AUSTRIA APOLOGISES TO HER NEIGHBOUR. A RUSSIAN THREAT OF RETALIATION.

Evening Post, Volume LVI, Issue 153, 27 December 1898, Page 5

AUSTRIA APOLOGISES TO HER NEIGHBOUR. A RUSSIAN THREAT OF RETALIATION.

(Eeceived December 27, 9.25 a.m.) Vienna, 26th December. The Austrian Government has expressed its regret at the Bpeech recently made in the Reichstag by Count Thun-Hohaustein, Premier of Austria, threatening that if Prussia continued to expel Poles and Czeohs the Awetrian Government would take retaliatory measures. St. Petersburg, 26th December. Owing to the expulsion of Russians from German territory, the Russian Government threatens the same treatment to German merchants.

Germany was engaged, when the San Francisco mail left England, in the expulsion of a number of Danes, Poles, and others from the soil of the Fatherland. In Schleswig-Holstein, in Weßtphalia, and other places she had taken action against servant girls, farm labourers, a schoolboy of 12 years of age, and a sprinkling of Danish farmers. "What these people have done," remarked a contemporary,"or why they should be thus ruthlessly driven from Germany, no one knows. It is said to be part of a scheme of ' civilisation and amelioration,' but prima facie it is about as inhuman, a proceeding as is furnished by the history of any country. Homes are being destroyed, and helpless men and women are being ruined, for no other reason than that they are not Germans by birth. No doubt in SchleswigHolstein, as in every other conquered province, a certain opposition to the Government exists, but it is not very manifest, and the most effectual way to rouse Danish blood is surely that which the German authorities are now adopting. Has it the sanction of the Emperor, we wonder? If not, his visit to the Holy Land will be memorable. If it has, then we fear it can only be said that he has assimilated Turkish methods." - The Berlin correspondent of The Times sent some interesting details about the expulsions, not only of Danes from Schleswig, but of Dutchmen from Westphalia and Austrian Slavs and Polish Jews from Silesia, which have been going on for some time past, and which, lie says, are attracting increasing attention in Germany. It is strongly suspected that the real author of the policy of expulsion is the Prussian Minister of Finance, Dr. yon Miquel. The expulsion of Danes from North Schleswig is said by the Cologne Gazette to be a consequence of the unbridled Danish agitation in that district. The expulsions have created a painful impression in Denmark.