unique care of the Administration. Therefore, the 
 platform of coalition between the Socialists and the Christian- 
 Social Party declared to devote the returns of the Capital-levy 
 chiefly to the acquisition of foreign values. In the second place, 
 those returns should be employed in the formation of a sinking fund 
 for war-debts, for the balance of the annual deficit and, lastly, 
 for the participation of the State in certain industrial businesses 
 of vital importance. 
 
36 Capital levy. 
 
 After six month's arduous labour, the Parliament voted, 
 June 21, the Capital -Levy -Act. in the very last moment, the 
 Reparations -Commission exacted the insertion of this clause: 
 "this law shall take effect only so far as it does not encroach 
 "upon the provisions of the Treaty of Peape and of the dispatch 
 "of the Commission for reparations, dated May 21, 1920". But 
 the Commission added a solemn declaration that the returns 
 of the Capital-levy should not be confiscated in any way, but 
 abandoned freely and entirely to the purposes determined by 
 the law. 
 
 The Capital -levy -act limits at 30.000 kronen the maximal 
 value of any fortune exempted from the levy. This maximal value 
 is raised to 60.000 kronen for a married couple and augmented 
 by 15.000 kronen for each minor child. The fortunes of husband 
 and wife are considered collective. The first 20.000 kronen of 
 imposable fortune are subjected to a charge of 5 "Z,,, the second 
 ones of 7 "/o a- s. f. The maximal charge is of 65 7o for fortunes 
 superior of ten millions of kronen. 
 
 The levy is payable on principle in three annuities. But if 
 the fortune be composed, for more than two fifths of the total 
 value, of real estates, the levy may be paid, for four fifths of the 
 total sum due, in fife to twenty annuities. Joint-stock companies 
 are given the option between discharging the duty in cash or 
 gratis shares; in both cases, the entire levy is due in three 
 annuities. The discharge in public fund papers is not permitted 
 to the joint-stock companies. Many of these companies, unable 
 to procure the means necessery for the discharge of this duty 
 will be obliged to give up gratis shares, enabling thus the State 
 to control immediately certain big financial or industrial concerns. 
 The landed property must assume a mortgage in favour of the 
 Capital-levy; this mortgage must be inscribed in the cadastre if 
 the total levy be not paid untill 1922. Probably most of the land- 
 owners, in order to elude from mortgaging their property, will 
 renounce the privilege of annuities. In all cases, the State will 
 be the holder of negociable mortgages of first rank. All rate- 
 payers who will discharge their duties in the two first months 
 of 1921, shall enjoy particular benefices. The liberal and moderate 
 estimation of the landed property, expressly recommen(led by 
 the law, will produce a sensible reduction of the rates. The estates 
 
Income-tax. 37 
 
 are valued according to the average rent of 1913 to 1919; the 
 implements, machinery and stock in hand according to their 
 prime-cost, notwithstanding the enormous discrepancy between 
 the pre-war and the actual prices. Also the movables and values 
 are not estimated according to their actual prices or current 
 exchange, but according to the average prices and interests put 
 together, without considering the current prices, far superior to 
 their productive value. 
 
 This law outvies by far the so called German "National sacrifice" 
 or the similar Czecho-Slovak impost on the fortune. The Austrian 
 capital-levy is expected to produce some eight to twelve milliards 
 whereof 2V2 milliards in the fiscal year of 1920/21. 
 
 After having voted the Capital-levy-act, the National Assembly 
 was engaged in the discussion of the reforms of the income-tax. 
 The annual income exempt from taxation was raised considerably, 
 owing to the depreciated currency, the rates seriously reduced 
 for the inferior degrees, including the majority of working people 
 and lesser employees and considerable abatements allowed for 
 families with numerous children. Nothwithstanding these remis- 
 sions, the new income-tax will produce in the future great surplus 
 returns owing principally to the accelerated scale in the higher 
 degrees (till 60 "/o for incomes superior to 2,200.000 kronen) and 
 to the increased numbers of taxe -payers. Henceforward all em- 
 ployers are obliged to retain the income-tax quota from the 
 weekly wages paid and to pay them immediately to the revenue 
 offices. In this way, hundreds of thousand workmen not having 
 hitherto paid any taxes in default of revenue officers during the 
 war, will contribute to defray the public expenses. 
 
 Dtiring the second session, the National Assembly voted a 
 number of laws of first importance for the public life. The pro- 
 visional National Assembly having voted as yet the law about 
 the eight hours labor in all great industrial businesses, the National 
 Assembly voted in december 1919 an amendment, extending the 
 dally eight hours- (or weekly 48 hours-) labour to the whole 
 industry, including clerical work. Arbitration-courts, composed of 
 representatives of employers, workmen and the official inspection, 
 are authorised to grant exceptions for certain branches, In other 
 cases, exceptions may be permitted with approval of the Syndi- 
 
38 Arbitration-courts. Domestic servants. ' 
 
 cate, the official labour inspection and the administrative official. 
 Surplus hours are to be overpaid at a rate of 50% at least. 
 
 In the same time, the law about the Arbitration Courts and 
 another about collective labour contracts were carried. The 
 Arbitration Courts, presided by an official and composed of dele- 
 gates of employers and employed, will act as obligatory boards 
 of mediation in the conflicts wich may arise through the activity 
 of Syndicates, trusts or workmen -councils. These courts are 
 appointed to settle and register collective labour-contracts and 
 to give opinions on the interpretation of these contracts. They 
 are authorised to make by-laws for the regulation of labour, the 
 law determining only the general conditions for concluding 
 collective contracts. The Arbitration -Courts are invested with 
 the duty of publishing legally those contracts; after this publication, 
 all the contracts between employers and workers within the 
 jurisdiction of the given Court are subjected to the conditions of 
 the published collective contract. Exceptions from this rule are 
 admissible only in so far as favouring the workers or concerning 
 matters not provided for in the collective contract. The Arbitration 
 Court may, on proposal of the Administrative authorities or a 
 Syndicate, declare binding any collective contract or parts thereof. 
 
 February 1920, the "Workers and Employees Chamber's"-Act 
 was voted. After the standard ol the Chambers of Commerce, those 
 new Chambers are constituted in view of delivering opinions or 
 making proposals concerning the regulation of labour, labour- 
 insurance, labour-bureaux or any other matters interesting the 
 industry, the public economy, transports or the welfare of the 
 private employees in general. 
 
 An other law settles the condition of domestic servants. The 
 law warrants to those persons an uninterrupted time of rest 
 between 9 o'clock in the evening till 6 o'clock in the morning, 
 and a leisure time of four consecutive hours in one afternoon of 
 each week. Once out of two Sundays, the servants are allowed 
 to leave the house for eight hours; they are granted a certain 
 annual leave at integral wages and gratis medical treatment. The 
 service-books and the conditions of dismissal are regulated, the 
 jurisdiction of police-courts in domestic servant matters abolished, 
 the ordinary and Arbitration Courts being solely competent in this 
 
Abolition of courts-martial. Model-schools. 39 
 
 matter. More extensive prerogatives are accorded to tutors and 
 governesses. 
 
 The act concerning public gambling, dated May P' 1920, 
 settles a tax on all games in public places; the receipts are allotted 
 to the assistance of war-invalids, widows and orphans of veterans. 
 In June 1920, the law prescribing the obligatory insurance against 
 illness for all public officers, was enacted. The law concerning 
 the insurance against unemployment will be treated in another 
 chapter. 
 
 Whilst not succeeding in the general reform of judicial ad- 
 ministration, the National Assembly had still accomphshed a great 
 number of reforms of secondary importance, e. g. the abolition 
 of courts-martial and the law prescribing the competence of 
 ordinary penal courts in crimes committed by military persons in 
 actual service, the law about conditional punishments, about the 
 creation of courts of jurors, reform of the juries, and, finally, the 
 new act concerning the literatury and artistic property, enforced 
 upon Austria by the Peace-treaty. 
 
 November 1919, the model-schools-act was voted. In these 
 public colleges, gifted children of all classes of the people, 
 regardless of their pecuniary circumstances, are admitted gra- 
 tuitously. For this purpose, the ci-devant military colleges have 
 been adapted; these educational establishments, provided with 
 magnificent premises, pares and play-grounds afford all means 
 for a perfectioned education; the schooling is entrusted to well- 
 experienced and carefully selected teachers. The first course 
 consists of a uniform four year's secondary training; the second 
 course is divided, according to the individual aptitudes of the 
 students, in different branches: modern higher school (Realschule), 
 agronomic training, arts and crafts school, housekeeping instruction 
 for girls &c. The Undersecretary of State for public instruction 
 made detailed accounts, during the debates, about the activity of 
 the new model-schools, the progress of the improved educational 
 methods, working in order to substitute to the old passive cram- 
 ming the new active cooperation of the scholar, the reforms of 
 trainings-colleges for teachers, above all the higher training-college 
 of Vienna <Sc. At the beginning of the scholastic year 1920/21, 
 the primary schools were able to adopt the new carefully prepared 
 pedagogic methods. 
 
40 ■ Public health. Tuberculosis. 
 
 Special care was bestowed upon the post-scolar popular 
 instruction. Special training-schools for teachers engaged in this 
 important branch of public education were founded; an ambulant 
 model-theatre, subventioned by the Education -Department will 
 give representations of classical dramas in the country-towns. 
 
 The public health-administration in Austria suffered till 1920 
 from the consequences of the great war. But in any case, the 
 medical and chirurgical treatment of the victims of war, returned 
 from the battlefields and from captivity, could be considered as 
 happily terminated. The number of war -victims, in treatment in 
 the public and private hospitals of German Austria, has lowered 
 in 1920 from 7183 to 2219. A large number of military hospitals 
 have been transmitted to the civil sanitary authorities, amongst 
 them very extensive establishments, like the Viennese Hospital 
 for Orthopaedy and cranial lesions. 
 
 Immediately after the war, the Austrian Health -Office had 
 established everywhere dispensaries for the cure of sexual diseases; 
 there, indigent persons of both sexes receive gratuitous treatment 
 and medicaments. In all, fourty eight such dispensaries are in 
 working order in Vienna and in the provinces. Special attention 
 is bestowed on girls and young women suffering from these 
 diseases; special clinical establishments have been created with 
 the help of charitable institutions. For the study of the influence 
 of the Great war on the extension of these diseases, and in view 
 of obtainig sure information about the figures to be dealt with 
 in the struggle against this scourge, a general census of the 
 persons concerned has been undertaken between November 15 
 and December 14, 1920; the returns will be studied exhaustively 
 and published in due time. 
 
 The struggle against tuberculosis is beset, after the conclusion 
 of peace, even with much more difficulties than during the war. 
 Medically speaking, most Austrian people cannot afford to incor- 
 porate, in the shape of articles of food, the quantity of caloric 
 units necessary to maintain the equilibrium of physical functions, 
 much less to accumulate the required reserve fund of forces to 
 resist infections. Under these conditions, the number of victims 
 of tuberculosis has augmented considerably. Similarly, the progress 
 of any given case has been more rapid than in the time of 
 sufficient food-supply. By the shortness of financial means, the 
 
Preventive and curative measures. 41 
 
 Public Health-administration is seriously handicapped in the 
 struggle against the tuberculosis ; the multiplication of preventive 
 measures cannot keep pace with tlie ever increasing speed of 
 the propagation of phtisis. The only really effective measure 
 seems to be even now an energetic prophylaxis. 
 
 As soon as 1916, the Public Health Office had begun the 
 organisation of preventive establishments for phtisic persons. 
 These establishments are taking firstly the census of phtisic persons 
 in their sphere of action; afterwards, they send to the hospitals 
 those ones most dangerously ill, and make attend at home or 
 in a sanatorium those ones considered curable. Specially instructed 
 nurses are visiting regularly the dwellings in order to detect 
 and disinfect centres of contagion. Till now, German Austria is 
 provided with fourty-four anti-tuberculosis establishments, thirteen 
 of them in Vienna. 
 
 Also the treatment of tuberculosis has been the object of 
 assidous labours. The model tuberculosis hospitals for indigent 
 patients at AUand, Enzenbach, Grafenhof and Hoergas have been 
 substantially enlarged by extensive barrack -systems, and other 
 similar hospitals have been founded. In the last year, popular 
 tuberculosis sanatoriums have been opened at Gaisbuhel (Vorarl- 
 berg), Stolzalpe (Styria) and Grimmenstein (Lower Austria). The 
 two last-named are specially devoted to the treatment of phtisic 
 children, suffering from tuberculous osteomalaxy and adenalgy. 
 In all, in twenty-nine sanatoriums, 1190 beds for men, 950 beds 
 for women and 880 beds for children are available for the 
 anti- tuberculosis service. But the sanatoriums too are suffering 
 enormously from the lack of food-stuff, above all milk, and the 
 general dearth. The coast of maintenance and keep has risen to 
 figures wholly out of reach of the average patient. Only the 
 veterans are legally granted absolutely gratuitous treatment. 
 
 Since the end of the war, German-Austria has been exempted 
 from highly virulent epidemics. Some insulated cases of variola 
 have been imported from abroad. Some months ago, the last 
 cases of exanthem.ic fever had been reported. In the beginning 
 of 1920, several cases of this illness were ascertained, all on 
 individuals returned from Russia. In spite of the great number 
 of veterans suffering from malarial fever, no endemic centre of 
 this illness had developped. After all, German Austria can boast 
 
42 The new professional army. 
 
 of having struggled with the best effect, among ail the succession- 
 states of the ancient Austrian Empire, the epidemic deseases 
 ravaging till to-day Eastern Europe. — 
 
 THE ARMY. 
 
 in the days of the overthrow of the Habsburg Monarchy, 
 the German -Austrian Government had created in the National 
 Militia a provincial armed force, destined to protect the Republic, 
 to maintain the order and security in the interior and to guard 
 the extremely precious properties of the ancient army and the 
 public administration. The Militia was recruited partly from the 
 servants of the ancient Imperial Army, partly from the employees 
 and labourers of the military supply-departments and war-factories. 
 Only volunteers were admitted. At the end of 1918, the Militia 
 had attained a temporary strength of 1700 officers and 56.000 men. 
 In order to supply the necessary factory -hands to the stagnant 
 economic life and to alleviate the public expenditure, a maximum 
 strength of 27.000 men (15.000 of them for Vienna and Lower- 
 Austria) was settled. The reduction was to be obtained firstly 
 by gradual disbandment of the smallest corps, secondly by the 
 creation of efficient labour-bureaux in the cantonments and thirdly 
 by dismission of less desirable troopers, crept in the rank and 
 file during this troubled period. Till September 30 1919, the total 
 strength of the militia had decreased to 1600 officers, 1400 non- 
 commissioned officers and 26.000 men. 
 
 The present establishment of the Austrian Army has been 
 stipulated by the treaty of peace of St. Germain. Although a 
 democratic militia shoud have answered better to the 
 exigencies of a democratic Republic and to the wishes of 
 the people, a professional army of 30.000 men was imposed 
 upon the country in the instrument of peace. The number of 
 commissioned officers is fixed at a twentieth, that of non-com- 
 missioned officers at a fifteenth of the total number of men 
 present under arms. The Army is to be employed exclusivly to 
 the defence of the frontiers and to the maintenance of order in 
 the interior. Conformable to these prescriptions, the National 
 Assembly voted March 15, 1920 a new law relating to military 
 service. The essential regulations of this law, supplemented by 
 articles 79 — 81 of the constitution, are: The main functions of 
 
Military administration. 43 
 
 the Army are the protection of the constitutional institutions, the 
 maintenance of order and security in the country, assistance in 
 general calamities and disasters, and the defence of the frontiers. 
 The supreme authority over the Army vests in the National 
 Assembly; the immediate control over the Army is exercised — 
 subject to certain specified restrictions — by the Government 
 through the competent minister. The commanding power and the 
 professional training is entrusted to the military chiefs. 
 
