LOOKING TO LEFT

Evening Post, Volume CXX, Issue 136, 5 December 1935, Page 17

LOOKING TO LEFT

SITUATION IN AUSTRIA:

RECENT CABINET CHANGE

The dramatic Cabinet reconstruction lin Austria served several purposes, not the least important of which was to give Chancellor Kurt Schuschnigg and Vice-Chancellor Ernst yon Starhemberg a freer hand in the direction of policy, writes J. G. P. Gcdye from. Vienna to the' "New York Times." The coup discarded the adherents of the former Security Minister, Major Emil Fey, who1 were believed to have been talking with the dangerous German Minister, Franz yon Papen, behind the backs of their colleagues, whose emissaries also had been talking with Colonel yon Papen. The house-cleaning eliminated the troublesome semi-Democrat J. Reither, who had held the Agriculture portfolio. It got rid of Finance Minister Karl Buresch, whose conscientious disinclination to ignore the Budget deficit in disbursing money for the Heimwehr was regarded as cheese paring by the Heimwehr commander, Prince yon Starhemberg. It strengthened enormously the influence of Leopold Mandl, a big arms manufacturer. And finally it established the Italophile influence in the Government, unchallenged by a Germanophile admixture. . THE CAUSES. Several causes combined to bring to a crux the long-standing quarrel between the Fey adherents and the Starhemberg-Schuschnigg group. It is not generally known that the new Minister of Justice, Robert Winterstein, had been assigned by the Chancellor several months ago to direct an investigation into the conduct of Major Fey at the time of the Nazi putsch of July 25, 1934, in which the then Chancellor, Engelbert Dollfuss, was assassinated. Major Fey's belief that the findings" of the inquiry would be used to unseat him was one reason for his mobilising,, two days before the Cabinet changes, 10,000 Heimwehrmen in the streets of Vienna to celebrate the third anniversary of his joining the Government. He hoped thus to impress Starhemberg with his strength. The financial position of the Heimwehr was also causing anxiety, making drastic economies essential, since Italy was unable and Mr. Mandl unwilling to advance further funds. Finance Minister Buresch had blocked the way to State revenues. And Major Fey's refusal, for fear of. .losing his armed backing, to consent to the amalgamation of various Fascist bodies had prevented economies. Mr. Mandl demanded Cabinet changes. Therefore, after Major Bahr yon Bahrenfels, aspirant to Major Fey's post, had mustered his Lower Austrian Heimwehr in Vienna as a precaution against a Fey putsch, Dr. Schuschnigg summoned the Cabinet and brought the quarrel with Major Fey to a crux by tendering his resignation. ITALY'S VASSAL. President Wilhelm Miklas is believed to have expressed his own wish to resign if Dr. Schuschnigg stepped out. The President and Chancellor had both surprised Austria by openly taking, along with Hungary at Geneva, the position of Italy's vassal. They had believed Austria would formally assent to sanctions and later in Ilia privacy of a sub-committee would plead the impossibility of enforcing them.. But the Italophile declarations of Foreign Minister Egon BergerWaldenegg took them by surprise. Assured of President' Miklas's backing, General Schuschnigg resumed office with a previously prepared Cabinet list. The new Cabinet gave Mr. Mandl the influence he had demanded, with his frisnd, Prince yon Starhemberg, continuing as Vice-Chancellor, now untrammelled by the Fey influence. It brought into the Government as Security Minister Major yon Bahrenfels, who owed his political rise through, the Heimwehr to the fact that he was formerly employed in the Mandl arms factory at Hirtenberg. It brought in. as Finance Minister Ludwig Draxier, the clever attorney to both Mr. Mandl and yon Starhemberg. FINANCIAL DOUBTS. Outsiders shake their heads at the replacement of an experienced Finance Minister by a newcomer only two days before the Cabinet was called upon to approve last year's Budget. It is already rumoured that an early result of the change will be a resort to yet another internal loan to finance the Heimwehr. The elimination of Mr. Reither as Minister of Agriculture not only disposed of a semi-Democrat, but cleared the way for Mr. Mandl to obtain a concession to establish Austria's fifth big sugar refinery, which Mr. Reither had opposed on behalf of farmers' associations interested in the other factories. It is further expected that Mr. Mandl's accession to power will.bring him. the coveted presidency of the new Fascist Corporative Industrial Association. The new, Government, while more strongly- Italophile and Fascist, than its predecessor, may not necessarily show this in. its policy. Despite Prince yon Starhemberg's Fascism, it was the Fey group that included the most implacable enemies of democracy and of that reconciliation with the forces of the Left that is more urgent than ever, now that Italy is absorbed elsewhere. If it is to survive, the new Cabinet must find support within Austria by concessions to one or the other of the two great outlawed parties—the Social Democrats and the Nazis, Despite the Cabinet's constitution, it is still possible, for friends of Austria to hope it will accept the. guarantee against the German peril that.the forces of the Left alone can offer in exchange for legalisation of their activities and an end of persecution.