Its reception was significant. The emperor Francis Joseph
pointed out that the question of a separate Bank for Hungary [v.03 p.0026]
did not figure in the act of 1867, and could not be introduced into it,
_especially since the capital article of the ministerial programme_, i.e.
_electoral reform, was not realized, nor near being realized_. This was
tantamount to an appeal from the Magyar _populus_ to the Hungarian _plebs_,
the disfranchised non-Magyar majority; an appeal all the more significant
from the fact that it ignored the suffrage bill brought in on behalf of the
Hungarian government by Count Julius Andrassy in November 1908, a bill
which, under the guise of granting the principle of universal suffrage, was
ingeniously framed so as to safeguard and even to extend Magyar ascendancy
(see HUNGARY: _History_). In consequence of this rebuff Dr Wekerle tendered
his resignation on the 27th of April. Months passed without it being
possible to form a new cabinet, and a fresh period of crisis and agitation
was begun.

(W. A. P.)

II. _Austria Proper since_ 1867.

As already explained, the name Austria is used for convenience to designate
those portions of the possessions of the house of Habsburg, which were not
included by the settlement of 1867 among the lands of the Hungarian crown.
The separation of Hungary made it necessary to determine the method by
which these territories[13] were henceforth to be governed. It was the
misfortune of the country that there was no clear legal basis on which new
institutions could be erected. Each of the territories was a separate
political unit with a separate history, and some of them had a historic
claim to a large amount of self-government; in many the old feudal estates
had survived till 1848. [Sidenote: The February Constitution.] Since that
year the empire had been the subject of numerous experiments in government;
by the last, which began in 1860, _Landtage_ or diets have been instituted
in each of the territories on a nearly uniform system and with nearly
identical powers, and by the constitution published in February 1861 (the
February Constitution, as it is called), which is still the ultimate basis
for the government, there was instituted a _Reichsrath_ or parliament for
the whole empire; it consisted of a House of Lords (_Herrenhaus_), in which
sat the archbishops and prince bishops, members of the imperial family, and
other members appointed for life, besides some heredita