CHANCELLOR’S EMOTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22213, 16 March 1934, Page 9

CHANCELLOR’S EMOTION

“MY SADDEST WEEK”

TABLE FULL OF BOMBS.

VIENNA, February 21

' “ This has been the saddest week in my life,” said the Austrian Chancellor, Dr Dollfuss, in a broken voice, and looking pale and weary, to a press conference at the Ballhausplatz, Dr Dollfuss was standing at a tabic filled with bombs and infernal machines, allegedly seized in raids of various Socialist headquarters, which Herr Karwinsky, Under-secretary for Security, declared to be sufficient to blow up whole quarters of the city. The Chancellor emphasised the fortress-like diameter of the Vienna tenement buildings, adding: “The Socialists extorted money to build fortresses for civil war, in which 20,000 members of the Schutzbund participated.” Dr Dollfuss asked bis hearers to stand up in memory of the dead who were supporters of the Government, and added: “The workers have nothing to fear. The new constitution will give the fullest justice to them.” Speaking of the state of feeling in England, Dr Dollfuss said: “I regret that public opinion has turned against the Austrian Government. We were not the attackers.”

Summary sentences of death upon leaders of the revolt continue to be delivered. Josef Stanek, a prominent Labour leader, has been condemned to execution at Graz.

“The Dollfuss Government acted with a brutality hardly paralleled in history. It employed artillery against houses packed with women and children, and yet it calls itself Christian,” said Dr Julius Deutsche, Social Democratic leader. He spoke to the Vienna correspondent of the Sunday Times, who had travelled to,Czechoslovakia to interview him and Dr Bauer. Dr Deutsche described the Government’s use of the Heimwehr as auxiliary police as inexcusable, it being untrained and containing many members with long lists of convictions. “It is,” he declared, “an infamous lie to say that the workers attacked law and order. On the contrary, the Socialists, even at the eleventh hour, attempted to approach the Government, but, like dozens of other attempts, this one broke down owing to obstruction, proving that the Government was determined violently to break the Socialists. “The Government is revening itself by persecuting womenfolk,” he declared. “They arrested my sister; my wife has fled; I do not know where my son is. 'He has lost his job. My daughter’s life is imperilled, owing to a silly story that she fought alongside ff me.