"Though the Bavarian government fully apppreciates the value of perfect harmony between the state and the church, and lays the greatest stress on the maintenance of friendly relations between them, its paramount duty nevertheless is to safeguard the rights of the state. These rights would be undoubtedly infringed were the resolutions of 18th July, 1870, to be published, in disregard of the constitutional provisions touching the placetum regium. Though the archbishop, in his pastoral of 14th April, energetically insists on the innocuousness of the Vatican resolutions, it is the conviction of the government that they cannot be treated with indifference, and that the creed of the Catholic Church is essentially altered by the promulgation of the dogma of infallibility. It is, indeed, alleged by the episcopate that the conciliar decrees have only elevated into a dogma what had been always believed in the Catholic Church, but against this allegation the voices of many eminent Catholics have been raised. It admits of no doubt that the important modification in the teachings of the church, which the acceptance of the new doctrine implies, totally changes the relations of the church to the state; and the question which now awaits solution is to know what the attitude of the government to the new dogma shall be. In normal circumstances the State sedulously refrains from all interference in matters of faith, but in the case before us it is incumbent on the government to come to a decision. With the mere declaration of the bishops (some of whom have recanted their previous opinions) that papal infallibility was always taught and believed in the church, that the truth of the dogma was not called in question in Rome, but merely the opportuneness of the definition, and that the infallibility of the Pope implies no danger to the State, the government cannot rest satisfied; it must not and dare not subordinate the political administration to the judgment of the church, especially as it has to protect the interests of its other subjects who hold a different faith. After a conscientious examination of the copious materials at its disposal, the government is convinced that those judge rightly who contend that a great innovation has been introduced into the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and that the state must take its measures accordingly. To do this the government has an incontestable right, since the innovation is of such a character as not only to affect the internal relations of the Catholic Church and alter its position to the State, but even to menace the fundamental principles of the Bavarian constitution, and the civil rights of non-Catholic citizens. It may be objected that the same danger formerly existed when the infallibility of the church was exercised in æcumenical Courcils, in conjunction with the Pope; but it was really a very different case. As infallibility was considered an attribute belonging to the collective church alone, and aving for its exponent the more or less unanimous opinion of the prelates assembled for free deliberation and discussion in an æcumenical council, there was much less Ganger of its perversion and abuse, than when it is independently and exclusively welded by the head of the church. It may, of course, be inaintained that the Popes wil restrict themselves to the domain of faith and abstain from encroaching on the here of the state: but this we have no right to assume. The dogma of infallibility irectly threatens the concordat existing by law, and with it the constitution of the Pate. Hence, it is the duty of the government to obviate the mischievous consegenres of this ecclesiastical innovation, and the placctum regium places the legal means its hands. The bishops have already transgressed the laws of the country, by disgining the special provisions of the constitution, when the placetum was expressly fsed them. But the direct tendency of such an open manifestation of contempt for the Bavarian laws is to diminish their authority in the eyes of the people; and the Cedaration of the archbishops and bishops on this point cannot weaken or alter this fact. They arrogate to themselves a sort of sovereign position-the position of an equal and independent power; they assume the character of a contracting party in a state treaty, and place themselves on a footing which the state can never concede to them. As to the pretense that the placetum regium is required only for ecclesiastical ordinances which concern the affairs of the state, but not for such as treat of mero matters of belief, the constitution provides that all laws and ordinances emanating from the ecclesiastical authorities, whether they regard matters of faith or matters of cscipline, shall in no case be promulgated till the royal authorization has been obtained. The document terminates with the following words:

"The menace against the fundamental rights of the Bavarian state, which is implied the dogma of the personal infallibility of the head of the church, and the violation of the constitution involved in the disregard of the placetum regium, force the Governwent to resort to measures which it would willingly have avoided. It will therefore refase its aid and co-operation in the promulgation of the new dogma, and in the execution of inactions issued by the spiritual authorities with regard to its recognition and establishment. The Government will firmly abide by the principle that the steps which the ecclesiastical authorities may decide on taking against those members of the Catholic Church who reject the new dogma will affect in no degree the civil and political rights of the parties concerned. Should it be deemed necessary, further measures will be adopted by the date to protect the independence of the civil jurisdiction from ecclesiastical coercion."