 The administrative and financial business of the Army is' 
 dealt with in the provinces by a Military Department in the 
 chief place of each province, in charge of a senior officer, sub- 
 ordinated to the Minister. Each province forms a recruiting district, 
 to which a maximum number of recruits is allotted: Vienna 9000, 
 Lower Austria 6500, Burgenland (German Western Hungary) 1500, 
 Upper Austria 4000, Styria 4000, Carinthia 1700, Salzburg 1000, 
 Tyrol 1700, and Vorarlberg 600. Only Austrian citizens of male 
 sex, having professed their attachment to the democratic republic, 
 are entitled to the service in the Army. The term of service is 
 twenty years for commissioned officers, twelfe years (with a 
 minimum term of six years in the actual service with the colours) 
 for non-commissioned officers and militia -men. Simultanuosly 
 with the military professional training, a civic education and 
 instruction in different civil professions are given. These provisions 
 for the future civil life of the soldier, combined with the full 
 exercise of the political rights, are intended to prevent the forming 
 of that caste -feeling, otherwise unavoidable in an army of mer- 
 cenaries. On the other hand, due attention is given to prevent 
 all political party -strife and party -propagandism in the Army. 
 In official duty, political activity is strictly forbidden. In the 
 barracks, political meetings are not permitted. 
 
 To advocate their personal interests, officers and men are 
 entitled to elect delegates, authorised to cooperate in certain 
 administrative and disciplinary matters, as : recruitment, food- 
 supply, barrack affairs, civic education and civil instruction, 
 complaints and redress of them, furloughs, disciplinary proceedings, 
 dismissals. The delegates assist at the distributions of pay, victuals 
 and clothing. The term of their mandate is one year. Provisions 
 are made to suppress all undue influence, prejudiciable to the 
 commanding power, tempted by the delegates. 
 
44 Present military organisation. 
 
 The transition from the republican Militia to the new federal 
 Army was performed by granting to all militia officers and men 
 the free option either to enter the new army or to retire from 
 military service; in this latter case they were warranted a dismission 
 fee graduated after the duration of their effective service in the 
 militia, running from a maximum of 1500 austr. crowns down- 
 ward for privates. At the same time, new enlistments were made, 
 affording, up to this day, about 13.000 men. The commissioned 
 and non-commissioned officers were drawn almost exclusivly 
 from the standing portion of the old Imperial Army, and chosen 
 by a specially appointed council. The bodies of troops in the 
 different provinces are as follows: six regiments of infantry, 
 forming three brigades, in Lower Austria and Vienna, two regiments 
 of Alpine-Rifles, forming one brigade, in Upper-Austria; the same 
 in Styria; one regiment of Alpine-Rifles in Carinthia, another in 
 Tyrol, one independent bataillon of Alpine-Rifles in Salzburg, 
 another in Vorarlberg; the military forces of Carinthia, Tyrol, 
 Salzburg and Vorarlberg are combined in another (sixth) brigade. 
 To every brigade is attached: a bataillon of cyclists, a section 
 of artillery (four batteries), a squadron of cavalry and a bataillon 
 of sappers and miners. The staff of every brigade disposes also 
 of a sfgnalling company, a section of motor-cars, a section of 
 baggage train and an ordnance section. Independently of these 
 six brigades are: a regiment of heavy artillery, forming eight 
 batteries and a squadron of three patrol -boats on the Danube. 
 
 The newly established army had already opportunity to prove 
 their professional fitness as well as their spirit of sacrifice during 
 the recent inundations in the Alps (summer 1920). — 
 
 THE CONSTITUTION. - 
 
 The most important task of the constitutive National Assembly 
 was of course the making of a Constitution. But this task met 
 with considerable difficulties, owing to the wide divergencies in 
 the general opinions of the two great political parties constituting 
 this Assembly. The Christian Social party, considering the old 
 historical provinces as the primary base of the political life, wished 
 to constitute those provinces as strongly and as solidly as possible, 
 whereas the Socialists were penetrated with the idea of a uniform, 
 centralised Commonwealth, composed of little self-governing bodies. 
 
The struggle for the Constitution. 45 
 
 According to the principles exposed by Dr. Renner, chief of the 
 socialistic party, the unities of self-government ought to be the 
 rural or urban communities. Wherever the rural agglomerations 
 would prove too small to perform successfull administrative 
 work, several rural bodies ought to be united in a district muni- 
 cipality. 
 
 The Christian-Social point of view predominated eventually, 
 inasmuch as the preliminary arrangements of October 1919 
 established that German-Austria was to form a Federal State. 
 The further controversies went about the delimitations of power 
 between the Confederation, the Provinces and the Local Bodies. 
 The Chancery of the State had composed not less than six different 
 schemes for a constitution. But no agreement was obtainable 
 within the pale of the coalition. The future constitution was first 
 publicly discussed in a conference held by the representatives of 
 the provinces in Salzburg about the middle of February 1920. 
 There, the rough draft of a constitution, framed as a purely private 
 work, by Dr. Mayer, Secretary of State, was under discussion. A 
 second conference, held at Linz in the latter half of April, deli- 
 berated on a new scheme, drafted by Dr. Mayer too, with due 
 regard of the results of the first conference at Salzburg. The 
 Socialists as well as the Pangermanists submitted schemes of 
 their own, but the exhaustive debates elicited once more the wide 
 differences of opinion on the most essential points. 
 
 After the break-up of the coalition between the Christian- 
 Social and the Socialistic Parties, the National Assembly was to 
 be dissolved. It was doubtful wether the Assembly should disperse 
 without having voted a Constitution. The Christian-Social Party 
 insisted upon the urgency of such a vote before the new elections 
 and succeeded in convincing the opponent parties. But their 
 intentions could not be carried out thoroughly; neither the absence 
 of good-will nor of application prevented the accomplishment 
 of the task; but the parties did not come to an understanding 
 about certain frist principles, e. g. the relations between the 
 Church and the State, the Church and the School; they found 
 no bridge across the abyss, separating the general views of the 
 life in the christian and socialistic dogmas. The space of time 
 being too short, the final settlement of those principles was 
 reserved for the future Assembly. Lest this settlement might suffer 
 
46 Federal and provincial powers. 
 
 undue delay, the Assembly resolved that certain indispensable 
 provisions of the future constitutional law ought to be suspended 
 until the vote of the above-mentioned contested parts of the 
 Constitution. 
 
 The Article First of the Federal Constitution declares : 
 Austria is a democratic republic. All the rights emanate from the 
 people. The law proclaims Austria a Confederation, consisting of 
 independent Federal States, viz : Burgenland (German Western 
 Hungary), Carinthia, Lower Austria (with Vienna), Upper Austria, 
 Salzburg, Styria, Tyrol and Vorarlberg. The Confederation forms 
 an indivisible monetary, economic and customs unity. The citi- 
 zenship is vested in the Confederate States, but every citizen of 
 a given State is at the same time federal citizen, enjoying the 
 same rights and being liable to the same duties in all the Con- 
 federate States. Privileges and prerogatives of birth, sex, station, 
 rank, caste or confession are abolished. The public officers of all 
 classes, the servants in the Federal Army included, enjoy inimpaired 
 all civic rights. 
 
 The constitution distinguishes between federal and provincial 
 affairs. Some concerns are declared federal, in respect both of 
 the legislative and the executive power, e. g. the federal consti- 
 tution, foreign affairs, federal finances, money and public credit, 
 civil and penal code and procedure, judicial administration, press- 
 law, right of assembly, trade and industry, public communications, 
 mining, public waters appartaining to or running through several 
 provinces, labour questions, protection of workmen and private 
 employees (with exception of those engaged in agricultural and 
 forestry work), social and contract-insurance, sanitation, food- 
 supply, religion, federal police and gendarmes, federal army, 
 organisation and rules of order of the federal offices. — The 
 legislation of the Confederation is also extended to certain other 
 matters, the executive of which is abandoned to the provinces; 
 to this chapter belong: citizenship and rights of domicile, personal 
 papers, aliens, working-men tenements, rules of administrative 
 business and procedure. In a third set of matters only the prin- 
 ciples and the framing of general rules are dealt with in the 
 federal legislation, the particulars, the making of by-laws and the 
 executive thereof being left to the provinces, as in the internal 
 administrative organisation, poor-law administration, vital statistics. 
 
Legislative and executive powers. 47 
 
 medical administration, maternity, provisions for the care of infants 
 and children, protection of the agricultural and forest labourers, 
 landed property legislation, forestry, public works &c. 
 
 A matter not being explicitly reserved to the legislative or 
 executive power of the Confederation, belongs to the sphere of 
 provincial self-government. 
 
 The executive power in the Confederation as in the Provinces 
 is vested in the mandataries of the people, appointed by the 
 legislative bodies. These mandataries are: the President of the 
 Confederation and the members of the government, ail elected by 
 the National Assembly, viz: the Chancellor of the Confederation, 
 the Vice-Chanceilor and the Secretaries of State, in the provinces, 
 the Chief of the Executive Power is the Captain-General. The 
 management of the executive business by the mandataries of the 
 people is under the control of the deputies having elected them; 
 for all offences of commission or omission, the mandataries of 
 the people are responsible before the Administrative High-Court. 
 All the officers, employed in federal, provincial or municipal 
 administrative or judicial service, are liable for damages caused 
 by intentional or negligent breach of duties. 
 
 The federal government or the single competent minister 
 shall- be dismissed after a vote of censure by the National 
 Assembly against the whole government or against that minister. 
 
 The legislative power of the Confederation is exercised by 
 the National Assembly conjointly with the Federal Assembly. The 
 former is elected by the people on the principles of the universal, 
 direct, secret and personal suffrage of both men and women, aged 
 twenty years on the first of January of the year of election. The 
 deputi'es are elected on the principle of proportional representation 
 for a legislative period of four years. The members of the Federal 
 Assembly are elected by the Diets, also on proportional principles. 
 The political party, second in strength in the diet, is entitled to 
 one mandate at least in the Federal Assembly. The provinces 
 are represented proportionally to the number of their population; 
 no province can claim to more than twelve, or can fall short of 
 three members. 
 
 For the election of the President of the Confederation or for 
 the declaration of war, the National and Federal Assemblies 
 gather in public meeting. Are eligible President of the Confede- 
 
48 Legislative bodies. 
 
 ration any persons entitled to vote at the legislative elections 
 and aged thirty-five years. Members of families reigning or having 
 reigned are ineligible. The office of the President of the Con- 
 federation is for a period of four years; a reelection for a second 
 subsequent term of four years is admitted only once. The President 
 represents the Republic abroad and signs the treaties with foreign 
 powers. He authenticates by his signature the constitutional ■ 
 validity of any legislative act. He exercises the right of granting 
 pardons. All presidential acts are issued in consequence of a 
 proposition of the federal Government and are countersigned by 
 the Chancellor or a Minister. 
 
 Bills are carried through the National Assembly either by one 
 of its members or as governmental bills. The Federal Assembly 
 is authorised to propose bills in the National Assembly trough 
 the medium of the Government. A popular will expressed by 
 200000 electors or by the half of the total number of electors of 
 three provinces must be submitted to Parliament by the Federal 
 Government. Bills brought before the National Assembly must 
 pass trough a plebiscite before being enacted, if such a wish is 
 voted by that body. In like manner, any essential alteration of 
 the federal constitution is subjected to a plebiscite; the same 
 proceedings are prescribed also for any partial or accessory 
 alteration of the Constitution, if so wished by the majority of the 
 National Assembly. 
 
 The Federal Assembly is concerned in legislative matters in 
 so far as every resolution of the National Assembly must be 
 communicated to the other Assembly before being authenticated 
 and issued. The Federal Assembly is authorised to refuse assent 
 within two months. The refusal becomes inoperative, if the National 
 Assembly reiterates the vote in presence of the moiety of the 
 members at least. In most of the financial matters, as: the annual 
 budget, balance of accounts, contracts or conversions of public 
 loans, disposal of federal property, the Federal Assembly is 
 not intitled to opposition. 
 
 The legislative power of the provinces is vested in the diets, 
 elected after the same manner as the National Assembly. Against 
 provincial legislation, prejudicial to federal interests, the National 
 Assembly can object within two months. The provincial bill passes 
 law, if the Diet reiterates the vote in presence of the moiety of 
 
Provincial and local authorities. 49 
 
 the members, the Federal Government being authorised to appeal 
 against a provincial law, judged inconstitutional, to the Supreme 
 Court. This tribunal is competent judge also in appeals of the 
 provinces against federal legislation. 
 
 The provincial executive power is exercised by the Provincial 
 Government. Federal matters are dealt with in the provinces 
 partly by special federal authorities (immediate federal admini- 
 stration), partly by provincial authorities (delegated or derivated 
 administration). 
 
 The local administration is based upon the principle of self- 
 government. For general administrative purposes, the provinces 
 are divided in district communities, the districts in rural and urban 
 communities. Urban agglomerations of more than 20.000 inhabitants 
 are constituted, at request, as districts. All those communities are 
 just as many independent economic bodies, empowered to acquire, 
 possess and alienate property of all kind, to manage economical 
 enterprises and to levy duties, rates and excises. The representative 
 local bodies are elected after the manner in operation at the 
 national elections. The headman of a district community must be 
 a lawyer. The old administrative apparatus of the districts continues 
 to work until the new schemes will be in full working order, 
 but at the chief place of every old district, an elected controlling 
 body is placed by the side of the chief administrative officer. 
 
 The regulations concerning the delimitations of power between 
 the Confederation and the provinces will remain inoperative till 
 the enactment of the following legislative drafts: law for the 
 financial arrangement between the Confederation and the Pro- 
 vinces, Districts and Communities, law for the sphere of federal 
 action in scolar and educational matters, and finally, law for the 
 establishment of the general administative service in the provinces. 
 
 THE PRISONERS OF WAR. 
 
 The Austrian authorities considered as one of their most 
 urgent duties the delivery of the prisoners of war. These most 
 pitiable victims of the great struggle, some hundreds of thousand 
 in number, were languishing in captivity mostly since the first 
 months of the war. The Austrian Government spared no trouble 
 or expenses and recoiled from no accomodations in the negociations 
 with the ci-devant enemies, in view of the prompt saving of 
 
50 Rescue of the prisoners of war. 
 
 the prisoners from a certain death. Effectivly, the "Commission 
 for the rescue of prisoners of war and civil prisoners", nominated 
 by the Austrian Government, succeeded in obtaining, even before 
 the conclusion of the peace, the repatriation of the Austrian 
 prisoners of war from Italy. At the end of 1919, about 80.000 
 Austrians were thus repatriated. The home-journey of the prisoners 
 of war from England had begun in October 1919, from France 
 January 1920. In the spring of 1920, thanks to the indefatigable 
 excertions of the Secretary of the Danish Red-Cross, Mr. Wahl-Bau, 
 the prisoners of war in Serbian captivity were released. Shortly 
 afterwards, the prisoners retained in the Near -East after the 
 collapse, later on those in Japan and most of the civil persons 
 confined in China were sent home. More than 150.000 prisoners 
 had been rendered to liberty by these excertions. There remained 
 only in Russia, Siberia and Turkistan a considerable number of 
 prisoners of war. At the beginning of the functions of the Prisoners- 
 Commission, Russia was surrounded on all sides by enemies 
 in arms. The scheme of establishing safe lines of communication, 
 utilisable for the homeward journey of the Austrian prisoners, 
 proved impracticable. In vain, the Austrian Government dispatched, 
 by radiotelegraphy, urgent requests to the Soviets at Moscow to 
 let pass to Russia an Austrian delegation for the rescue of the 
 Austrian prisoners of war; similar requests presented in Paris 
 had no better success. The Prisoners -Commission tried now 
 illegal expedients to carry out their task. Mr. Wagner, member 
 of the Commission and influential partisan of the communistic 
 party of Vienna, succeeded in reaching Moscow and to persuade 
 Mr. Tchitcherin, commissary of the people for foreign affairs. 
 By this way, Mr. Mayerhoefer, legal chief of the Prisoners-Com- 
 mission, obtained leave to enter Russia, but only to treat the 
 admission of an Austrian Committee for the rescue of the prisoners 
 of war. It was not before February 1920 that Mr. Mayerhoefer 
 reached Moscow; during a very long space of time, no news 
 were heard in Austria from that official, although he had used 
 freely the Russian radiotelegraphy. 
 
