id not turn up to vote, his legitimation was
used by a native. Thus we are told of one Helena Rozenzoph, aged
seventy-five, who was inscribed at Grab[vs]tajn. This woman had never
existed; there had been a certain Barbara Rozenzoph who died in 1919,
and her vote was used by Marjeta Hanzio, aged twenty-two years. The case
was so flagrant that the Commission discovered it and the woman
confessed to having acted on a note which she had received from the
special Austrian _gendarmerie_ force, the Heimatsdienst. The Commission
seems to have been reluctant to take any steps against these frauds and
it is not astonishing that the commune of Grab[vs]tajn registered 1290
votes for the Austrian Republic and only 380 for Yugoslavia, although in
this commune of 3440 inhabitants there are no more than sixteen German
families. A German majority was thus obtained in a province which Dr.
Renner, the Austrian Chancellor, had acknowledged to be Slovene. It
seems incredible that the Commission should have so completely broken
down and the mystery may yet be cleared up, if as the Yugoslavia
delegate requested, all the voting papers have been preserved.... But
the _Hrvat_, the organ of the Narodny Club in Croatia (the
decentralizing but strongly national party) blames Monsignor Koro[vs]ec,
the leader of the Slovene clericals, for the disastrous plebiscite
result. He would have been better employed, it says, in organizing his
people than in gadding about Croatia, Bosnia, Herzegovina and Dalmatia
for the purpose of extending his party. He had boasted that the Slovenes
were so well organized that they were perfectly confident as to the
issue. It would seem, however, says the _Hrvat_, that an unexpectedly
large proportion of them are partly or entirely Germanized. And this,
more than the above-mentioned irregularities, may be chiefly responsible
for Yugoslavia's loss. One must also remember that many a Slovene would
shrink from garrison duty in Macedonia, while it would be very natural
for the Carinthian farmer to look up at the mountains that separated him
from Carniola and then to recollect that Celovec (Klagenfurt), the
economic centre of the whole area, would be Austrian. Nevertheless if
zone "A" had been smaller--and more completely Slav--it is probable that
the population would have risen superior to the various doubts which
assailed them. What we have said about the Slovenes who have become
Germanized is borne out by the _Koroski Slovenec_,