The Press THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1934. Danger from Austria

Press, Volume LXX, Issue 21090, 15 February 1934, Page 8

The Press THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 1934. Danger from Austria

The last few clays have produced aj crop of crises as dramatic and as j important as any since the depression began. In France. Spain, and | Austria the existing constitutions' are in immediate danger of over-j throw; and although in no cose is it | safe to prophesy in detail the gen- I era! conclusion that flu: cause of j representative government has suf- ; fered anoHicr t-01-back seems inescapable. In France and Spain the crises are domestic; their upshot can have no immediate cflecl on the international situation. But the Austrian crisis, which is the most | complex nf the Ihree. has wide and disturbing implications, and thai manner in which it is settled may determine the course of European politics for many years to come. For a clear understanding of the J present disturbances, which amount I to a civil war, it is necessary to go I back to the peace settlement of i 1918. The first draft of the new ] Austrian constitution declared sim-■ ply that "Austria is an integral "part of the German Republic"; l and had the leaders of republican j Germany seized the opportunity I thus presented to them the history j of post-war Europe would have I been simpler and mote peaceful, i Unfortunately ilea Germans had j troubles enough of their own audi by the time they were ready to j think about Austro-German union j the Allied Powers had decided that j an independent Austrian republic l was a strategic necessity. After a; brief struggle economic need and j common sense were sacrificed to the j barren principle of the balance of! power. The resultant Austria was a | misshapen child with a huge head ! and a shrunken body. Vienna.; with a population of 2.1)00,000, with ! the institutions, the culture, and the! outlook of an imperial city, became! the centre of a not. very fertile agri- j cultural state with a population of I little more than 0,000,000. The whole J subsequent history of Austria is the] history of a conflict between an im-1 poverished, ill-educated, conserva-j five peasantry and a radical, cos- i mopolitan metropolis with a cultural j life unequalled in Europe. To ac-| eentuate this unhappy contrast, the j constitution of the new republic was federal. Vienna, endowed with I wide powers of self-governmen!. j has been governed since the peace I settlement by a socialist regime t he j policy of which has always been at j variance with the interests of the j rural areas. Perhaps the most! marked conflict has centred on j the fiscal issue. For two reasons the j Viennese have stood for free trade: j first, because their industries re-I quire a wide market and. second.! because tiie Austrian pea.sani.ry can-1 not grow enough to feed them. But since agricultural production is expensive in Austria, cheap food im- j ports from Rumania and Hungary j have meant ruin for a large section j of the Austrian farming industry.! In the end, of course, the spread of economic nationalism in the Danube | Valley has compelled Austria to i turn protectionist; but the fiscal con-! ilict persists. The other char-1 acterislics of Viennese socialist:

policy have been hostility to lioniai; I Catholicism, loyalty la the federal ! representative coustiUuion, and, 1111-! til the Nazi revolution, enthusiastic j advocacy of union with Germany as! the only possible .solution ol Alls-; Iria's troubles. Since 1021. it. should j be added, Ihe .socialists have pre- | ferred not. to co-operate with other I parties in the government, of the] country. Their strength in opposition, adroitly used, has been sm)icient to safeguard wages and hours'.] and the genera i. interest,:; of the' working classes. This skilful In.it. negative- strate;.,;/ h:.s been tin is undoing, because, while depending for its success on the maintenance of parliamentary government, it did mudi to main: parliamentary government weak", and unstable. The growth of poiii|c,i|. organisations bent, on obtaining then- ceids by other than parliamentary means was a warning which should not have been neglected. f„ the kr I five years Tirol and. Sal/burg, the Austrian provinces adjacent, to Ike German frontier, have become Nazi strongholds and it lias been claimed that a third of the Austrian population is either enrolled in the jX.i/.i organisation or in active sympathy with it. The Heimwehr, a nativeFascist organisation, was formed originally to defend Carinthia against a threatened Jugo-Slav invasion; but, since 1927 its main purposes have been the defence of Roman Catholicism and the suppression of socialism. The Heimwehr, supported financially by the Italian Government, has been the most active group in resisting Nazi aggression. Until a ~ ear ago these three main parties—the socialists, the Nazis, and the Heimwehr—maintained a precarious threecornered equilibrium, with Herr Dollfuss and his Christian Socialist ministry governing- on sulTerance. The success of the Nazi revolution in Germany produced abrupt changes. In the first place, it compelled the socialists to renounce the cause of Austro-German union. In the second place, the very real threat to An.-'; nan independence, and the conseuuent need for firm iiovemmcnl, ijave Her* Dollfuss an

excuse for dissolving the federal parliament and arming his cabinet with dictatorial powers. The socialists were outmanoeuvred. A general strike, hastily organised, was us hastily called off when it became clear that the Austrian Nazis, for motives of their own. would support it. But it was clear thai Herr Dolll'uss, the representative of a party numerically negligible, must find some wider basis for his power. Inevitably the clamour of the Nazis and the socialists for an election and the menace of the Nazi storm troops drove him into the arms of the Heimwehr. The result was the proclamation of an Austrian Fascist state, somewhat on Italian lines. Prince Stahrcmberg, the leader of the Heimwehr. refused a place in the new government, but his right-hand man. Major Emil Fey, became Vice-Chancellor, and lias, according to report, thrust Herr Dollfuss into the background. But the revolution was only partial so long as Vienna remained socialist and largely independent. The object of the coup d'etat of the last few days, the success of which is still in the balance, is to suppress the socialist movement and Viennese independence. The international importance of the situation is obvious. If the Nazis make full use of the opportunity which has been presented to them, they may precipitate another European war.