THE FUTURE OF AUSTRIA IS DIFFICULT TO PREDICT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20275, 9 April 1934, Page 6

THE FUTURE OF AUSTRIA IS DIFFICULT TO PREDICT.

Government Would Like to get Rid of its Prisoners and Call a Truce.

By Sir Philip Gibbs, K.B.E

VIENNA, March 7

I have been talking in Vienna, which is now the storm centre of European politics, with people of all classes and all views. The wounds of civil war are not yet healed. It is only three weeks since the roar of gunfire created terror in many hearts and smashed the power and dreams of the Social Democrats. It is inevitable that wherever people meet, in private rooms or in other places where they can speak above a whisper, there should be passionate conversation about what has happened and what is going to happen. Out of alt this talk I find a certain line of thought which suggests that Chancellor Dollfuss and the present Government may be able to obtain support for a policy of conciliation and reconstruction.

J AM INCLINED to believe that at least in Vienna there is a growing conviction that the Dollfuss Government and its policy of national independence offer the only way’ of escape from further civil war created by a Nazi tiprising. That would cause a state of anarchy which would lead to foreign intervention and a clash between the great Powers with Austria as a battleground. A good deal of the conversation I hear is of a post-mortem character, and that will go on for years. I have heard many different accounts of the events which led to the fighting in Vienna and the bombardment of workers’ dwellings. It is all very tragic, with provocation on both sides, with 3’Oung Social Democrats fighting with desperate heroism, without leadership, and with the main body of their fellow workers taking no part in the struggle, and, net wanting its bloodshed or terror. People Shaken in Nerve. It is a long story not yet told, and perhaps never to be told impartially and judicially. But what matter now are the result and the future. What is moving in the minds of those working people whose control of Vienna is now destroyed? I spoke with some of them in the model dwellings which were their pride, and where the walls are now pitted with bullets ar.d plugged by shellfire. These people are still 'shaken in nerve by their frightful ordeal. They lost leaders, friends, work, wages—all hope, as they think. But it was remarkable to roe that some were able to talk calmly of v-he political situation. One thing became very clear to me. These fine model dwellings were not inhabited by flaming Communists lusting for the overthrow of society and for a red terror, but by respectable, law-abiding folk who had become middle-class in their ideas and ways of life. I feel convinced from what I have heard among them that they have no revolutionary intent. It is likely some of them will go over to the Nazis as one course of opposition to the Dollfuss Government. But it is not going to be a mass movement. Most of them, I believe, hate the Nazis more than any party in Austria, and dread the brutality and tyranny of the Nazi regime. It must not be forgotten that there are a good many Jews among them, and that they know what humiliation has befallen the Jews in Germany. Dollfuss has a real chance of winning over the moderate Democrats among the workers—the bourgeois-minded among them —if he is generous in a policy of conciliation. He wants to be. There" is no doubt of that. Embarrassed by Prisoners. The streets are placarded with posters calling upon the working classes to be loyal to a policy of national unity and peace. They are promised justice, liberty and a controlling share in their own interests irL a new system of social reconstruction. These placards by groups of silent men who make no comment. The placards are a plea for forgetfulness of all bitterness, which is not possible yet, and for common action against evil forces both inside and outside of the country. The Government is embarrassed by all its prisoners. It w r ould like to get rid of them as soon as possible, I am told. It will be relieved when the trials are over. In my judgment as an outsider I believe the Government would strengthen its position by declaring a general amnesty for all those bo>’s who, as Government leaders

admit, even Prince Starhemberg, fought bravely for th<_n ideals. The Austrian mind of the middle and professional classes is essentially liberal and moderatety philosophical. In the conversations to which I have been * listening it is astonishing in this passion to hear men and women discussing events and the future of Austria with a real desire to get at the truth and see it objectively. Their views differ on points of argument, but they seem to agree that political union with Germany would be a disaster, that Nazi rule is contrary to the Austrian spirit and mind, and that Dollfuss is still the most moderating influence between Heimwehr dictatorship and Nazi domination. The One Personality. Many of them believe that this midget man, in spite of all that has happened, stands alone as the one personality who may create a national truce and give peace to Austria. The Government has been holding continuous Cabinet councils. It is devising a new s>’Stem of government which will be proclaimed to the people. As far as I can make out it is an entirely new experiment, theoretically at least, in social systems. It will not be a dictatorship, according to Dollfuss, who denies belief in dictators, although he has ruled as such for the last year. The new system will be in the nature of a corporate state, but with essential differences from Italian Fascism or German Hitlerism. Mussolini’s conception of the corporate state is supreme of all national energy and industry from the top down. Dollfuss wishes to build a State which works from the bottom up. That is to say, each trade, craft, profession, industry, even each factory within an industry, will form a kind of self-government between workers and emplo\ r ers, linked up with and working for the common interests of this particular corporation or guild. Dollfuss proclaims his intention to prevent the exploitation of the working classes by employers, just as he was hostile to the exploitation of the middle cliss by Labour, ■which he believed was the result of Social Democracy in Vienna. He wishes to Protect small industries and individual businesses within the framework of a corporate State. It is an endeavour to put into actuality as a national system the principles of social justice laid down in encyclicals on Labour by Leo XIII. and his successors. Will Dollfuss have time for this adventure in social experimentation? Will Starhemberg have patience with it? Will Mussolini give his blessing to it? Parliamentary Government Dead. One thing has happened already. Parliamentary government in Austria is dead. I passed Parliament House, and I knew as. I stared at it that this noble building was the tomb of a dead system, killed perhaps by its friends even more than by its enemies, because of their ineffective quarrels and fierce political feuds which gave no peace to Austria. This also has happened. Democracy in Europe is dying and almost dead. In almost every country the Fascist tide in one form or another is sweeping over ancient liberties and ancient systems. The future of Austria cannot be foretold even three months ahead. The Nazis are lying low and no one knows their strength. Germany has called off Theodor IFabicht, Nazi Inspector for Austria, for the time, and is not preparing for invasion except by mental processes of penetration. (N.A.N.A.—Copyright.)