No. 353.]

No. 3.

Mr. Jay to Mr. Fish.

UNITED STATES LEGATION,

Vienna, September 18, 1871. (Received October 4.)

SIR: I have already advised you of the result of the recent elections in favor of the policy of the Count Hohenwart, looking to an extension of the rights of the provinces, and such a revision of the cases of representation as would increase the electoral power of the various nationalities, and diminish, proportionally, that of the Austro-Germans. It was announced that an analysis of the votes in the new Diets showed that the new Reichsrath would be composed as follows, those marked "federalists" belonging to the ministerial party, in favor of amending the constitution, and those designated as "constitutionalists" being chiefly, if not altogether, Germans, in favor of retaining it as it is.

An amendment of the constitution, requiring a vote of two-thirds, or 134, this estimate gave the government five votes more than was requisite.

The dissatisfaction, forcibly expressed by the Austro-German press, had rather prepared the public to be but slightly surprised at learning, upon the assembling of the new Diets at Brünn, Linz, and Laibach, that the German delegates had absented themselves, but the country seemed scarcely prepared for the bold course upon which they have decided at Prague, and the issue of which is still in the future.

The Diet of Prague was opened on the 14th September by the Count Chotek, the late Austro-Hungarian envoy at St. Petersburg, and now temporary governor of Bohemia, who presented to the assembly the Prince George Loblowitz, the new grand marshal, who concluded an address in the Czechish language with these words:

"May the resolution of this assembly contribute to the well being of our country and to that of all the other countries united under the scepter of our Emperor and King,"

The prince then said in German:

"In saluting this assembly in the two languages, I do not think I am observing an idle formality, but I think it a duty thus to act because I regard the observance of the equality of rights of the two peoples inhabiting this country, in the course of the deliberations of this assembly, as the first and the most important duty of him who presides at these sittings. I do not deny that I have belonged to a political party, but promise henceforth to belong only to the service of my country."

The governor then read the imperial message, of which I append a translation. The passage in which the Emperor recognized the rights of the Kingdom of Bohemia, and promised to sanction them anew by the oath of his coronation, called forth enthusiastic and prolonged applause. The imperial message renewed in increased force the displeasure of the so-called constitutional press, and the sheets that sustain the ministry declare that their articles exhibit more of passion than of calm, serious, and impartial judgment. The Freundenblatt, for instance, is quoted as saying:

The Connt Hohenwart should not be astonished if his projects of laws relating to modification in the provincial statutes and the electoral law are condemned and rejected without any examination.

The day after the delivery of the imperial message the German delegates developed their plan of operations.

They quitted the assembly, having addressed a declaration to the president, which contained these expressions:

The text of the imperial rescript places the Kingdom of Bohemia outside of the framework of the constitution, since according to the text itself, it no more imposes obligations on this country, but only upon the other kingdoms and countries of the monarchy, and consequently the constitutional rights of the inhabitants of Bohemia cease to be recognized. In view of this inadmissible basis that the government takes as its point of departure, we have reason to fear that it may be the desire to encroach upon the constitution in order to favor a policy which is not founded upon history, and that we can never recognize a policy the effect of which will be to break the national bands that unite the Germans in Austria; a policy, in fine, which compromises the force of the empire in giving to this country an exceptional situation, and places in danger the peace and the prosperity of the country in troubling the national equilibrium. We will never approve, and we cannot approve, a policy which is in contradiction with our Austrian convictions, with our sentiments and our national interests, and with our most sacred duties.

