Mr. Motley to Mr. Seward.
Sir: The period of stagnation in this empire which has lasted since the conclusion of the late disastrous war still continues. I have purposely refrained from writing until there should be new facts to communicate and to comment upon. I do not wish to occupy your time with finely academic or historical discussions, not in place in diplomatic correspondence.
It may not be superfluous, however, to say a few words in characterization of [Page 686] the present condition of affairs; to fix a point of departure, as it were, for the course of events to be expected in the immediate future.
It would be impossible to deny that a feeling of discouragement and discontent pervades all classes. The physical misery of the great mass of the people is very great. It would be difficult to exaggerate the destitution and suffering in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, and other provinces, late the seat of war, and even in the capital itself. The wealthier classes, which have themselves suffered enormously, have been liberal and energetic, from the highest nobles down, in relieving the awful distress, and ministering to the wants of an almost starving population. The Emperor has just returned from a tour in those provinces, where he has been received with demonstrations of loyalty, and where he has given very generously from his own private purse to the cities, villages, and individuals most afflicted by the late disastrous event.
But individuals can unfortunately do little. The productive energies of a population can alone create or restore national wealth, and without extensive changes in the system by which capital is accumulated and distributed throughout this ancient empire it is not easy to indulge in cheerful views.
When an industrious journeyman shoemaker, for example, cannot earn more than from three to five paper florins by a week’s hard work in the capital; when an agricultural laborer can scarcely gain more than twenty cents a day by toiling from morning till night, and when the taxes throughout the empire are already so high that according to official statement they can scarcely be increased, in spite of a yearly deficit of fifty or sixty millions, steadily increasing, it is difficult for the nation to grow rich or for the poor not to grow poorer.
With an almost universal distress and discontent, resulting from a long series of historical events prevailing in the land, the government is now called upon to solve one of the most difficult problems ever presented to statesmen. Some means must be discovered, and that ere long, of uniting into a whole the various kingdoms and provinces subject to the imperial sceptre, when men are speaking and writing openly in the capital itself of the possibly approaching dissolution of the empire.
On the 19th of this month nineteen diets will assemble in the capitals of the various kingdoms and provinces. Voices enough will be heard in these assemblies to describe the dangers and the difficulties besetting the progress of the state, but it is to be feared that the remedies suggested will be almost as numerous as the assemblies. The so-called centralist party is supposed to be entirely defeated. There are few that believe now in the possibility of a united imperial parliament for the whole empire. The February constitution of 1861, without having ever been fairly born, has gone to the limbo of departed efforts at political organization. Four years were consumed in the honest and earnest attempt, while, since the suspension of that February patent, in September, 1865, there has been a persistent negotiation with Hungary, in the hope of coming to some understanding with that kingdom. Those negotiations were duly chronicled in this correspondence, until the point at which they were interrupted by the great war just concluded. They will be resumed on the 19th. The result of the deliberations hitherto has been to establish in the most public manner possible, that Hungary will never cease to regard herself as an entirely independent and self-dependent nation, willing to treat, as one independent state does with another, upon the possibility of inventing some working machinery by which she can regulate such affairs as she may have in common with other kingdoms and states subject, like herself, to the hereditary sway of the Hapsburg dynasty.
This position persisted in is necessarily a negation of any imperial sovereignty. Yet from this position there has been no sign of swerving.
On the other hand, the separatory, the disintegrating tendencies are more rife [Page 687] than ever before on this side of the Leitha. Each nationality is more than ever disposed to assert its independence and repel the other integrals of the one great whole which is known as the Austrian empire. Especially is this visible in Bohemia, where about one-half of the population of five millions belongs to the Czech branch of the Sclavonic family, and are beginning to manifest as much exclusive loyalty to the crown of Wenceslaus as do the Magyars to that of St. Stephen. The Polish nationality, too, is also, as ever, irrepressible, more or less discontented, and ready for any favorable opportunity for reasserting its buried sovereignty. But a far greater danger than all is likely to be found at some day, more or less distant, in the German nationality. Should the great Germany north of the Main constitute itself as firmly and as liberally as the initiatory movements have been rapidly and energetically carried out, it is not easy to see how the immense attraction of such a body upon the German provinces of Austria can be neutralized, except by a liberal and far-seeing constitutional and united policy for the whole empire. Federal autonomy, dualism, disintegration, would seem the right means to strengthen the enemies and to dishearten the friends of the empire.
Yet it cannot be denied that the centrifugal tendencies are very powerful at present, and that it will need all the energy and all the ingenuity of the statesmen intrusted with the control of government to devise a bond of union
Hitherto that bond has been provided by the sceptre and the sword, by absolute dominion, in short. No other exists at present, for no constitutional scheme has yet been devised that was not bitterly denounced and rejected by some powerful portion or other of the various nationalities. Yet military absolutism does not seem likely to be the most practical or beneficent form of government for the coming years in Europe.
This much of the recent past, and of the immediate present, I have thought it not amiss to recall to your attention, in order to furnish a preface, as it were, to whatever of current history in this empire it may soon become my duty to sketch or to comment upon.
I am, sir, your obedient servant,
Hon. William H. Seward, Secretary of State, Washington, D. C.