 March 1920, the International Leage of the Red Cross 
 assembled in Geneva. The president of the Austrian Prisoners- 
 Commission was admitted there and succeeded to move an urgent 
 proposal about the question of the release of the prisoners of war. 
 
War- prisoners in Russia. 5] 
 
 The motion was carried and the Assembly voted the resolution 
 that "the rescue of the prisoners of war be declared the first 
 duty of mankind, incumbent now to the Leage of Nations", and 
 all the Societies of the Red Cross, represented at the Assembly, 
 numbering twenty-seven, pledged themselves to use their authority 
 on their Governments to promote these views. 
 
 After this Assembly, the Conference of the Ambassadors in 
 Paris notified to the Austrian Government that no obstacles would 
 be put in the way of the rescue of the Austrian prisoners of war, 
 in the assumption that the necessary expenditure would be 
 defrayed exclusively by Austria. The Leage of Nations com- 
 missioned Mr. Fridthiof Nansen with the mandate of preparing 
 a general scheme for the delivery of the prisoners of war. 
 
 In the mean-time, deliberations had begun in Berlin between 
 Germany and Russia about the exchange of the prisoners of war. 
 The Vice-President of the Austrian Commission went to Berlin 
 to treat with Mr. Kopp, delegate of the Russian Soviets. March 15, 
 the Chancellor of the State, Dr. Renner, informed the representatives 
 of the Entente in Vienna about these negociations, interrupted 
 only temporarily by the riot of Mr. Kapp in Berlin, resumed in 
 May and terminated by the Convention of Copenhague, the context 
 of which hereafter: 
 
 CONVENTION CONCERNING THE EXCHANGE OF THE 
 PRISONERS OF WAR, 
 
 ratified by tlie Soviet Government July 9 and by tlie Austrian 
 Government July 14, 1920. 
 
 The Government of the Socialist Soviet -Republic of 
 Russia and Ukraine, represented by Mr. Maxime Litwinow, 
 delegate of the Council of Commissaries of the people on 
 the one hand, and the Government of the Austrian Republic, 
 represented by Mr. Paul Richter, deputy and Vice-President 
 of the Commission for the rescue of prisoners of war on 
 the other hand, endeavouring to promote by all possible 
 means the exchange of the said prisoners, have concluded 
 to-day the following Convention: 
 
 §l.The contracting parties pledge themselves to send 
 home, by using all means of communication at their com- 
 
 4* 
 
52 Convention of Copenhague. 
 
 mand, all the prisoners of war and interned civil persons, 
 without distinction of grade, station or rank (soldiers, non- 
 commissioned, warrant and commissioned officers, medical 
 officers and sanitary employees, military and civil officials &c.). 
 This mutual obligation shall be considered as accomplished 
 in the moment of transmitting the said prisoners to the 
 representatives of their respective authorities at the actual 
 frontier- station of Narva (Esthonia). The two Governments 
 reserve themselves the right of proposing, if necessary, other 
 places of exchange. The two contracting parties agree in 
 maintaining the principle that no prisoner of war or interned 
 civil person can be exchanged by force after having declared 
 that he will continue his sojourn in the country where he 
 has been since detained. 
 
 § 2. For safeguarding the interests of the civil and 
 military prisoners, a representative is admitted at the seat 
 of Government of both contracting parties. In order to 
 accomplish thoroughly his duties, this representative shall 
 enjoy all the prerogatives of exterritoriality, including the 
 right of using freely the radiotelegraphic communications 
 with his Government. For administrative and technical matters, 
 the representatives shall be allowed to attach to themselves 
 five assistants to the utmost, medical officers included. Both 
 Governments grant to those persons free admission in their 
 territories. 
 
 § 3. The Austrian Government shall be obliged to keep 
 a strict neutrality in the wars Russia might be engaged in. 
 Austria shall prohibit absolutely in her territories all supply 
 or transport of arms, ammunitions and requisites of war 
 destined for the ennemies of Russia. 
 
 § 4. The Austrian Government grants personal liberty- 
 to the commissaries of the Hungarian people, ex-members 
 of the revolutionary Government of Hungary and shall facilitate 
 their departure for Russia by all available means. 
 
 § 5. The representatives mentioned in § 2 are authorised 
 in a formal manner to enter in negociations about the 
 resumption of commercial intercourse between the two 
 countries. 
 
Conflict with the Comm. of Rep. 53 
 
 § 6. The Convention takes effect on the day of the 
 signature. 
 
 Copenhague, July 5, 1920. 
 For the Government of Russia For the Austrian Government : 
 and Ukraine: Paul Richter. 
 
 Maxim e Litwinow. 
 
 July 17, the Secretary of State for foreign affairs received a 
 radiotelegraphic message from Moscow in which Mr. Tchitcherin 
 declared that the repatriation of the Austrian prisoners of war 
 from Russia should be henceforward quite unhindered. In the 
 same dispatch, Mr. Tchitcherin begged the Austrian Government 
 to accelerate the home bound -journey of the Russian prisoners. 
 
 The Commission for Reparations demurred to the dispositions 
 of this treaty concerning the use of radiotelegraphic communications, 
 granted to the two representatives of the prisoners of war, and 
 interrupted the service of credits devoted to the exchange of 
 prisoners. The Austrian Government having cancelled the questioned 
 dispositions as contrary to the treaty of peace, the service of 
 credits was reassumed Septembers. Later on, September 11, the 
 Commission for Reparations agreed the proposals of the Austrian 
 Section about the above-named credits in accordance with the 
 stipulations of Copenhague. September 11, Mr. Otto Pohl, head 
 of the Austrian mission to Russia, leaved for Moscow. 
 
 The convention with Russia was no labour in vain; ere long, 
 the number of repatriated Austrians had augmented considerably. 
 Whilst during the interval between January to June, only 2565 pri- 
 soners had returned, the number of prisoners sent back from 
 Russia rose to 13.400 till the end of the year. In European Russia 
 there are now, generally speaking, no Austrian prisoners at all. 
 It is to be hoped that within the first half of 1921, the Austrian 
 prisoners retained in Siberia and Turkistan, calculated at less 
 than 10.000, will be all saved. 
 
 FOREIGN POLITICS. 
 
 PROMISES OF HELP. 
 
 After having created the Austrian Republic, determined its 
 present frontier lines and prohibited its union with Germany, the 
 Entente Powers did not ignore the fact that they had assumed 
 the moral responsibility of maintaining the vital interests of this 
 
54 Promises of help. 
 
 mis-shapen creature and of securing the peace and tranquillity 
 of Central-Europe, seriously endangered by any political upheaval 
 in this State, situated in the very heart of Europe. 
 
 As a matter of fact, the Vlil"" chapter of the peace instrument, 
 dealing with the obligations incumbent on Austria on behalf of 
 the reparations and with the task of the Commission for Reparations, 
 speaks, in article 182, of the amount of victuals and raw materials 
 judged indispensable by the Allied Powers to enable Austria to 
 fulfill her duties of reparations. 
 
 In the annex to the peace-instrument, dated September 2, 
 1919, formal promises are made: "The allied and associated 
 Governments are nevertheless not animated by the wish to 
 aggravate the painfull situation of Austria, on the contrary, they 
 wish heartily to see employed all means proper to help Austria 
 in her efforts to restore her ancient prosperity". 
 
 "Adequate measures wjll be taken in order to offer Austria 
 the necessary quantity of coal from Czecho-Slovakia and Poland 
 under the restriction of a warranted delivery of certain manufac- 
 tured goods from Austria to the above-named States". 
 
 "The Commission for Reparations is instructed to discharge 
 their duty in an essentially humanitarian sense. They will take in 
 consideration the needs of the whole Austrian people and will 
 grant all facilities necessitated by the precarious alimentation of 
 Austria". 
 
 THE SUB-COMMITTEE OF THE REPARATIONS- 
 COMMISSION. 
 
 Immediately after the signature of the peace instrument, the 
 food-supply of Austria was in a most critical state. Numerous 
 requests c)f the Chancellor of State, directed to the Supreme 
 Council in Paris, resulted eventually in the nomination of a Sub- 
 Committee of the Reparation-Commission, residing in Vienna and 
 constituted August 7, 1919. The Committee was charged with 
 the inquiries into the causes and effects of the alimentary crisis 
 of Austria and to submit proposals to the Commission. Starting 
 from the conviction that the lack of coal, the prime cause of all 
 the miseries of Central-Europe, was the effect of the defective 
 state of the rolling railway-material, the Committee insisted on 
 
The Coal-Commission and Experts-Commission. 55 
 
 the prompt convocation of the Experts-Commission, anticipated 
 by article 318 of the treaty of peace. Both Coal-and Experts- 
 Commission gathered in October 1919. 
 
 Without delay, the Sub-Committee for Austria held conferences 
 with the representatives of Vienna and the provinces and addressed 
 urgent requests to the Czecho-Siovak and Yougo-Slav Govern- 
 ments to fulfill the compacts made with Austria concerning the 
 delivery of coal and victuals. The Sub-Committe were also busy 
 in arranging conferences between the delegates of these three 
 countries. Representatives of the Austrian industry and banking 
 syndicates were heard in order to elucidate the opinions about 
 the needs of Austria. November 7, the Sub-Committee informed 
 the Chancellor of State,, that the allied Governments had been 
 acquainted with the stringent urgency of efficient help in coal 
 and provisions. 
 
 The Experts-Commission too assembled immediately after 
 their arrival in Vienna. The Austrian delegates declared that the 
 passengers' traffic had declined to 17% of the pre-war figures 
 and that the merchandise-traffic was reduced to coal, coke, benzine, 
 industrial alcool, carbid of calcium and explosives for mining 
 purposes exclusively. The suppression of express-trains was 
 imminent. 
 
 In the meanwhile, the alimentary situation had become 
 a catastrophe; the flour and bread rations had been reduced 
 energetically and the total lack of coal had necessitated a complet 
 standstill in the railway-traffic in the last weeks of 1919. 
 
 THE CHANCELLOR OF STATE'S VOYAGE TO PARIS. 
 
 At the second anniversary of its existence, the Austrian Republic 
 was threatened with a real famine, aggravated by a complete 
 lack of fuel. The Entente-supplies in provisions, having assured 
 a scanty alimentation until the new harvest, had been interrupted. 
 The national harvest was sufficient hardly for three months, under 
 the presupposition that the entire amount, calculated at 180.000 
 tons, would be delivered to consumption; but in December, only 
 one third of this quantity had been delivered effectually. In spite 
 of the end of the authorities, the alimentary situation was, 
 at the end of 1919, fare worse than at the most critical moments 
 of the downbreak of the old Empire. Repeatedly, the Vienna 
 
56 Famine at the end of 1919. 
 
 Municipality had only two or three days provision at their com- 
 mand and was obliged to reduce the war- and famine-rations of 
 flour to another half. The final bankruptcy of the entire official 
 alimentary service seemed imminent. 
 
 Germany had declared ready to assist her starving brothers in 
 Austria, in spite of her own pressing needs. By effecting a general 
 reduction of 50 grammes in each daily ration of flour, Germany 
 had spared 8000 tons of flour which were sent to Austria in 
 December. But in the long run, it proved impossible to feed the 
 whole population of a State by the crumbs from the table 
 of a neighbour. In order to secure at least a trifling supply 
 of victuals till October 1920, Austria would have been 
 obliged to spend hundred millions of dollars. Nobody could 
 be astonished by the fact that the Austrian people, the most 
 patient and submissive one of all, having gone unshaken through 
 six years of dearth, famine, cold and all horrors of war, was 
 eventually exhausted and had lost their nerves. Several times, 
 riots broke out spontanously in the larger towns, occasioned by 
 sheer want of food-stuffs and fuel. Coal having entirely disap- 
 peared, and wood, albeit not far from town, not having been trans- 
 ported to market by railway for want of coal, the townspeople 
 went in scores and hundreds of scores to the forests in order to 
 fetch a miserably earned handful of wood. In this manner, the 
 celebrated forest of Wienerwald was devastated to a most deplo- 
 rable extent. Not only the granaries, but also the public treasury 
 were exhausted. The budgetary deficit had risen to 8 milliards 
 of kronen. The fiduciary currency had fallen to a thirtieth of its 
 original value. The Government had in view to decline publicly 
 any responsability, if not supported by the Supreme Council. In 
 order to arouse the feelings of Western - Europe, the Austrian 
 Government communicated, trough the medium of their represen- 
 tative in Paris, the wish to send the Chancellor of State to Paris, 
 that he might be allowed to make, verbally and immediately, a 
 true picture of the intolerable conditions under which the Austrian 
 people was obliged to suffer. December 9, 1919, the Chancellor 
 of State, accompanied by the State-Secretaries of Finance, appro- 
 visions, communications and commerce, went to Paris. Dr. Renner, 
 in moving words, made a vivid picture of the despairing 
 state of Austrian affairs before the Supreme Council and 
 
Results of Dr. Renner's Voyage. 57 
 
 the Reparations-Commission, and urged the realisation of the 
 promises of help, given to his unlucky country in the treaty of 
 peace. The immediate help, in the view of Dr. Renner, should be 
 given in the shape of: P' the lease of all provisions, shipped 
 for or arrived in Europe, attainable in any harbour of Europe, 
 to enable the Austrian Government to distribute the minima- 
 rations of flour during the next two months; these provisions 
 should be given to Austria in the form of advances, 2'' loans in 
 money to warrant the regular food-supply for Austria for a 
 twelvemonth, 3'" credits in raw materials to restart the broken- 
 down Austrian industry; 4"' removal of the mortgage-rights 
 instituted in favour of the Allied States, in order to enable Austria 
 to procure the necassary foreign values. 
 
 The Supreme Council resolved upon these requests: P' : The 
 30.000 tons of grain, stored in the docks of Trieste, shall be 
 forwarded immediately to Austria; 2^ the allied Powers will accord 
 to Yougo-Slavia an advance in order to supply provisions to 
 Austria; 3"^ a decision will be taken in the shortest possible time 
 about the withdrawal of mortgage -rights instituted by the treaty 
 of peace upon Austrian public and private property in favour of 
 the reparations; 4"' the Supreme Council agrees to the proposed 
 alienation of the Tobacco -monopoly, and 5"' the reparations- 
 commission shall examine, without delay, the detailed proposals 
 of the State-Secretary of approvisions about the scheme of a 
 definite programme for the food-supply in the next ten months- 
 period. 
 
