AUSTRIA AND AMERICA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 16760, 29 January 1918, Page 4

AUSTRIA AND AMERICA.

One of the most puzzling of the many ambiguous utterances of the spokesmen of the Central Powers is Count Czernin's declaration that America and Austria practically agree on the great principles of a new world settlement after the war. If Austria were really in agreement with America the end of the war | would be in sight. No Allied leader has put the case against Austria more clearly than President Wilson. He has shown that Austria has become a tool of Germany, and that war must be continued until that relationship has ceased. To that end, and in deference to the racial claims of Austrian subjects, Mr. Wilson has declared that Austria's frontier to Italy must be adjusted, that Poland must become an independent State with access to the sea, that Servia must have a coastline, and that all the peoples of Austria-Hungary must be accorded the freest opportunity for autonomous development. This programme does not hold out an encouraging future for the Dual Monarchy. But it seems that the rulers of that conglomerate State have become convinced that for them the end of the war must bring a new order of things, and they have made up their minds to save as much as they can of the ! monarchical structure. They are ; prepared for change, they are pro- | fessing readiness to grant some I limited extension of self-govern-.ment within the Empire, but they ! will consent to nothing which reduces the extent of the Monarchy ;or which weakens the tie binding all the subjects of the Emperor Charles to Germany, and making them instruments of the German will. It is this dual control— control of subject races by Austria and Hungary, and the control of AustriaHungary by Germany— makes the State as at present constituted a danger to the world's peace. Count Czernin possibly hopes by some dis- : play of the granting of democratic , institutions to secure the sympathy of America in a new arrangement of the Austrian Empire. It is a scheme which might have succeeded while America was neutral, and clung to the idea of isolation from world politics. Then America's interest ■in Austria was purely academic. Now it is intimate. In America, as in every Allied country, it is realised that in the future treatment of Austria two principles must be kept ;in view. There must be justice and ( freedom for all races, and there must Ibe such a readjustment as will • break the power of Germany to call i all Austria-Hungary to war in furI theranco of every Prussian ambition. The first of these has been • much discussed in Allied countries, but it is upon the success v.lLh which the second is accomplished thnt the • prospects of future peace are bound jup.