According to the newspaper reports, the declaration of the Germans was received in the Diet with bursts of laughter by the Czechs and Federalists. Three German deputies, one of them the Curé Platzer, declared that they were present by the votes of the electors, and they protested against the declaration of the centralists. The secession or abstention from the Diets and Reichsrath in past years by the Czechs and Poles was not too favorably regarded by the country, although it found a partial justification in the apology that the Czechs certainly had had no part in shaping the constitution, and had uniformly declined to recognize it.

"With the Austro-Germans," said a distinguished German to me, the case is different; they have claimed to be the founders in Austria of constitutional government; they have eulogized it as a sacred thing; they have demanded acquiescence in the will of the majority, as the foundation of constitutional government, and the first time there is a constitutional majority against them they betray their own principles, and do the very thing they have condemned in others."

What the result is to be is doubtful; possibly some compromise, assisted by the influence of the German Empire, although how any compromise can now be proposed acceptable to the Czechs, who have the power in their own hands, and the pledged word of the Emperor, it is not easy to foresee. It is announced that Prince Hohenlohe is charged with the ceremonial preparations for the coronation at Prague, in the early part of the winter. What seems, for the time at least, an unfortunate feature of this proceedure is, that it tends to revive, in all its narrowness and all its bigotry, that bane of Austrian politics, the doctrine of nationalities. The Germans, who were divided into conservatives and liberals, appear to be almost a unit against the other nationalities, and the lines

are drawn, not according to principles, but to race. The greatest interest excited by the election is shown by the statement, that the number of votes cast was 23 per cent. larger than usual. Of the electors who voted in Vienna, 89 per cent. are announced as against the government. The simple and straightforward policy for the Germans would seem to be, according to our American ideas, to accept the situation and then proceed to prove their superior intelligence and culture by raising issues upon which they could, in a little while, divide the national votes and secure for themselves a majority. This, as an eminent German admitted to me, would be their true course; but he did not think it would be adopted. He hoped for some satisfactory solution of the difficulty by the aid of the great proprietors in Bohemia, who, with Czechs estates and adopted Czechish names, are in fact German in their ideas and sympathies. I annex a translation of an article from the National Zeitung at Berlin, which appeared while the elections were still pending, and which shows the importance there attached to the policy of the ministry, as involving a continuance of the friendly relations between the empires established at Gastein and at Salzburg. It seems a curious exemplification of the remark sometimes made, that political crises constitute the normal state of Austria, that the moneymarket is not at all disturbed by the proceedings at Prague. Indeed, I am told that some of the stocks showed an upward tendency just after the announcement of the German secession, and that Austrian paper is rising in value, but the Austrian lottery loans have somewhat declined. I have, &c.,

JOHN JAY.

APPENDIX No. 1.

The imperial message to the diet of Prague.

TO THE DIET OF OUR KINGDOM OF BOHEMIA!

When by our ordinance of the 30th July, 1870, we convoked the diets of our kingdoms and countries, we were thereto decided by the grave events of which Europe had become the theater, and the development and incalculable bearing of which had demanded all our attention. Thanks to the Divine protection, we have succeeded in preserving in the midst of those events the blessings of peace, and now we can in all security devote ourselves to the task of consolidating the interior peace of the empire. Our first desire is to regulate in a manner just and satisfactory to all, the relations of our kingdom of Bohemia with the rest of the monarchy, of which the revision was promised by our rescript of the 25th of August, 1870. Considering the constitutional position of the crown of Bohemia, the glory and the power which it has afforded to us and our predecessors, considering besides the unshaken fidelity with which the population of Bohemia have always sustained the throne, we recognized willingly the rights of the kingdom, and we are ready to renew their acknowledgment by the oath of our coronation. We can no longer exempt ourselves from the solemn obligations which we have contracted in regard to our other kingdoms and countries by our diploma of the 20th October, 1866, by the fundamental laws of the 26th February, 1861, and of the 21st December, 1867, in fine by the oath taken on the occasion of our coronation to our kingdom of Hungary. We, therefore, take cognizance with satisfaction of the disposition expressed in the respectful addresses of the diet of the kingdom of Bohemia (of the 4th September and the 5th October, 1870) to place the demands of the country in harmony with the power of the empire, and with the legitimate exigencies of the other kingdoms and countries. It is in this sense that we invite the diet to devote itself to the work. We invite it to discuss in a spirit of moderation and of conciliation the manner in which it is advisable to regulate our kingdom of Bohemia, and to furnish us with a possibility of terminating, without violating the rights of our other kingdoms and countries, a constitutional conflict, the prolongation of which would gravely menace the interests of the faithful populations of our empire.