 The most ardent hope of the Austrian people, viz. the granting 
 of a great loan, had not yet been realised, the Supreme Council 
 having been convinced that a final settlement of this question 
 was not possible without the collaboration of America. 
 
 Therefore, the Chancellor of State had come back from Paris 
 with the prospect of a momentary alleviation, but not with the 
 expected effectual and lasting remedy. The Austrian Government 
 postponed a new demarche at a later date. 
 
 THE SECRETARIES OF STATE OF FINANCE AND 
 APPROVISIONS IN PARIS. 
 
 February 3, the State-Secretaries of finance and approvisions 
 went to Paris in order to obtain a fresh help from the Entente. 
 
58 Austrian Secretaries of State in Paris. 
 
 The State-Secretary of finance explained before the Conference 
 of Ambassadors that the time of makeshifts was past; the unique 
 remedy was, in his views, a lasting support of the Austrian 
 people, enabling them to maintain themselves, in the long run, 
 by their proper exertions. Therefore, he insisted upon the necessity 
 of a loan for long periods for the restablishment of Austria's 
 economic life. For securing the interests- and sinking fund- 
 payments of this loan, he offered the assignment of the mort- 
 gage-rights on Austrian property instituted by the treaty of peace. 
 An Austrian Section of the Reparations Commission ought to be 
 instituted even before the ratification of the peace, in order to 
 control the management and einployment of this loan. This Section 
 were to be commissioned to establish, with the cooperation of 
 the Austrian Government, an exhaustive programme for the recovery 
 of Austria, enabling this State to perforin by its proper means 
 the duties imposed by the treaty of St. Germain. 
 
 In the meeting of the Organisation Committee of the Com- 
 mission for Reparations, held February 14, the representative of 
 the United States coinmunicated a motion put in the Senate of 
 Washington for the purpose of a loan of 50 millions of dollars 
 to the most destitute European States, first and foremost to Austria. 
 The representative of Great-Britain declared in the name of his 
 Government, that England would join this step with a loan of 
 25 millions of dollars, in fact, the Senate of Washington had 
 authorised, on the proposal of Mr. Hoover, the United States 
 Grain Corporation to offer to Austria an advance sufficient to buy 
 200.000 tons of grain. The British Government declared its 
 willingness to place at Austria's disposal the required tonnage 
 for shipping this grain to Trieste and to defray the transport costs. 
 
 THE AUSTRIAN SECTION OF THE REPARATIONS- 
 COMMISSION. 
 
 March 10, the Reparations-Commission resolved the formation 
 of an Austrian Section without awaiting the ratification of the peace. 
 
 In a dispatch, dated April 17, the Commission approved the 
 willingness of Austria to accomplish the conditions of the treaty 
 of St. Germain concerning the reparations and the liquidation of 
 the Bank of Austria-Hungary before the ratification of the instru- 
 ment of peace. 
 
Note of March 13, 1920. 59 
 
 A sensible alleviation of the burden of these above-named 
 conditions had been granted Austria by a dispatch from the 
 Organisation-Committee, dated March 13, to the effect that: 
 "Considering the urgent want of victuals and raw materials 
 Austria is suffering and in view of encouraging the private 
 initiative to restore the ancient prosperity, the Organisation- 
 Committee has resolved to disengage the private property in 
 Austria from the mortgage-bond imposed by the treaty of peace 
 in favour of the Allied and Associated Powers, and to relinquish 
 the Austrian private property in neutral countries, consisting 
 either in neutral values or others in order to employ them for 
 the purchase of provisions or raw-materials for Austria". 
 
 May 21, the Austrian Section sent the following note to the 
 Austrian Government: 
 
 I. 
 
 On the strength of full powers from the Reparations Com- 
 mission, Austria will be intitled, in virtue of instructions of the 
 said Commission and under the control and with the consent of the 
 Austrian Section to issue treasury-bills, as a guarantee whereof 
 shall be instituted, conformable to article 197, in the first place 
 the entire property and the intire public income of Austria. This 
 guarantee shall precede all reparations imposed by the Treaty of 
 St. Germain and all other obligations imposed by treaties, con- 
 ventions or other agreements made between Austria and the 
 allied and associated Powers at the armistice of November 3, 
 1918, without prejudice to similar dispositions of other conven- 
 tions or protocols in operation. 
 
 a) A portion of these treasury-bills shall be forwarded by 
 the Austrian Government to the allied, associated or neutral 
 Powers having yet granted credits for food-supplies since 
 november 3, 1918. The nominal amount of these bills shall be 
 equal to the credits and loans allowed; these bills shall be for- 
 warded under the condition of remitting to Austria all papers 
 containing obligations or liabilities of Austria and all Austrian 
 assets or guarantees. 
 
 b) a second portion of the treasury-bills shall be remitted 
 to the allied, associated and neutral Governments for future 
 credits and advances, according to the amount of these credits 
 effectively made. 
 
60 Note of May 21, 1920. 
 
 c) the Austrian Government will be entitled to emit, from 
 time to time, another portion of these treasury-bills of an amount 
 corresponding to new advances or credits allowed by the Repa- 
 ration Commission. The privilege, guaranteed to the present loans, 
 will be extended to the future ones after due deliberation by the 
 said Commission. 
 
 d) the treasury-bills shall be united in one single series; the 
 amount shall be redeemable in the currency of the creditor's 
 country, unless stipulated in other currency for the preceding 
 credits. The bills shall bear six percents of insterests. 
 
 e) the Austrian assets, delivered in virtue of alinea a) shall 
 remain under the control of the Austrian Section. 
 
 If disired by the Commission of Reparations, monopolies, 
 works of art, the property of the former Imperial Family at the 
 command of the Austrian Government and available Austrian 
 capital shall be under control and administration of the Austrian 
 Section, according to their availability, in order to secure for 
 Austria the delivery of the necessary amount of food-stuffs, fuel 
 and raw materials in virtue of article 181 of the Treaty of 
 St. Germain, and to determine the obligations incumbent to Austria 
 in this respect. 
 
 11. 
 
 The Austrian Government shall assume the following liabilities 
 towards the Austrian Section : 
 
 a) not to sell, transmit or alienate otherwise public property of 
 the State, provinces or municipalities, or public concessions, 
 privileges or monopolies but with the consent of the said Austrian 
 Section and to invalidate such alienations made since the armistice 
 of November 3, 1918, if required by the Austrian Section. 
 
 b) to move in Parliament bills proposed by the Austrian 
 Section, concerning the sale or other alienations in foreign 
 countries of Austrian private property or all other property not 
 mentioned in the previous alinea. The same shall be the case 
 with concessions granted or monopolies sold in foreign countries. 
 The Austrian Section will make such proposals only if suchlike 
 alienations are proper to be detrimental to the reparations incumbent 
 on Austria. Bills carried through Parliament ought to be altered 
 or abolished if necessary. 
 
The answer of the Austrian Government. 61 
 
 c) to abstain in the future from conventions concerning the 
 delivery or exportation of public papers, documents, objects or 
 materials mentioned in Section 2, part VIII of the treaty of peace, 
 without the consent of the Austrian Section. 
 
 111. 
 
 The said Austrian Section shall assume or control, in virtue 
 of the instructions received from the Commission of Reparation 
 and in the measure of advisability, the collection of imposts, 
 taxes, duties and other revenues of the Austrian Government as 
 well as the expenditure of these revenues, if necessary; the Section 
 shall admonish the Austrian Government in order to enforce the 
 most stringent economy in public expenditure. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The Austrian Section shall henceforward make the necessary 
 inquiries into the economic and financial situation of Austria and 
 establish a genera! scheme for her reconstruction, in order to 
 secure the reparations incumbent on Austria. 
 
 The Austrian Government answered by the following dispatch, 
 dated June 12, 1920: 
 
 "The Austrian Government recieved the dispatch, the Austrian 
 Section of the Commission for Reparations had addressed to the 
 Austrian Plenipotentiary in Paris, Mr. Eichhoff. The Austrian 
 Government acknowledges with gratitude, that the said Section 
 will assume the task of establishing and executing a general 
 scheme for the economic reconstruction of Austria. The Govern- 
 ment will be pleased to contribute, conjointly with the people, 
 to the accomplishment of this task. 
 
 "The Austrian Government shall make use of the offer to emit 
 treasury bills under the conditions enumerated in the dispatch 
 and will remit them to the Governments disposed to grant credits 
 to Austria, after due deliberation with the Austrian Section. 
 
 "The Austrian Government is unable to make objections against 
 the obligations enforced upon Austria and against the control 
 and powers conferred to authorities instituted by the Treaty of 
 Peace. The Government is convinced that the Commission, in 
 the exercise of those rights, will respect our political sovereignty 
 and will not make use of these rights but in the measure of 
 stringent necessity. The Austrian Government shall make all 
 exertions to satisfy the Commission. 
 
62 Sir W. Goode and Mr. Seitz. 
 
 "About some points the bearing of wliich the Austrian Govern- 
 ment did not fully grasp by the wording of the dispatch, oral 
 deliberations shall be held after the arrival of the Austrian Section 
 in Vienna." 
 
 July 13, the members of the Austrian Section presented 
 themselves to Mr. Seitz, President of the Austrian Republic. 
 Sir W. Goode, president of the Section, introduced to Mr. Seitz 
 the delegates of the nine principal Powers, represented in the 
 Section (Great-Britain, Italy, France, United States, Greece, Poland, 
 Roumania, Yougoslavia and Czecho- Slovakia) and said that the 
 Section was about to engage in the preliminary work. The Com- 
 mission for Reparations had charged the Austrian Section, along 
 with certain executive powers, with the mission to elaborate 
 proposals about all questions concerning the execution of the 
 treaty of St. Germain. Moreover, the Section had full powers of 
 all the States having yet granted loans or advances for the 
 restablishment of Austria or being disposed to grant such loans 
 in the future. After having alluded to the proposals of the note 
 of May 21, Sir W. Goode reminded Mr. Seitz of the assistance 
 the Allied and Associated Powers had given Austria in her most 
 critical hours. Since the first meeting, the main care of the Section 
 was the realisation of the advances destined to remedy Austria's 
 misery. But in order to enable the Section to do useful work in 
 the regeneration of Austria, it would be necessary to unite the 
 Government and the people of Austria in the common endeavour 
 to accomplish loyally and scrupulously, using all available forces 
 and energies, the duties imposed by the Treaty of Peace and 
 to make all possible efforts to maintain the public order. 
 
 In answering this address, the President of the Republic said: 
 Austria had resolutely and unreservedly submitted under the 
 conditions of the Treaty of Peace; she will hold her promises 
 loyally. She wishes sincerely to keep all the obligations, in order 
 to put an end to the general insecurity. The Austrian Government 
 had declared itself ready to accept the propositions tendered in 
 the dispatch of May 21, and had not petitioned for negociations 
 but in or'der to know wether the public administration, 
 fettered already beyond measure by the pressure of needs 
 of all kind, would not be entirely paralyzed by the new 
 measures. 
 
Ratification of the Treaty of St. Germain. 63 
 
 The Treaty of St. Germain gained legal power by the exchange 
 of the ratification instruments. At this juncture, M. Cambon insisted 
 also on the necessity of a concientions accomplishment of all 
 the duties imposed upon Austria, but reiterated the formal promises 
 of the Allied Powers to support generously Austria in her efforts 
 to regeneration. 
 
 July 24, the representatives of the three Principal Powers 
 (Great -Britain, France, Italy) remitted their credentials to the 
 President of the National Assembly. 
 
 The control over the financial gestion of Austria in general 
 and the safeguarding of the interests of the Creditor States, vested 
 in the Reparations -Commission, was exercised thoroughly and 
 unrelentingly by the Austrian Section of this Commission. This 
 control was felt most sensibly, inter alia, during the debates 
 concerning the capital-levy. The dispatch dated August 25, about 
 the delivery of cattle and furniture proves that the Allied States 
 had not yet renounced their rights, stipulated in the Peace Treaty; 
 another fact of this state of mind is given by the temporary 
 arrest of the loans granted to secure the repatriation of war 
 prisoners, after the conclusion of the accord of Copenhague. 
 On the other hand, the Reparations -Commission continued to 
 lessen in some points the burden of Austria; August 24, the 
 Commission declared that the raw materials imported to Austria 
 in order to be manufactured there, and the corresponding manu- 
 factured articles should be free from the general mortgage in 
 order to enable Austria to entertain this immediate exchange 
 between raw materials imported and manufactured goods exported. 
 
 In order to alleviate the existing difficulties and controversies 
 between Austria and the other successional States of the Empire, 
 the Reparations -Commission recommended to all Governments 
 concerned the convocation of a special Conference, without delay, 
 for the purpose of an exhaustive discussion about the means 
 available for a settlement of commercial intercourse and the 
 suppression of all undue prohibition of free communication. But 
 the first duty of the Austrian Section seemed always to be the 
 elaboration of a rational programme for the economic restablish- 
 ment of Austria. The Section elaborated a substancial and bulky 
 Aide-memoire, containing several propositions for a general scheme 
 of reconstruction and submitted it to the Commission in Paris. 
 
64 The Army-Control-Comniittee. 
 
 But this scheme of reconstruction seems to be never realised 
 without the help of large credits and the warrant of uninterrupted 
 supply of coal in sufficient quantities. 
 
 Austria had hailed the arrival of the Austrian Section in 
 Vienna with enthousiastic cries of joy ; in their misery, the Austrians 
 had anticipated a new era of prosperity and never doubted an 
 instant that the Austrian Section must be the panacee, able and 
 willing to heal the mortal wounds of the terrible war. 
 
 The dispatch of May 21 desabused cruelly the credulous 
 Austrians ; it did not only refuse the help Austria had longed for, 
 but remembered Austria the fact that the Commission had been 
 established in the shape of a real sovereign ruler over the country. 
 During the next months, seeing always postponed the promised 
 credits and the public affairs running, with accelerated speed, 
 to thf unavoidable abyss, the Austrians were all the more inclined 
 to ascribe all the responsabilities to the Austrian Section, in 
 spite of their praiseworthy efforts to support Austria. 
 
 THE INTERALLIED CONTROL- COMMITTEES. 
 
 During the first part of 1920, the Principal Powers were 
 represented in Vienna, conformable to the Armistice, by Military 
 Missions. In March, the arrival in Vienna of the first party of 
 the Control -Committees was reported. Three commissions, for 
 Army, Navy and Aerial forces were to be constituted. The Peace- 
 Treaty having not yet been ratified, the anticipated arrival in 
 Vienna of these Committees was not justified but in order to 
 accelerate the preliminary work of the Control -Committee. 
 
 The first party of the Army -Committee opened business 
 mid-April, the second one mid-July. The Committee concentrated 
 their efforts in the dissolution of the old Imperial Army, the 
 organisation of the new Militia, the military and civil police-forces 
 and the legislative and administrative measures concerning the 
 military stores and the disposal boards. Afterwards, thew new 
 Militia was the principal matter of interest for the Committee; 
 the military establishments and the civil factories working on 
 purchased military goods were inspected. Public opinion was 
 soon convinced about the fact that the Committee was discharging 
 its duties and interpreting the prescriptions of the Peace Treaty 
 
Naval Control-Committee. 65 
 
 about armament, ammunitions and war-material in a most critical 
 and illiberal way. The Committee was inclined to stop the free 
 disposal of these materials even before the ratification or to 
 submit any disposal thereof to the preliminary permission of the 
 Committee. This interpretation, contrary to both the letter and 
 the spirit of the armistice, compromised seriously the interests 
 of the national industry; the Austrian Government succeeded in 
 stopping the control until the moment the Peace Treaty had 
 gained legal force. 
 
