No. 20.
Mr. Kasson
to Mr. Evarts.
Vienna, December 14, 1877. (Received December 31.)
Sir: During the last week the “delegations” assembled at Vienna. They constitute the common legislature of the empire, but it is a legislative body peculiar to Austria-Hungary, and without a parallel in the other countries of the world. I have studied its characteristics with interest, remembering also that there was at one time, in some quarters of America, a projet of a dual government for the Union, as a modus vivendi for North and South.
The seventeen provinces of Austria constitute Cisleithania, which has a complete legislature (Reichsrath) composed of two houses, and a responsible ministry of its own. Of Cisleithania Francis Joseph is Emperor. Hungary, Transylvania, Slavonia, and Croatia constitute Transleithania, which also has a complete legislature (Reichstag) composed of two houses, and its own responsible ministry. Of Transleithania Francis Joseph is King. Each of the two governments includes a ministry of national defense, of finance, of the interior, of public works, of justice, of agriculture and commerce, and of education. Neither has a ministry of foreign affairs, nor of war, except so far as the latter is embraced under the term “national defense.” Each of these bodies, the Cisleithania legislative council and the Transleithanian diet, elects a delegation of its own members, which meets annually and alternately at one of the two capitals, Vienna and Pesth, with very limited powers, to regulate common affairs, the army, navy, and external relations. Each delegation is composed of 60 members—20 peers and 40 representatives. Each delegation, however, constitutes only one house. The two delegations meet in separate chambers, even in different parts of the city; and [Page 25] all measures must be adopted by both, with the reserve that if they do not so agree they must meet in congress. On such occasions a majority of the united vote determines the result, which is conclusive without subsequent sanction of their constituent bodies.
There is also a third and common cabinet of administration composed of three ministers only, that of foreign affairs, of finance, and of war. This common ministry is responsible to the delegations only, as the other two ministries are to their respective legislatures. It occupies a ministerial bench in the chamber of each delegation, passing from one to the other as business requires, and responding to interpellations in each.
The delegations pass only the budget for foreign affairs, for the expenses of the common department of finance, and for the army and navy. These expenditures are ordinarily and respectively about 4,500,000, 2,000,000, and 110,000,000 of florins, equivalent to not quite half of these amounts in dollars. They also fix the numbers to be enrolled in the army, and the duration of service, &c. While the finance minister is in charge of the disbursement of the entire sums, he has nothing to do with the levying and collecting of the revenues, except the proceeds of the customs tariff (from 17,000,000 to 20,000,000 florins) and some other small miscellaneous receipts which come into his treasury. The two separate legislatures must provide and pay over the balance of the sums as voted by the delegations, in proportions which they must separately agree upon, and which, under the compromise now expiring, was 68.6 per cent. from Austria and 31.4 per cent. from Hungary. All taxes are separately voted, as they may be separately disbursed, by Cisleithania or Transleithania, each in its own jurisdiction. No superior power exists to compel their action or to prevent their default; to check their extravagance or to force the fulfillment of contracts. There is no common tribunal except the common executive, who bears a different title in each country.* * * The reserved rights of each monarchy are in almost perpetual conflict. In respect to tariffs, as I explained in a former dispatch (No. 23,) they are in radical antagonism. They are antagonistic in their interests of taxation and in their views of foreign policy. Add to these, differences in race and in language, and in history, and there appear at once ample obstructive elements in the way of agreeing to any compromise which shall definitely fix their relative rights and responsibilities, their relative privileges and burdens. Almost inevitably, what pleases one branch of the empire is displeasing to the other.
The common government of such a dualism has no enviable position. Its movements must be slow and halting, if not equivocal.
As King of Hungary, the monarch received the Hungarian delegation at 1 p.m. on Wednesday, at the palace; and as Emperor of Austria, he received the Austrian delegation at 3 p.m. To each he made the same speech from the throne. It dealt only in generalities, expressing the hope that, as he had been compelled, so far, in the Oriental war to impose only ordinary burdens on his people, so it would continue to be till the war ended.
Since the Emperor’s speech Count Andrássy has been interpellated in the Hungarian delegation touching his foreign policy. His opponents styled it “nebulous.” He declared it to be neutral until the sphere of Austrian interests should be encroached upon, when he would know how to defend these interests. He also said that the other powers knew how Austria had defined those interests; if he had been reticent here about them, it was because reticence was less likely to excite the susceptibility of other powers, and was conducive to the ultimate object of securing those interests. He affirmed that Austria-Hungary had full [Page 26] liberty of action, unbound by any contract. This was in allusion to the reports of the alliance of the three Emperors. He proposed they should wait a few weeks till his Red Book should be published; and in that correspondence they would learn what had been his policy for several years, and to what it was leading. He clearly stated his conviction that the condition of the Turkish Government in the Christian provinces could not continue what it had been, and implied an admission of the necessity of revision of treaties on the Oriental question. He was confident in the assurance of protection to Austrian interests in the settlement to be made. The whole tenor of his speech confirms the conviction I have heretofore entertained, that an unwritten outline of policy to be adopted at the close of the war has been agreed upon or understood between the three imperial chanceries, and that England is more isolated than ever before in respect to the Oriental question.
I have, &c.,