In charging our government to submit to the diet the new electoral system and a law for the protection of the two nationalities, we send to the diet our imperial and royal salutations. FRANCIS JOSEPH.

APPENDIX No. 2.

[National Zeitung, Berlin.]

The elections in Austria.

The electoral movements in the German provinces of Austria are daily increasing in interest. The aggressive policy of the Hohenwart ministry is fulfilling a mission not intended by its authors; it is uniting the statesmen of the constitutional party, and purifying their policy from the petty secondary objects and constant collisions which have hitherto been the misfortune of that party, and have rendered fruitless the days

of its rule.

But

We cannot yet see clearly the result of the elections, but if any gain should accrue to the government, it would only come from parties in whose eyes the open production of unconstitutional plans would not have injured the ministry; for beyond the Imperial House, and the nobility dependent upon it, the ministry can only count upon the support of those feudalists and ultramontanes, who are more inclined to assist the government in proportion to its hostility against Germanism and the constitution; there was no need for Count Hohenwart to conceal any of his plans from them. the Germans are stirred up by the hostility of the ministry against them, and are united as they never were before. It is impossible to conceive a greater contrast than that between the last and the present elections; the uniting community of endangered interests has taken the place of personal wrangling, the finer shades of political opinion have disappeared; Rechbauer and Giskra, Kaiserfield and Skene, the candidates of the towns, of landed property, and of the chambers of commerce, all solicit the suffrages of the electors under the same conditions and on the same programmes; and the electoral speechies of all the constitutional candidates exhibit a delightful harmony. Full of significance are the words in which the old Deputy Skene again solicits the votes of his constituents. He says: "I am an Austrian, and abhor the policy of nationalities; but I must, unfortunately, expect that the conspiracy formed by the ministry against Germanism will have this consequence, that the Germans will be only national. When the time has come that the Germans are only national, then all parties in Austria will be outside the state." From the stand-point of the good Austrian patriot, the indictment against the "conspiracy" of the Hohenwart ministry could not be more strikingly formulated; but these words become still more important in the mouth of Deputy Skene, because they show in what way the opposite shades of opinion in the formerly divided party of the constitutional Germans arrive at the same point of union. We in Germany can very well understand the peculiar anxieties of the good Austrian patriots.

We, too, in the common interests of both empires, have most earnestly wished that the question of German nationality should not be stirred up in Austria. Whatever the more distant future may bring to pass, at present friendly relations between the two empires would be most serviceable to peace. We have, therefore, done all in our power to prevent a German nationality question in Austria from becoming the burning question immediately after the conclusion of peace with France. The Hohenwart ministry has deliberately, or from want of insight, introduced the dreaded question into polities at a very unsuitable time, for Europe is not yet sufficiently restored to peace to be able to bear without apprehension even a passing game with the dangerous question.

The most zealous efforts of diplomatists have little power over the national sympathies of peoples, which the present Austrian ministry so lightly inflames.

Whatever the foreign ministers may agree upon in their repeated interviews, for some time to come the relations between the two empires will be determined by the internal policy of Austria. Should the Hohenwart ministry succeed, with the aid of "successful" elections, in uniting the Germans of Austria into a national party outside the constitution, jealousy will be created which will be a bar to any friendship with Germany. The result of the elections will be decisive, not only as to the next stages of the constitution, but also as to the foreign relations of Austria.

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