 In the same manner, the Control-Committe interfered often 
 in the making and application of the law on military service, voted 
 March 1920, and in the organisation of the new Militia, although both 
 legislative and executive Powers had made their utmost effort to 
 accord the new law with the provisions of the Peace-Treaty. But 
 the most serious difficulties arose from the management of 
 business in matters concerning the war-material, these matters 
 hitting the very heart of industrial life in Austria and crippling 
 the free exercise of industrial and commercial activity. The man 
 in the street, ignoring all about the minute details of the dispo- 
 sitions of the Treaty, was all too quick in considering the whole 
 business of the Control-Committee in the light of a gratuitous 
 ^nd deliberated vexation. On the other hand, certain provisions 
 of the Treaty could not, even with all possible good will, carried 
 through within the prescribed terms. 
 
 The first party of the Naval Committee convened in Vienna 
 March 9. It was first occupied in dressing the inventory of the 
 naval materials and visited, to this effect, a certain number of 
 , private establishments. This Committee was soon convinced of 
 the fact that nowhere naval material was worked upon and all 
 factories concerned had been already transformed or were about 
 to finish their transformations for civil purposes. A few armour 
 plates at Linz and some wooden carcasses destined for the con- 
 struction of boats were the only objects destroyed by order of 
 the Naval-Committee. In July, all persons concerned agreed that 
 the first party, containing four Admirals and eight Superior navy- 
 officers, not to speak of the numerous auxiliary personnel, had 
 nothing more to do in Austria. To the general astonishment, the 
 second party arrived in Vienna July 27. Considering the scanty 
 naval material, the very existence of a Naval Committee seemed 
 
66 Aerial Control-Committee. 
 
 to be a mere matter of form. The Chairman himself, Admiral 
 Cagni, seemed to accelerate a prompt removal of the Plenary 
 Commission from Vienna, causing enormous charges on the public 
 expenditure. In fact, the Naval Committee leaved Vienna August 1 1 
 
 The first party of the Aerial Committee arrived in Vienna 
 mid-April, the remainder in July. Austria not being allowed by 
 the Treaty of Peace to entertain any air-craft, neither military 
 nor civil, the business of this Committee is restricted to the 
 control of destruction and disposal of aerial material and the 
 dissolution of the military aerial unities. The exercise of the first 
 named functions was even more detrimental to the interests of 
 national industry than the activity of the Army Committee. 
 
 According to the statements made by the President of the 
 Plenary Control Commission, the expenditure of the Army branch was 
 981.650 francs, that of the aerial branch 255.000 francs, making up a 
 total of 1 ,236.650 francs monthly,*) equivalent to the moiety of the total 
 military expenditure of Austria. This appalling burden has generated 
 the legitime wish to see reduced the persounel and the expenditure 
 of the Committee to a more rational limit, the much more so as 
 the work of the Committee seems to be almost finished, thanks 
 to the cooperation of both Government and people of Austria in 
 order to accomplish strictly and xoncientiously the provisions of 
 the Peace-Treaty. 
 
 THE ADMISSION TO THE LEAGE OF NATIONS. 
 
 Since its first appearance, the idea of the Leage of Nations 
 was enthousiastically hailed by the Austrian people. The Austriaa 
 policy, tending to the maintenance of peace, to reconciliation and 
 a renewal of civilisation, had been declared as identical with 
 the aims of the Leage by her first Chancellor of State. 
 
 The financial conference held at Brussels afforded to Austria 
 the first opportunity of cooperating, under the auspices of the 
 Leage of Nations, in an international concern, side by side with her 
 foes of yesterday. All parties declared unanimously the enormous 
 
 *) The budget for the financial year of 1921 provides for the Commission 
 of Reparation 7.5 millions of kronen (gold) equal to 975 millions kronen, 
 for the Danube-Commission 150.000 french francs, equal to 5.85 millions 
 kronen. 
 
Admission to the Leage of Nations. 67 
 
 difficulties of the Austrian problem, to be solved only with the 
 collaboration of all other nations. 
 
 After the convocation of the first assembly of the League 
 of Nations at Geneva, Austria availed herself the opportunity to 
 claim her rights to admission. November 9, the request was 
 introduced to the Secretary -General and December 15, the ad- 
 mission of the Austrian Republic was carried unanimously 
 This prompt and unquestioned admission is a tangible and precious 
 proof of public trust in the sincerity of Austrian policy and was, 
 therefore, heartily welcomed by the Austrian people. As a member 
 of the League, Austria has gained the very real advantage of being 
 entitled to appeal against the intolerable financial and economic 
 position enforced by the Treaty of Peace. Article 1 1 of this 
 instrument enables Austria to attract the attention of the Leage 
 to such circonstances as to influence upon international relations 
 and to endanger the peace or the understanding between the 
 nations. Article 19 empowers the Assembly to call its members 
 to a revision of conventions or treaties liable to compromise the 
 universal peace or having become obsolete or inapplicable. Lastly, 
 article 88 authorizes the Council of the League to abolish the 
 political insulation of Austria. Therefore, very material interests 
 of Austria were at stake. 
 
 RELATIONS WITH CZECHO- SLOVAKIA. 
 
 Before leaving for Paris, the Chancellor of State had decided 
 to send delegates to Prague in order to settle the political and 
 economic questions between Austria and Czecho-Slovakia. During 
 his stay in Paris, Dr. Renner availed himself of the opportunity 
 of entertaining Dr. Benesch, the Czecho-Slovak Minister of foreign 
 affairs, about the preliminary conditions of this conference. In this 
 interview, the coal and sugar questions were the prominent topics. 
 
 January 9, 1920, the Chancellor of State, accompanied by 
 the chiefs of the Finance, Commerce and Public- Health Offices, 
 went to Prague. The political aim of this voyage was the settle- 
 ment of friendly relations between the two countries; those 
 conditions of the Peace Treaty the execution of which were 
 only dependent on the mutual understanding of Austria and 
 Czecho-Slovakia, should be carried to effect without delay, even 
 
68 Dr. Renner's Voyage to Prague. 
 
 before the ratification of the Treaty. The questions of delimitation, 
 naturalization, and public servants were to be resolved at once. 
 Dr. Renner was charged too to initiate a normal commercial treaty 
 in order to restablish the interrupted traffic between the two 
 countries. Finally, financial arrangements were to be made. The 
 final effect of this voyage was an accord about certain questions 
 of home and foreign policy, above all a mutual agreement about 
 the common defence against any attempts of political or economic 
 restauration. The two contracting parties agreed in renouncing 
 all pretensions not backed by the Treaty of St. Germain. 
 
 It was not an alliance or an entente, but only a spontaneous 
 collaboration in all vital questions what was resolved. Any attempt 
 in the direction of a federation or a customs -house union was 
 rejected ; both parties agreed that the leading idea of both Austrian 
 and Czecho- Slovak policy must be and remain the maintaining 
 of friendly relations with all the States of Central-Europe. Seried 
 negociations, held alternatively at Vienna and at Prague, were 
 foreseen. Special commissions tor the study of the conditions of 
 a future treaty of commerce were instituted. 
 
 Czecho-Slovakia promised the delivery of 30.000 tons of sugar. 
 But the coal question, the most momentuous of all, remained 
 unsettled, but Czecho-Slovakia subscribed to the obligation of 
 sending 100 more daily waggons of coal than stipulated by previous 
 compacts, and promised to enhance these quantities in the future. 
 In ordre to settle this question too, a permanent mixed Coal 
 and Railway -Committee was nominated. Following the visit of 
 Dr. Renner at Prage, negociations were continued in Vienna in 
 view of the conclusion of a Compensation -treaty, with a final 
 satisfactory result. 
 
 Although the voyage at Prague had not the expected immediate 
 effects in economic matters, the moral consequences were not 
 contemptible. Dr. Renner had at least succeeded to shake the 
 fundament of hostility existing between Prague and Vienna; the 
 semi-official "Tschecho-slowakische Korrespondenz" had the same 
 impression in writing down these lines: "The only result of having 
 effaced the afflicting and wicked past and of having ascertained 
 the fact that the Czecho-Slovak Government is animated by the 
 heartfelt wish to maintain friendly relations with Austria in order 
 
Frontier delimitation. 69 
 
 to serve jointly the common interests, is worth congratulating 
 both parties upon the interview of Prague". 
 
 In his speeches delivered in Prague, Dr. Renner did not 
 dissimulate his apprehensions about the Treaty of Peace. He stated 
 frankly that the Treaty did not justice to the legitimate wishes 
 and hopes of Austria; but he continued by saying that, under 
 the given circumstances, Austria was bound to take the Treaty 
 as a basis for her future policy. He concluded by expressing his 
 conviction that, upon that basis, Austria would and could come 
 to friendly relationship with her neighbours. 
 
 Without considering the fact that the Peace Treaty had severed 
 from Austria vaste tracts of land, exclusively or mainly peopled 
 by Germans, occupied by Czecho- Slovakia already before the 
 ratification, the treaty had allotted to Czecho-Slovakia too several 
 Austrian districts on the Austro-Czech boundary line near Felds- 
 berg and Weitra in order to satisfy the alleged Czecho-Slovak 
 railway -interests. In order to retain the town of Feldsberg, the 
 Austrian Government proposed the construction of a junction line 
 Eisgrub-Voitelsbrunn; but this proposal was not accepted. After 
 the ratification, the Czecho-Slovak Government occupied-^ the 
 thirteen boroughs in question in the district of Weitra with the 
 great junction and railway -factories of Gmiind, and the five 
 boroughs of Feldsberg, in all 225 square kilometres and 22.500 
 inhabitants, almost all Germans. The international Boundary- 
 Commission, charged with the final settlement of the Czecho- 
 Austrian frontier line, commenced their work August 11 and 
 terminated it, in the district of Gmtind, October P'. The Com- 
 mission added also the borough of Boehmzeil, suburb of Gmund, 
 with the terminus of the local provincial railways of Lower Austria, 
 to the Czecho-Slovak territory, in order to assure to this State 
 the unhempered exploitation of the railways ceded to Czecho- 
 slovakia. Some tracts of fertile land restored to Austria could 
 not constitute a real compensation for the painful losses she 
 had sustained. 
 
 The following negociations, held at Prague, concerned a 
 convention about the State -Archives, judicial records, public 
 fine-arts collections, naturalization and the protection of national 
 minorities, according to the provisions of the Peace Treaty. The 
 Archives- Convention, signed May 18 and entered in force 
 
70 Conventions of Briinn and Carlsbad. 
 
 October 29, is based upon the provenience principle. Concerning 
 the worlis of art in the public Museums and Galleries, the 
 Czecho-Slovak Government is authorised to exerce the right of 
 pre-emption for all objects falling in the historical or intellectual 
 sphere of the Czecho-Slovak nation. The materials preserved in 
 the old Military Geographical Institute in Vienna and sold to 
 Czecho- Slovakia were to be paid in raw materials. 
 
 The negociations about the naturalization resulted in the 
 Convention of Briinn, signed July 7, but not yet ratified. 
 
 This convention grants to all public servants the naturalization 
 in the State where the service is performed; it settles the rules 
 of the optional rights and grants a delay of three years for the 
 removal to the Slate in favour of which the option was made. 
 The two contracting parties bind themselves not to exile any 
 subject of the other party but for superior interests of public 
 order and security. The national minorities shall enjoy the right 
 of using their language in their pHvate schools and in their 
 internal administration. The private primary schools, when in 
 accordance with the general legal rules, shall enjoy the prerogatives 
 of public schools. Austria engages herself to establish public 
 primary schools for her subjects of Czecho-Slovak tongue in 
 Vienna; after the general inscriptions, the number of classes will 
 be determined so as that the number of pupils will be the same 
 in the Czecho-Slovak and the German primary Municipality schools. 
 The Ministry of Public Instruction had instituted, already in 
 spring 1920, a commission for the study of the Czecho-Slovak 
 school question in Vienna. Although the Convention of Briinn is 
 not yet ratified, this Commission had ordered the inscription of 
 the Czecho-Slovak pupils in Vienna for autumn 1920. 
 
 The Convention of Briinn will lose its effect after four years, 
 lest it should be prolonged six months at least before the term. 
 
 A supplementary convention was signed at Carlsbad Sep- 
 tember 1920; the Czecho-Slovak Government agreed to maintain 
 in the public service certain classes of schoolmasters and pro- 
 fessors of German nationality, whereas the Austrian Government 
 submitted to the condition of allowing the half of the 'educational 
 staff of the Czecho-Slovak primary schools in Vienna to be subjects 
 of Czecho -Slovakia. 
 
Annexation of German Tyrol. - 71 
 
 In the first days of August, new negociations were made in 
 Prague concerning the lease of deposits in the Banking establishe- 
 ments and the mutual recognisance of the control -stamps on 
 effects and values, preceding the lease. August 31, the convention 
 concerning the legal state of industrial and transport enterprises 
 entered in force. But the negociations about the treaty of import- 
 and export- contributary quotas, terminated February 9, are not 
 yet ratified. 
 
 Presently, new transactions about a treaty of commerce are 
 beginning. 
 
 RELATIONS WITH ITALY. 
 
 After the breaking-up of the old Austrian Empire, no point 
 of litigation between Italy and the German people seemed to 
 have survived. The boundary lines, delimitating the territories of 
 German and Italian speaking peoples are everywhere unequivocal 
 and traced by nature itself. But unfortunately, Italy did not account 
 of this state of things and incorporated a great part of the 
 German Tyrol. The Austrian Government attempted to negociate 
 directly with Italy in order to make her renounce this policy, 
 but failed utterly. Although the Parliament of Rome, during the 
 debates about the ratification of the Peace Treaty, acknowledged 
 openly the unrightousness of this treaty, the Assemby ratified 
 without alterations the instrument. Notwithstanding the repeated 
 promises of an entire autonomy and self-goverment, to be granted 
 to German Tyrol, this annexation will always remain an open 
 wound until eventually healed by a decision of the League of 
 Nations. 
 
 In all other matters, Italy had been the first country treating 
 with Austria on a foot of entirety friendly neighbourhood. Italy 
 had initiated the sending home of the prisoners of war, she was 
 the first State according facilities in the execution of the Treaty 
 of Peace, Italy had outpassed the other countries in concluding 
 a treaty of commerce based on the principle of perfect reciprocity, 
 she had first afforded hospitality to the starving Austrian children, 
 the Italian troops were the first ones to evacuate Austrian territory 
 and in all diplomatic matters, Austria enjoyed the support of the 
 Italian Government. 
 
72 Austrian mission in Rome. 
 
 In pursuance of an invitation of the Italian Government, the 
 Chancellor of State, Dr. Renner, accompanied by the Secretaries 
 of State in the economic offices went to Rome April 1920, thus 
 before the ratification. He vkfas expected to treat, the particulars 
 about the execution of the Treaty of Peace and many other 
 economic questions. 
 
