be revised before any fresh commercial treaties
were made. If it were not done, then no fresh treaties would be made
extending beyond the year 1907, so that if the Commercial Union of Austria
and Hungary were not renewed before 1907, each party would be able to
determine its own policy unshackled by any previous treaties. These
arrangements in Hungary received the sanction of the parliament; but this
could not be procured in Austria, and they were, therefore, proclaimed by
imperial warrant; first of all, on 20th July, the new duties on beer,
brandy and sugar; then on 23rd September the Bank charter, &c. In November
the Quota-Deputations at last agreed that Hungary should henceforward pay
33-3/49, a very small increase, and this was also in Austria proclaimed in
the same way. The result was that a working agreement was made, by which
the Union was preserved.

(J. W. HE.)

[Sidenote: Austro-Hungarian crisis, 1903-1907.]

Since the years 1866-1871 no period of Austro-Hungarian development has
been so important as the years 1903-1907. The defeat of the old Austria by
Prussia at Sadowa in 1866, the establishment of the Dual Monarchy in 1867
and the foundation of the new German empire in 1871, formed the
starting-point of Austro-Hungarian history properly so called; but the
Austro-Hungarian crisis of 1903-1906--a crisis temporarily settled but not
definitively solved,--and the introduction of universal suffrage in
Austria, discredited the original interpretation of the dual system and
raised the question whether it represented the permanent form of the
Austro-Hungarian polity.

At the close of the 19th century both states of the Dual Monarchy were
visited by political crises of some severity. Parliamentary life in Austria
was paralysed by the feud between Germans and Czechs that resulted directly
from the Badeni language ordinances of 1897 and indirectly from the
development of Slav influence, particularly that of Czechs and Poles during
the Taaffe era (1879-1893). Government in Austria was carried on by
cabinets of officials with the help of the emergency clause (paragraph 14)
of the constitution. Ministers, nominally responsible to parliament, were
in practice responsible only to the emperor. Thus during the closing years
of last and the opening years of the present century, political life in
Austria was at a low ebb and the constitution was observed in the letter
rather than in spirit.

Hungary was apparently better s