14-YEAR-OLD CHARGE

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 840, 7 December 1929, Page 15

14-YEAR-OLD CHARGE

BUREAUCRACY IN CENTRAL EUROPE COURT DISMISSES CASE The Eisenstadt magistrate has just brought to light an exceptionally illuminating example of the methods of Central European bureaucracy, says the Vienna correspondent of the London “Sunday Times.” During the war Private Franz Ringelhofer, of the Royal Hungarian forces, ail officer’s servant, was cleaning his captain’s revolver during a pause in the when it went off, wounding another soldier. There was just time to fill out a. chargesheet alleging negligence against Ringelhofer when the Russian waves broke on the Austrian position. The charge was forgotten by the fighting troops, but not by the bureaucrats at home. The monarchy broke up. The papers of the regime became the property of a new State, Czechoslovakia, which showed she had “learned nothing and forgotten nothing” of Austrian bureaucratic methods. From Czech Minister to Ministry the ever-increasing file of papers travelled for 10 years. Ringelhofer’s country, the Burgenland, passed from Hungary to Austria, but the bureaucratic steam roller slowly followed him up. The “portfolio” of his case passed to Hungary, and then to Austria. After 14 years the astonished man recently received a summons to appear before the Eisenstadt (Austria) magistrate, on a charge formulated by the long deceased Creat Power, which had pursued him through three countries. Asked to tell his story, the bewildered peasant told the magistrate, “I am afraid I have forgotten everything, sir.” “And we will do the same,” replied the magistrate, the first person to deal with the matter on its real merits, instead of as an excuse for bureaucratic ingenuity. “The case is dismissed: the file may go to its long-earned rest.”