 The Austrian Mission was very heartily welcomed in Rome 
 both by the Government as by the Italian people, both endeavouring 
 to mark the fact of the first visit of a ci-devant enemy in the 
 Capital of a belligerant State before the conclusion of peace. 
 The King was pleased to express his sympathies for the young 
 Republic; the Pope spoke of his deep compassion with the 
 sufferings of the Austrian people and handed to Dr. Renner a 
 million of lire destined to charitable institutions. The President 
 of the Council of Ministers, Mr. Nitti and Dr. Renner attested 
 the perfect harmony of interests between Italy and Austria. The 
 Italian Government declared to be ready to restablish without 
 delay the economic relations with Austria and to help Austria in her 
 efforts towards a prompt regeneration. In order to realise these 
 wishes, the two Ministers of finance, supported by a number of 
 experts, agreed, after exhaustive deliberations, upon the following 
 conclusions: 
 
 The Italian Government accords an advance of 20.000 tons 
 of gTain upon the deliveries from America, not yet arrived in 
 Italy, and promises similar advances in case of necessity. Italy 
 is ready to participate in the international loans offered to Austria, 
 with a share of hundred millions of lire. Italy will create a 
 Clearing office to compensate the credits and debits between 
 Austrian and Italian subjects; for the balance, terms espaced over 
 several years will be granted. The Italian Government promises 
 to grant the Austrians in Italy the same juridical, financial and 
 commercial prerogatives reserved exclusively to the only Italian 
 subjects by the stipulations of the Treaty of St. Germain. On 
 the other hand, Austria engages herself to deliver to the Italian 
 Government the detailed plans for the construction of the Railway- 
 route of Predil (Julian Alps) in order to accelerate the execution 
 of this line of junction between Italy and Austria. Italy promises 
 to deliver to Austria, against defrayment of the supplementary 
 transport-expenditure, the American and British coal necessary 
 
Convention about works of art. 73 
 
 to the maintaining of Austro-ltalian railway-intercommunication. 
 Thie Austrian goods in the Porto franco of Trieste or consigned 
 thereto are free from any customs-or other similar duties as if 
 they were Italian goods; for these goods, special warehouses 
 shall be constructed or reserved; the conventions between Austria 
 and the Italian Companies of navigation in Trieste shall be 
 favoured by the Italian Government; in return, Austria promises 
 to direct the moiety at least of her oversea-trade in the way of 
 and from Trieste. 
 
 Finally, Italy engaged herself to support Austria in the defence 
 of her territory, as settled by the Treaty of Peace and in her 
 requests tending to her admission in the League of Nations. Both 
 countries agreed to restablish without delay the diplomatic 
 relations in order to cooperate in the maintaining of the peace. 
 Mr. Nitti reiterated spontanously his formal promise of an entire 
 autonomy for German Tyrol. April 1920, the Italian Government 
 granted the exequatur for an Austrian Consulate-General at Trieste. 
 
 The Treaty of Peace authorized Jtaly to request from Austria 
 certain works of art of Italian origin, preserved in the Austrian 
 Public Galleries aud Museums, the property title of which is 
 missing. In controversial cases, a neutral arbitration court will 
 settle finally. June 1920, a new convention was signed in view 
 of a definitive settlement of all controversial cases in the delivery 
 of works interesting the fine arts, the history of art, the bibliography 
 and archives. In performance of this convention, a considerable 
 number of treasuries, carried away by the Italian Armistice 
 Commission will be restored to Austria. The cimelias of the 
 Vienna National Library,* taken away as a pledge, shall soon be 
 returned to Vienna. 
 
 THE RELATIONS WITH GERMANY. 
 
 After the break-down of the Austrian Empire, every expert 
 in the public life of Austria predicted that Austria was cast for 
 death under the present conditions. Theoretically, two remedies 
 existed to save the life of this mole: either the restablishment of 
 the economic boundaries of old Austria-Hungary, in the shape of a 
 Confederation of the Danube, or the union with Germany. The 
 first remedy proved utterly impracticable. The scheme of uniting 
 
74 The Union with Germany. 
 
 seven sovereign States in an economic unity was chimerical; of 
 course, none of tfiem would sacrifice the smallest particle of its 
 newly gained sovereignty. Therefore, the idea of a Danube Con- 
 federation was frustrated by the invincible opposition of those 
 invited to form this league. But the scheme of a union with 
 Germany, born out of the spontanous national feelings of the 
 people and nourished by the growing difficulties in the daily life, 
 developed steadily, carrying along even those who were, at the 
 outset, the most stubborn antagonist of this scheme. Germany too, 
 hesitating first at the idea of the new burden of nourishing her 
 Austrian children in spite of her own distress, was finally more 
 and more convinced of the inevitable ultimate issue. 
 
 But this common wish of both countries is not to be realised 
 as long as the Treaty of St. Germain is in full force. This Treaty 
 proclaims first the full sovereignty and independence of Austria 
 and binds her union with Germany to the approval of the League 
 of Nations. Matters standing thus, Austria had only one way : 
 struggling for her economic prosperity with the help of the Entente 
 and to leave to the future the realisation of her hopes. 
 
 Therefore, the Austrian Government abstained henceforward 
 anxiously from any action contrary to the provisions of the Treaty 
 about the independence of Austria. But no sensible politician will 
 believe that the relations between Austria and Germany will be 
 confined to some judicial conventions or to the Treaty of Com- 
 merce, signed September P' at Munich. The force of gravitation, 
 engendered by the unity of tongue, feelings and civilisation, will 
 prove in the last run stronger than any diplomatic paper. This 
 power is visible everywhere in the daily life; the Kapp's upheaval 
 in Berlin March 1920, had a deep repercyssion in Austria; the 
 commercial balance shows the crushing superiority of German 
 imports to and exports from Austria; but public opinion is and 
 will be in the future the first asset in this bill. 
 
 The provincial Assemblies used to invite from time to time 
 the Central Government to urge the abolition of the clause pro- 
 hibiting the union with Germany. In some countries bordering 
 Germany, a lively propaganda is at work to force the union, 
 without or against the Central Government, in Vorarlberg the 
 tendency is rather to make a union with Switzerland. 
 
Claims for union in the Provinces. 75 
 
 During the autumn of 1919, these popular movements were 
 so strong as to decide the Supreme Council to a dispatch to the 
 Chancellor of State, staying in Paris at this moment, stating that 
 the Allied and Associated Powers would be obliged to oppose 
 material resistance to any attempt of endangering the integrity or 
 the political or economic independence of Austria. But the 
 exhortations of the Government vanished in the turmoil of the 
 cries of distress. Not only the urban population, suffering more 
 immediately by the general misery, but even the peasantry claimed 
 the immediate union. The meeting of the little landowners, held 
 at Linz in April 1920, voted unanimously the union. September 7, 
 the Pangermanists Congress at Salzburg invited the National 
 Assembly to vote a law prescribing a general plebiscite about the 
 union with Germany, along with the general elections. In the last 
 meeting of the National Assembly, October 1^', 1920, a similar 
 motion of the Pangermanist Party was rejected, but a motion to 
 the effect of prescribing the general plebiscite within the following 
 six months, was carried unanimously. 
 
 RELATIONS WITH YOUGOSLAVIA. 
 
 After the ratification of the Treaty of St. Germain, Yougoslavia 
 was obliged to evacuate the territories, occupied by her army but 
 eventually allotted to Austria. Thus, the districts of Radkersburg, 
 Spielfeld, Soboth and others, situated in Styria, were restored to 
 Austrian administration. In the question of the basin of Abstall, 
 severed from Austria by the Treaty of Peace, it is hoped that 
 an amiable arrangement with Yougoslavia will be obtainable. If 
 not, Austria shall address a petition to the League of Nations 
 tending to the grant of a plebiscite in this districts as well as 
 in some others situated in the basin of Marburg (Styria) and 
 Mies (Carinthia), the inhabitants of which are mostly Germans. 
 
 The Treaty of St. Germain had already provided a plebiscite 
 in the basin of Klagenfurt. The plebiscite territory was divided 
 in two zones: the northern zone (B) with the chief place of 
 Klagenfurt, was not called to the plebiscite but in the case as 
 the southern zone (A) should decide in favour of Yougoslavia.*) 
 
 *) The zone A contains 1727 square Icil. with 72.138 inhabitants (whereof 
 22.579 Germans), the zone B 372 square kil. with 58.610 inhabitants (whereof 
 50.652 Germans). The figures from the census returns of 1910. 
 
76 
 
 Plebiscite in Carinthia. 
 
 The entire territory was placed under the" control of an 
 International Commission charged with the task of preparing the 
 plebiscite and granting an impartial administration. July 15, 1920, 
 the Plebiscite Commission arrived at Klagenfurt; the members 
 discharged their ungrateful and difficult duties with untiring 
 abnegation and accelerated the work so that the plebiscite, fixed 
 by the Treaty in the zone A within three months after the 
 ratification, could be carried through October 10. 
 
 In conformity with the provisions of the Treaty, the Commission 
 withdrew the Yougoslavic troops from the zone A September 10. 
 The effective withdrawal was finished only a week later. The 
 numerous abuses committed by the Yougoslavic administration 
 in the zone A and the cruelties of the Yougoslavic emissaries in 
 this country determined the Austrian Government to present 
 repeatedly complaints against this state of things to the Conference 
 of Ambassadors and to request tlie sending of interallied or neutral 
 troops to warrant an impartial working of the plebiscite apparatus. 
 The Ambassadors did not agree to this proposal, but they sent, 
 October 6, 150 officers charged with immediate control of the 
 plebiscite operations. 
 
 THE RETURNS OF THE PLEBISCITE: 
 
 Districts: 
 
 V fe^s for 
 
 Austria 
 
 Yougoslavia 
 
 Rosegg 
 Ferlach 
 Bleiburg 
 Volkermarkt 
 
 1980 
 6428 
 5140 
 8304 
 
 2331 
 4984 
 5339 
 2442 
 
 total 
 
 21.852 
 
 15.096 
 
 Therefore, 59.i4»/o had voted for Austria. A notable fraction 
 of the Slavic part of the inhabitants have voted for the young 
 Republic, a striking proof of the unrighteousness of severing vast 
 tracts of lands from Austria without taking in account neither the 
 national feelings nor ecomic interests. 
 
Austro-Yougoslavie treaty of commerce. 77 
 
 The delight the results of this plebiscite had caused- in 
 Austria was somewhat marred by the fact that the next day, two 
 bataillons of Yougoslavic troops penetrated the territory. The 
 Austrian Government protested energetically both at Paris as- at 
 Belgrade, against these arbitrary proceedings. It was not but 
 October 25, that the Yougoslavic troops evacuated the country, 
 thanks to the prompt intercession of the Conference of Ambassadors. 
 
 The economic relations between Austria and Yougoslavia 
 were confined, during the year of 1919, like those with other 
 neighbouring states, to an exchange between imported raw 
 materials and exported manufactured goods, based on the principle 
 of compensation. January 19, 1920, a supplementary convention 
 was enacted, settling on a new basis the exchange rates of the 
 two currencies, determined previously by a convention dated 
 September 1^', 1919. Further more, Yougoslavia warrants to Austria 
 the delivery of certain determined quantities of raw materials in 
 exchange of manufactured commodities. At the day of the revocation 
 of this treaty, the total amount of goods exported and imported 
 by both States, was 310 millions of kronen. 
 
 Negociations about a provisional treaty of commerce, having 
 begun June P' at Belgrade, were terminated June 27. This was 
 the first normal treaty of commerce between Austria and a foreign 
 state. Besides, a convention aboutthedelivery of certains contingents 
 under immediate balance-accounts and a convention about the 
 letting of railway engines from Austria, were concluded. An 
 agreement about the supply of grain from Yougoslavia was 
 forthwith enacted. 
 
 Similarly as with Czecho-Slovakia, Austria made an agreement 
 with Yougoslavia about the question of Archives. 
 
 RELATIONS TO HUNGARY. 
 
 Hungary was the last State entering in friendly relations with 
 Austria. By the readiness to accomplish without mental restrictions 
 the oppressive duties imposed by the treaty of peace, Austria 
 had won the sympathies of the world at large and the confidence 
 of her neighbours. Austria had to cede to almost all neighbouring 
 states vast tracts of land undoubtedly or exclusively inhabitated 
 by people of German race; Austria underwent these cessions 
 
78 The question of Burgenland. 
 
 with bleeding heart but without delay; she renounced to the 
 easy tentation to create or to foster in these tracts of country an 
 irredentistic movement. But of course, Austria will not, if even 
 she could, resign the only gain the treaty of peace has bestowed 
 on her, viz. that part of German Western Hungary, commonly 
 called Burgenland. This country, having belonged sometimes 
 to Hungary, sometimes to Austria, had been ever since one of 
 the principal feeders of Vienna in agricultural products and there- 
 fore of much lesser economic interest for agricultural Hungary 
 than for Austria. Hungary declares jpi to submit to the cession 
 of this country. Certainly, Hungary is authorised to continue the 
 occupation of this tract of land till the ratification of the treaty 
 of Trianon, but it is easily understood that the attitude of Hungary 
 is apt to cause unrest and diffidence in Austria. Unofficial Hungary 
 declares repeatedly the impossibility of a cession of German 
 Western Hungary to Austria; a lively anti-Austrian agitation is 
 maintained in the country and the pro-Austrian partisans are 
 persecuted and imprisoned. The only official declaration of Hungary 
 was a diplomatic note of February 14, 1920, proposing to the 
 Austrian Government a plebiscite under the control of the Hungarian 
 authorities. Of course such a plebiscite, besides being expressly 
 forbidden by the Supreme Council at Paris, would be a mere farce 
 and was therefore declined by Austria. The numerous complaints 
 for terrorist proceedings, recruitments, requisitions, preparations 
 of wholesale plundering in the case of evacuation, brought before 
 the Austrian authorities by deputies from German Western Hungary, 
 all this determined eventually the Austrian Government to demand 
 redress before the Conference of Peace. 
 
 February 25, 1920, the Austrian Government received a note 
 from the President of the Peace-Conference, saying that, in con- 
 sideration of the disquieting news from the counties of Western 
 Hungary, the Conference had resolved to send an inter-allied 
 military commission to Oedenburg, chief place of these counties. 
 The inter-allied Commission was to contain also two Austrian 
 delegates. Although the Allied Powers had, by the nomination of 
 this military commission at Oedenburg, implicitely reiterated 
 their decisions concerning German Western Hungary, the Hungarian 
 Government continued to consider this land as purely Hungarian; 
 in' march 1920, when the Austrian bank-notes were labelled, a 
 
Austro-hungaiian Convention of August 2, 1919. 79 
 
 fee of 10% was levied from the proprietors and a forced loan 
 of 40''/o of the labelled bank-notes was taken. 
 
 In a hardly less sensible manner than the Western-Hungary 
 question, the internal political struggles in Hungary led to disso- 
 nances between the two States. During the period of the Com- 
 munist rule at Budapest, all the anti- communist Hungarian 
 politicians sought and found asylum at Vienna. On the other hand, 
 the Bolchevists at Budapest entertained at Vienna a lively propa- 
 ganda, hoping to gain an effective influence in the Austrian 
 political and governmental spheres. The same spectacle, but with 
 interchanged parts, was performed after the overthrow of the 
 Bolchevist regime in Hungary. Most of the Bolchevists had fled 
 to Vienna. Therefore, after consulting with the representatives of 
 the Entente at Vienna, the Austrian Government concluded with 
 the legal Hungarian Government the following agreement: 
 
 CONVENTION BETWEEN THE GERMAN-AUSTRIAN AND 
 THE HUNGARIAN GOVERNMENTS CONCERNING THE 
 RESIDENCE OF THE COMMUNISTIC DELEGATES OF THE 
 HUNGARIAN PEOPLE IN THE TERRITORY OF AUSTRIA. 
 
