POLITOS IN AUSTRIA

Taranaki Daily News, 30 September 1929, Page 9

POLITOS IN AUSTRIA

THE NEW PREMIER’S .PLAN FASCISM TO BE LEGALISED POWER FOR THE PRESIDENT By Telegraph—Press Assn. —Copyright. Australian Press Association. Received Sept. 29, 5.5 p.m. .« Vienna, Sept. 28. The new Premier, Herr Schoeber, in a speech in the Chamber of Deputies, said the demand for constitutional reforms had grown louder and more stormy. He considered it was his duty to bring the Heimwehr (Fascist) movement into legal form. The President must be given power to . appoint or dismiss a Cabinet, dissolve Parliament, and proclaim martial law. He must have supreme command of the army and the law courts and must be freed from politics. The police franchise must also be reformed. The Premier stated that a foreign loan will be negotiated, and he added that he favoured co-operation with Germany, but Austria will not join any foreign alliance or group of States. Previous cables reported that th§ sudden resignation of the Austrian Cabinet on the eve of meeting of Parliament had created an exciting situation owing to the increased tension between the -1 'eimwehr (Fascists) and the Schutzbimd (Socialists) which had given rise to reports of an impending revolution. The Coalition party asked the Chief of Police, Herr Schoeber, to form a Cabinet, and he agreed to do so on non-party lines. The . new Ministry ' did not' include any leader of the Fascists which was inter-, preted as indicating that Herr Schoeber’ was confident of his ability to control the Fascist organisation. Herr Johann Schoeber has been Premier on two previous occasions, namely, in 1921 and 1925. .He was born in November, 1874, at Perg, and studied law and political science at Vienna University. In 1898 he entered the office of the Vienna police, and during, the war was head of the political section. When the Police President, Geyer, became Minister of the Interior in June, 1918, Hen 1 ' Schoeber acted as his deputy. After the collapse of the dual monarchy he was appointed Police Chief on December 6, 1918.. When the Mayr Government had to resign in June, 1921, in consequence of the determined movement in the Tyrol, Salzburg and Styria in favour of union with Germany, which prejudiced the negotiations with the Allies for credits and the favourable settlement of the West Hungarian question, Herr Schoeber, on the proposal of the Pan-German People’s Party, with the reluctant acquiescence of the Christian Socialists, was asked to form a neutral Cabinet of Officials. The principal item in his programme was the continuation of the negotiations begun by his predecessors with the Entente Powers for credits for Austria. He was however, un-. able to secure these. Moreover the charge was brought against him that at the Venicb . Conference in spite of. Austria’s proved right to the whole of the Burgenland he had given up the town of Oedenburg and that in the negotiations with Czechoslovakia he had not adequately upheld the claims of Austria. His Cabinet, therefore, fell on May 21, 1922, the occasion being the demand for a vote to cover a deficit of 120 milliard kronen; it had already re- " signed in December, 1921, but had eventually remained in office. After this incursion into polities Herr Schoeber resumed his post as Police Chief, in which he prove! very efficient. " z