 In view to support the new Hungarian Government in their efforts 
 to maintain the order and tranquillity, the German-Austrian Government 
 declares being willing to accord an asylum in the Austrian territories 
 to the communistic delegates of the Hungarian people and their sub- 
 ordinates, viz: B6Ia Kun, Eugen Landler, Ernest Por, Bela Vargo, 
 Joseph Poganyi, Francis Rakos, Emil Madarasz, John Hirosak, Eugen 
 _ Varga and Julius Lengyel. 
 
 This asylum is to be warranted under the supposition that they 
 will abstain absolutely from any political activity. The granting of this 
 asylum is dependent on the condition that their sojourn in the Austrian 
 Republic may not cause any trouble in the internal or external 
 policy of Austria. If this should happen, the Austrian authorities reserves 
 to themselves the right of using their own discretion. The abovenamed 
 persons shall return to Hungary as soon as the internal situation of this 
 country will permit their sojourn in Hungary. The Austrian Government 
 feels obliged, as well in its proper interests as in view of warranting the 
 personal safety of the above-named persons, to restrict their liberty of 
 residence and to confine them in a locality choosen by the Austrian 
 
 Authorities. 
 
 Vienna, August 2, 1919. 
 
 For the Austrian Foreign-office : 
 
 1 ppen. 
 
 In the name of the Hungarian Government : 
 
 W. Boehm, minister. 
 
80 International boycott against Hungary, 
 
 Altough Austria was bound, if not by tiii§ treaty, yet by the 
 rules of international law, to give protection to those persons, 
 the antirevolutionary -Hungarian Government, once constituted, 
 requested the delivery of the communistic delegates iltider the 
 charge of crimes against the common law. The High-Court at 
 Vienna, called to decide the matter, declared the suspicions and 
 proofs alleged by the Hungarian Government insufficient to justify 
 an extradition. Therefore, the refusal of extradition by the Austrian 
 Government was unavoidable. The charges of the Hungarian 
 Government against Austria with the support given to the escape 
 of the Hungarian communists from Austria to Russia were not 
 less substantiated. The above-mentioned convention does not bind 
 Austria to maintain infinitely the Hungarian communists in Austria; 
 on the other hand, the Convention of Copenhague granting the 
 return of the Austrian prisoners of war, retained in Russia, obliged 
 Austria to send to Russia the Hungarian communists. By eluding 
 this condition, Austria would have compromised seriously the 
 rescue of those infortunate victims of the war. 
 
 June 20, 1920, the International Workmen's Association declared 
 the general boycott against Hungary; in Austria, the syndicated 
 workmen, most of the Post-, Telegraph- and Telephone-employees 
 and the railway-men declared themselves pro boycott. The Austrian 
 Government, in conformity with all the other Governments, 
 maintained a neutral attitude. An order from the Secretary 
 of State for Communications, tending to facilitate the service 
 of the antiboycott employees, was condemned to remain ineffec- 
 tive in the face of the resolute disobedience of the majority 
 of the railway-men. On the other hand, the Chancellor of State, 
 Dr. Renner, offered his good services for the negociations between 
 the Hungarian Minister at Vienna and the international Boycott- 
 Committee. But the discussions failed and the boycott continued. 
 The Hungarian Government answered this boycott by a counter- 
 boycott, directed exclusively against Austria, involving enormous 
 prejudices for the people of Vienna, depriving them of the regular 
 supply of victuals and fruits from Hungary and interrupting the 
 consignment of coals from the collieries of the Viennese Munici- 
 pality, situated in Hungary. August 8, the boycott was 
 broken up. 
 
 It follows from the preceding remarks that the Austrian 
 
Hungarian coups de main in Austria. 81 
 
 Government had not deserved the reproofs directed from Hungary 
 in this matter too. 
 
 But the grievances of Austria about the violations of the 
 sovereignty of Austria and the interferences in the internal affairs 
 of this country by the Hungarian authorities are well-deserved. 
 Repeatedly, officiers of the Hungarian army had kidnapped at 
 Vienna Hungarian subjects enjoying the official hospitality of 
 Austria, in view of delivering them to the Hungarian authorities. 
 The Hungarian Government tolerated and countenanced the formation 
 of gangs, composed of Austrian Army-officials and gathered in the 
 cantonments of Zala-Egerszeg near the Austrian frontier. The hardly 
 disguised design of these gangs was to invade by force of arms, 
 in the nick of time, the Austrian territory. The Hungarian frontier- 
 guard furthered notoriously the crossing of the frontier by Austrian 
 commissioned officers and soldiers enlisted for the service in the 
 cantonments of Zala-Egerszeg. The complaints of the Austrian 
 authorities about those plots remaining without effect, the Austrian 
 Government was obliged to appeal to the Conference of Ambas- 
 sadors at Paris. In the night of June 30, about three hundred 
 Hungarians invaded the Austrian province of Styria, disarmed 
 the custom-house officials and police-soldiers and plundered the 
 ammunition-d^pot at Fiirstenfeld near the Austro-hungarian frontier. 
 This time too, the complaints of the Austrian Government were 
 passed in silence by Hungary. In the night of August 20, another 
 coup de main was tempted at Prellenkirchen in Styria. An order of 
 the Hungarian Commander-in-Chief, announcing military manoevres 
 in Western Hungary was palpably calculated to exasperate the public 
 opinion in Austria; of course, these manoevres never came to pass. 
 
 Notwithstanding all those frictions and misunderstandings 
 the two Governments agreed about the necessity of an economic 
 reconciliation. Already in 1919, negociations about the restoration 
 of the commercial intercourse were inaugurated. In January 1920, 
 these negociations were terminated with the renewal of the 
 commercial relations, interrupted almost totally since the great 
 collapse. After the extinction of this accord, fresh negociations 
 were made, resulting in a treaty of export- and import-compen- 
 sations, valid till the end of 1920. In the autumn of 1920, the 
 negociations were resumed, in view of substituting an ordinary- 
 treaty of commerce in lieu of the treaty of compensations. 
 
82 Conventions with Hungary. 
 
 December 18, a provisional commercial convention was signed, 
 in the main outlines similar to the Austro-Rumanian and Austro- 
 German economic treaties. Furthermore, conventions were made 
 about the Austro-Hungaro- Rumanian railway-traffic and the 
 passport-regulations, as well as about the protection of trade- 
 marks and copyrights. A convention was made concerning the 
 frontier-traffic, another abolishing troubles at the custom-houses 
 and at the examination of passengers' luggage, another about 
 defraudations of the customs, about the reduction of custom-houses, 
 a convention concerning epidemic diseases of animals and finally 
 an accord about the mutual recognition of commercial certificates. 
 
 The treaty of compensations, valid till December 31, was 
 prolonged for another two months, with augmentation of the 
 several contingents. 
 
 Unfortunatly, the Hungarian Government postponed the 
 ratification of the commercial convention after the decision of the 
 Conference of Ambassadors about the cession of German Western 
 Hungary, published December 1920. This decision provides for 
 the transfer of this country to the principal Allied Powers, who 
 shall remit it to Austria. The transmission shall take place under 
 the control of the international Commission at Odenburg, occupied 
 with the study of the particulars of this operation. Several officers 
 of the allied armies are attached to this commission. 
 
 GERMAN WESTERN HUNGARY: 
 
 Urban and rural communities: 
 
 German 
 
 Magyar 
 
 Croate 
 
 others 
 
 total 
 
 306 
 
 12 
 
 71 
 Population: 
 
 
 389 
 
 German 
 
 Magyar 
 
 Croate 
 
 others 
 
 total 
 
 313.890 
 
 98.405 
 
 56.377 
 
 22.417 
 
 491.089 
 
 
 Area: 
 
 537895 square 
 
 km. 
 
 
 THEREOF ADJUDICATED TO AUSTRIA: 
 
 Urban and rural communities: 
 
 German Magyar Croate others total 
 
 276 7 62 — 345 
 
Conventions with other Countries. 83 
 
 
 
 Population: 
 
 
 
 German 
 
 
 Magyar Croate 
 
 others 
 
 total 
 
 245.714 
 
 
 44.191 49.374 
 
 5803 
 
 345.082 
 
 Inpercents: 71 2 
 
 A 
 
 12-8 14-3 
 rea: 436063 square km. 
 
 1-7 
 
 100 
 
 OTHER ECONOMIC CONVENTIONS. 
 
 February 1920, transactions about the conclusion of a treaty 
 of compensation liad begun with Roumania. This transactions 
 having failed, the Austrian Government dispatched, after the 
 ratification of the Peace Treaty, delegates to Bucharest, in order 
 to negociate the reprisal of commercial intercourse. August 14, 
 a provisional commercial convention and a compensations treaty 
 were concluded, both operative during a twelvemonth, and signed 
 September 25. The provisional commercial convention re-enacts 
 verbally most of the paragraphs of the ancient treaty of commerce 
 between Austria-Hungary and Roumania. It restablishes the most- 
 favoured nation clause, not only for customs -house matters, but 
 also for individual prerogatives and the indifferent treatment of 
 strangers and proper subjects in passenger and goods transport 
 matters. The contingent treaty enumerates certain quantities of 
 goods enjoying the privilege of free exportation. 
 
 March 6, the commercial treaty of commerce between Austro- 
 Hungary and Switzerland, concluded March 6, 1906, was renewed. 
 
 January 1920, the Austrian Government signed a convention 
 with Poland about the treatment of personal property and 
 movables belonging to subjects of either of the two contracting 
 parties and deposited in the territory of the other. The Polish 
 Government promised to withdraw all enactments tending to the 
 pi-ovisiona' seizurs of personal property belonging to Austrians. 
 March 17, a contingent treaty was concluded. Transactions about 
 a treaty of commerce resembling that made with Roumania, shall 
 begin henceforward. 
 
 November 16, a treaty of commerce on the basis of the 
 most-favoured nation clause valable till August 1921 was concluded 
 with Bulgaria. 
 
84 The Austrian Legations. 
 
 In the same manner, a convention containing the most-favoured 
 nation clause was made with the Principality of Liechtenstein. 
 
 In the month of August, the State Secretary of finance went 
 to Paris and London to solve the question of the repayment of 
 the Austrian pre-war debts and the liquidation of the Austrian 
 private property in France and England. The first named country 
 accorded, for the repayment of debts in foreign values, terms 
 extending to five, under exceptional circumstances to-ten years. 
 The Austrian Government declared themselves bound by a joint 
 liability with the Austrian private debtors. Great-Britain vouchsafed 
 facilities in comparison with the stipulations of the Peace Treaty, 
 without insisting on reciprocal terms. For the payment of the 
 amount of balance incumbent to the Austrian Clearing -Office, 
 terms extending to a great number of years were granted. 
 
 Transactions with other countries about the pre-war debts 
 are going on. 
 
 THE AUSTRIAN LEGATIONS. 
 
 (State of march 1, 1921.) 
 
 BELGRADE: Charge d'affaires: Councillor Max H of finger. 
 
 BERLIN: Charge d'affaires: Councillor Nikolaus Post (Attache 
 for the press: Hugo Schulz). 
 
 BERNE: Charge d'affaires: Johann S e i d 1 e r (Attachd for the press: 
 Karl Wollanka). 
 
 BUDAPEST: Minister plenipotentiary: Dr. Johann Cnobloch 
 (Attach^ for the press: Hermann Blumenkranz). 
 
 HAGUE: Minister plenipotentiary: Franz Calice. 
 
 LONDON: Minister plenipotentiary: Georges Franckenstein 
 (Attach^ for the press: Dr. Max Bach). 
 
 MADRID: Charge d'affaires: Councillor Dr. Johann Gagern. 
 
The second Coalition. 85 
 
 PARIS: Minister plenipotentiary: Dr. Johann Eiciihoff (Attach!^ 
 for the press: Dr. Paul Zifferer). 
 
 PRAGUE: Charge d'affaires: Councillor Dr. Ferdinand Marek 
 (Attache for the press: Franz Rosner). 
 
 ROME: Minister plenipotentiary: Dr. R^mi Kwiatkowski 
 (Attache for the press: Dr. Iwo Jorda). 
 
 ROME (Holy See): Minister plenipotentiary: Dr. Ludwig Pastor. 
 
 WARSAW: Charge d'affaires ad interim: Dr. Alfons Knaffi-Lenz. 
 
 HOME AFFAIRS. 
 
 After the ratification of the Peace Treaty, transactions in view 
 of an new coalition between the Socialist and Christian-Social 
 parties were resumed. The new Government, like the former one, 
 was composed principally by representatives of these two parties. 
 A purely socialist or an exclusively bourgeois Cabinet was out 
 of question, a coalition being the only means to accomplish the 
 formidable task imposed upon the National Assembly. Only an 
 intimate collaboration between the two parties, otherwise diametri- 
 cally opposed to each other in the political aims and interests 
 could overcome the growing difficulties and internal struggles. 
 But this opportunistic coalition was not calculated to gain the 
 public sympathies. The syndicated workers; seeing their ultimate 
 goal, the socialisation of labour, postponed and declared un- 
 attainable under the present political conditions, claimed loudly 
 the withdrawal of the socialistic members from Government. 
 The middle classes and the small landowners awakened; they 
 prophesied an entire overthrow of the socialist parties at the 
 next elections, owing to the general discontentment; the little 
 bourgeoisie and the peasantry attributed the public miseries to 
 the destructive activity of the Socialists; the Christian-Social Party, 
 seeing the most important seats in the Cabinet occupied by 
 Socialists, denounced loudly the disadvantages of the Coalition. 
 
86 The Pangermanists. Rupture of Coalition. 
 
 The question of the new Militia was the match on the 
 powder-barrel. In the meeting of the Christian-socialist Party, 
 held in March at Linz, the provisions of the Militia-bill were 
 declared unacceptable ; but soon afterwards, under the impression 
 of the Kapp-upheaval in Berlin, a provisional understanding about 
 this matter was obtained. In the home affairs, the question of 
 priority, wether the capital-levy bill or the Constitutional law 
 were to be considered the most urgent task, divided the two 
 parties, the Socialists insisting on the first, the Christian party 
 on the second alternative, in *^5opular meetings arranged by the 
 Socialists, the clamour for partial confiscation of private property 
 was general, but the Christian-Socialists insisted with ever gro- 
 wing energy on the final settlement of the Federal Constitution, 
 warranting the Provinces the much needed autonomy and self- 
 government. 
 
 After the first meeting of the National Assembly, the nationalist 
 deputies gathered in a great Pangermanist Party. April 18, 1920, 
 those deputies assembled at Linz in order to determine the 
 principles to be observed in the coming debates about the Con- 
 stitution and to lay down the statute rules of the newly consti- 
 tuted Party. The Pangermanist platform sets forth the national, 
 liberal,anti-Semitic,democratic and republican principles. Acommittee 
 was constituted in order to draft the organic rules of the new 
 party and August 8, the managing committee was elected. 
 
 The wide discrepancies in the general politic views of the 
 two leading governmental parties led to a closer cooperation 
 between all the bourgeois parties in the Parliament. Juni 1=', the 
 former socialist State Secretary Mr. Otto Bauer declared emphati- 
 cally in the meeting of the General Workers Council, that the 
 coalition was generally considered unavoidable. But the same 
 day, the official paper "Wiener Zeitung" published the enactment 
 concerning the constitution and election of the Soldiers Councils; 
 this question proved to become the first cause of the rupture in 
 the coalition. 
 
 In the meeting of the National Assembly of June 10, the 
 Pangermanists addressed a question to the military State Secretary 
 about the constitution of Soldiers Councils. The interrogators, 
 joined by the whole Christian-Social party, pretended that the 
 
Soldiers Councils. General elections. 87 
 
 State-Secretary was not legally authorised to make such an 
 enactment and that the said enactment was in itself utterly illegal 
 and contrary to the standing Military Service Law. In the riotous 
 debates following the interpellation, the leader of the Christian 
 Social Party, Mr. Kunschak, declaring advisable the immediate 
 rupture of the Coalition, was hailed with frenetic applause. Under 
 the weight of this spontaneous demonstration, the Socialist 
 Secretaries of State demissioned, followed by the Christian 
 Socialist Secretaries. 
 
 The Socialist Party declared that in this juncture, the Bourgeois 
 parties were constitutionally bound to take in hand the Govern- 
 ment; but the Christians and Pangermanists refused and proposed 
 a Cabinet composed of state-functionaries. The Socialist reserved 
 themselves ultimate decisions, so the crisis was not yet conjured. 
 June 24, the Cristian-Social members of the Cabinet, having 
 hitherto continued, like their socialist coUegues, the discharge of 
 their duties, requested and obtained their dismissal from the 
 President of the Republic, so that only the Socialists and a few 
 fonctionaries remained in the Cabinet. This state of affairs not 
 being likely to continue indefinitely, the National Assembly carried 
 a socialist motion tending to close the session, to proceed forthwith 
 to new elections, and to entrust the dispatch of the most urgent 
 business (capital-levy law, constitutional law) to a Cabinet com- 
 posed proportionally of all parties in Parliament. The "Proportion 
 Cabinet" was constituted July 7; each party nominated delegates 
 without assuming a joint responsability; therefore, the posts of 
 State Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor were suppressed and the 
 Secretary of State, Dr. Michel Mayr, was entrusted with the 
 presidency of the Cabinet. The general elections were appointed 
 to October 17. 
 
 The new electoral law had augmented the number of deputies 
 to 175; fifteen mandates are reserved for the remainder of votes 
 put together from all electoral circonscriptions and distributed to 
 the different parties proportionally. The frontiers of Carinthia not 
 being settled until the returns of the plebiscite of October 10, 
 the elections in this country were postponed till a later date. 
 Provisionally, the former deputies were admitted to continue the 
 exercise of their mandates. Until further provisions, the Burgen- 
 land has no representatives in the National Assembly. 
 
88 
 
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Victory of Christian -Socialists. 89 
 
 The proportion between the suffrages obtained by the different 
 political parties had materially changed since the election for the 
 Constituante, February 16, 1919. The Christian-social Party, having 
 collected in 1919: 1,068.382 votes or 35-930/0 of legal votes, had 
 obtained in 1920: 43'53%, whereas the Socialdemocratic Party, 
 numbering 1,211.814 votes in 1919, had fallen from 4076''/o 
 to 35.52%- The progress of Pangermanists, not yet constituted 
 as political party in 1919, is difficult to ascertain precisely. The 
 Czecho-Slovaks and the Nationalistic Yews, having obtained each 
 one mandate in 1919, did not succeed in obtaining in any circon- 
 scription the required number of votes. The Czecho-Slovak votes 
 had diminished by 26.130, the percentage from 2.74 to I.44, an effect 
 of the emigration from Vienna to Czecho-Slovakia. The complete 
 discomfiture of the Communistic Party, appearing for the first 
 time as a constituted political party, is a striking proof of the 
 sober and judicious sense, the Austrian industrial workers have 
 exhibited even in their present unfortunate situation. At the elections 
 for the Labour-Councils in 1919, the Communists had obtained 
 8i "/o of the votes, but at the general legislative elections, only 
 269 Vo of ail proletarian votes were given to communistic can- 
 didates, although the "New Left Wing" of the Socialist Party had 
 joined the Communists. The Legitimist Party, disguised under the 
 label of "United Christian National Party", had suffered an even 
 more sensible defeat; there seems in Austria little room for a 
 monarchist propaganda in the next future. 
 
 The returns of female and manhood -suffrages having been 
 specified this time, the remarkable differences of political opinions 
 between both sexes can be exactly ascertained. The total number 
 of female votes exceeds the male ones in all circonscriptions; 
 but the female suffrages in favour of the Socialist party were 
 sensibly inferior to the votes of men. For the Communists, the 
 excess of men is about 4000. In the contrary, the Christian-Social 
 Party has obtained 167.647 female and 111.644 male votes, 61% 
 of Christian-social partisans belong to the gentler sex. 
 
 The remaining votes were as follows: 
 
 Pangermanists 166.174 
 
 Christian Socialists 93.036 
 
 Social-Democrats 95.916 
 
90 
 
 Elections for the Federal Council. 
 
 Small land-owners 36.280, 
 
 Bourgeois labour-Party 18.436 
 
 Independent Christian Socialists in lower Austria . . . 11.481 
 
 According to these returns, the Pangermanists obtained seven, 
 
 the Socialists four, the Christian Socialists three and the Small 
 
 land-owners Party one more mandate in the new Parliament. 
 
 N 
 
 umber of mandates: 
 
 
 
 
 
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 Constituante 
 
 170 
 
 69 
 
 72 
 
 26 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 National Assembly 
 
 175 
 
 82 
 
 66 
 
 26 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 The President of 
 
 the N 
 
 ationa 
 
 Asse 
 
 mbly 
 
 convo 
 
 ked the new 
 
 Parliament for November 10. At this date the federal Constitution 
 of the Republic took effect; by this fact, the National Assembly 
 was to become National Council and its President was designed 
 to accomplish the duties of Supreme Executive Power until the 
 election of the first President of the Federation by the Federal 
 Assembly. 
 
 The elections for the Federal Council, held in November, 
 had the following results: 
 
 Provinces Mandates Christian 
 
 Socialists 
 4 
 5 
 3 
 3 
 2 
 2 
 2 
 1 
 
 Vienna 
 
 12 
 
 Lower-Austria 
 
 10 
 
 Upper-Austria 
 
 6 
 
 Styria 
 
 6 
 
 Tyrol 
 
 3 
 
 Salzburg 
 
 3 
 
 Vorarlberg 
 
 3 
 
 Carinthia 
 
 3 
 
 Social- 
 
 Pan- 
 
 Democrats 
 
 germanists 
 
 8 
 
 — 
 
 4 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 1 
 
 1 
 1 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 — 
 
 1 
 
 46 
 
 22 
 
 20 
 
 4 
 
The new Christian-Socialist Cabinet. 91 
 
 The Federal Council resembles, in respect of the percentage 
 of the political parties, quite closely the National Council. 
 
 The presidency of the Federal Council is conferred, in the 
 first run, to the first delegate of Vienna (for the moment the 
 Mayor of Vienna Mr. Reumann). Afterwards, the provinces will 
 alternate in the presidency, in alphabetical order, for terms of 
 six months. 
 
 The Federal Assembly (united Federal Council and National 
 Assembly) is composed of: 
 
 104 Christian -Socialists 
 86 Social -Democrats 
 30 Pangermanists. 
 
 The Christian-Socialists being now the most numerous party, 
 the Socialists Union declared October 22, that according to the 
 fundamental law of Democracy, that party must necessarily assume 
 the responsability of Government. The Socialists declined per- 
 emptorily any collaboration and invited their members in the 
 Government to tender their demission. The same day, the Socialist 
 State-Secretaries retired, whereas the other members of the Cabinet 
 continued their functions. The composition of the new Cabinet 
 was beset with difficulties of every description. At first, an attempt 
 was made in the direction of a Cabinet entirely composed of 
 politically neutral functionaries, but in the very last moment, 
 this scheme failed. November 1920, the new Cabinet was elected 
 by the joint votes of Christian -Socialists and Pangermanists. 
 The council of ministers is composed of four christian -social 
 and six neutral members. Dr. Mayr, president of the preceding 
 Cabinet, was nominated Chancellor of the Federation. During 
 the debates about the programme of the new Government, the 
 leader of the Pangermanist party professed a benevolent neutrality 
 towards the Cabinet. The Socialists are to constitute the future 
 opposition. 
 
 December 8, the Federal Assembly convened for the election 
 of the President of the Confederation. December 9, Dr. Michel 
 Hainisch was elected President. Although elected by the votes 
 of the bourgeois parties only, the new President enjoys personal 
 sympathies of all political parties; thus, this election was unani- 
 mously considered as auspicious for the next future of the new 
 Republic. 
 
92 Decrease of population. 
 
 POPULATION. 
 
 The territory of Austria, as determined by the Treaty of 
 St. Germain, has an area of 84.000 square icilometres and about 
 6V2 millions of inhabitants, 90 "/o of them being of German 
 origin. 
 
 The last general census included only the territory not 
 occupied by foreign powers; therefore, Carinthia and Western 
 German Hungary are not comprised in the census returns. The 
 territories within the range of the census operations have an area 
 of 78.061 square kil.; in this area were returned: 
 
 1910: 1920: Decrease since 1910: 
 men . .3,110.142 2,904.478 205.664 
 women . 3,184.497 3,162.952 2h545 
 
 total . .6,294.639 6,067.430, 227.209 (= 361 «/„) 
 
 The returns for Vienna are: 
 
 1910: 1920: Decrease since 
 
 men . . 851.793 1910: 
 women . 990.212 
 
 2,031.498 total . 1,842.005 189.393 (= 9-33Vo) 
 
 Out of all provinces, only Upper Austria and Tyrol show a 
 felble increase, compared with the returns of 1910; hower Austria 
 and Vorarlberg having suffered material losses, Carinthia, Styria 
 and Salzburg indifferent decreases. But compared with the returns 
 of 1914, all provinces have decreased, mostly Vienna (9.33V0). 
 Lower Austria (without Vienna) having decreased less than 
 Vorarlberg and Carinthia, much less so Salzburg, Tyrol and Styria. 
 The least decrease, compared with 1914, had suffered Upper- 
 Austria. 
 
 Inhabitants of the Austrian Provinces: 
 
 Vienna 1,842.005 
 
 Lower Austria (without Vienna) 1,470.505 
 
 Upper Austria . . 857.234 
 
 Salzburg . . . . ^ 213.877 
 
Professional statistics. 93 
 
 Styria 947.221 
 
 Carinthia (without Plebiscite territory) 297.018 
 
 Tyrol 306.126 
 
 Vorarlberg 133.033 
 
 The Plebiscite territory of Carinthia numbered 1910: 130.700, 
 the Burgenland about 345.000 inhabitants. 
 
 Out of 100 inhabitants, 5O.92 had a determined vocation, 
 17.34 were housewifes, 31. 74 (mostly children) without vocation. 
 
 Out of 100 inhabitants occupied in a determined vocation, 
 31.90 were occupied in agriculture or forest-culture, 33.26 in industry 
 12.17 in commerce, and transport, 8.81 in public service, 2.6o in 
 liberal arts and 11. 25 in household. Of the total sum, 584.512 or 
 18.95% exerced their vocation on their own account, 2,500.090 or 
 81.05% as employed or salaried persons. 
 
 Out of the 984.034 persons occupied in agriculture and forest- 
 culture, 284.775 (whereof 41.423 women) are independent and 
 699.259 (whereof 305.048 women) are employed or salaried. Out 
 of the 1,026.004 persons occupied in industry an manufacture, 
 185.961 (whereof 32.376 women) were returned independent and 
 840.043 (whereof 215.478 women) dependent. Of the 375.248 
 persons occupied in commerce and transport, 86.445 (whereof 
 20.309 women) are independent and 288.803 (whereof 85.521 
 women) are employed or salaried. Out of 80.294 persons in the 
 liberal arts, 27.331 (whereof 7634 women) exercised their vocation 
 on own account, and 52.963 (whereof 21.781 women) as employed 
 or salaried persons. 
 
 The 271.803 persons in public services (4.49% of the whole 
 population) comprehend 212.118 men and 59.685 women; of the 
 347.219 person occupied in household work, 21.247 are men and 
 325.972 women. 
 
 Vienna contains 46.5% of all Austrians occupied in industry 
 and manufacture, 68 "/o occupied in commerce and transport, 
 43% of the public servants and 50% of the persons exercising 
 liberal arts. 
 
 ^:2£2£:^ 
 
94 
 
 TABLE OF CONTENTS. 
 
 P«ges 
 
 After the Treaty of St. Germain 3 
 
 The financial situation 5 
 
 Rates of exchange 5 
 
 Deficit 6 
 
 Contributions for food-supply 7 
 
 Public debt 7 
 
 Plethora of public servants 8 
 
 Commerce and Industry. Communications 8 
 
 Foreign trade 8 
 
 Want of coal 14 
 
 Hydraulic powers 16 
 
 Industry 17 
 
 Railways 17 
 
 The Unemployment 18 
 
 Numbers of unemployed workers 19 
 
 Insurance against unemployment 19 
 
 Subsistence - 19 
 
 Distribution of soil 20 
 
 Harvests on tilled land 20 
 
 Amount of harvest 20 
 
 Prices and wages 22 
 
 Death- and birth-rates 23 
 
 Alimentary and hygienic situation of the youth 24 
 
 Medical assistance for the youth 26 
 
 Foreign help for children 28 
 
 The scarcity of dwelling houses 31 
 
 Undesirable aliens 33 
 
 Legislation and Administration 34 
 
 Revival of national industry 34 
 
 „Treuga" 34 
 
 Enterprises of general utility 35 
 
 Capital -levy 36 
 
 Income-tax 37 
 
 Eight hours- labour day 37 
 
 Arbitration -courts and collective labour contracts 38 
 
 Workers and Employees Chambers 38 
 
 Domestic servants' act 38 
 
I 
 
 95 
 
 Pages 
 
 Public gambling's act 39 
 
 Abolition of Courts -martial 39 
 
 Conditional punishment's act 39 
 
 Courts of Juror's act 39 
 
 Literary and artistic property's act 39 
 
 Model schools 39 
 
 Educational reforms 39 
 
 Post-scolar instruction 40 
 
 Public health 40 
 
 The Army 42 
 
 The Federal Constitution 44 
 
 The Prisoners of war 49 
 
 Convention of Copenhague 51 
 
 Foreign Politics 53 
 
 Promises of help 53 
 
 The Sub-Committee of the Reparations' Commission 54 
 
 The Chancellor of State's Voyage to Paris 55 
 
 The Finance and Approvisions' Secretaries in Paris 57 
 
 The Austrian Section of the Reparations' Commission 58 
 
 The Note of May 21 59 
 
 The Interallied Control-Committees 64 
 
 The Admission to the League of Nations 66 
 
 The Relations with Czecho-Slovakia 67 
 
 The Relations with Italy 71 
 
 The Relations with Germany 73 
 
 The Relations with Yougoslavia 75 
 
 The Plebiscite in Carinthia 76 
 
 The Relations with Hungary 77 
 
 German Western Hungary (Burgenland) 78 
 
 Convention about the Communistic Delegates of People .... 79 
 
 Other economic Conventions 83 
 
 The Austrian Legations 84 
 
 Home Affairs 85 
 
 Rupture of the Coalition 86 
 
 "Proportion-Cabinet" 87 
 
 General Elections of October 17, 1920 88 
 
 Mandates in National and Federal Council 90 
 
 The new Cabinet 91 
 
 Election of the President of the Confederation 91 
 
 Population 92 
 
 General Census of January 31, 1920 92 
 
 Professional statistics 93 
 
LIBRPlRV OF CONGRESS 
 
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 021 386 036 7