while the diet of Styria is the centre of the
German, that of Carniola is the chief support of the Slovene agitation. In
the same year they won the majority in the town council of Laibach, which
had hitherto been German. They were able, therefore, to introduce Illyrian
as the official language, and cause the names of the streets to be written
up in Illyrian. This question of street names is, as it were, a sign of
victory. Serious riots broke out in some of the towns of Istria when, for
the first time, Illyrian was used for this purpose as well as Italian. In
Prague the victory of the Czechs has been marked by the removal of all
German street names, and the Czech town council even passed a by-law
forbidding private individuals to have tablets put up with the name of the
street in German. In consequence of a motion by the Slovene members of the
Reichsrath and a resolution of the diet of Carniola, the government also
declared Slovenian to be a recognized language for the whole of Carniola,
for the district of Cilli in Styria, and for the Slovene and mixed
districts in the south of Carinthia, and determined that in Laibach a
Slovene gymnasium should be maintained as well as the German one.

The Germans complain that in many cases the government acted very unfairly
to them. They constantly refer to the case of Klagenfurt. This town in
Carinthia had a population of 16,491 German-speaking Austrians; the
Slovenian-speaking population numbered 568, of whom 180 were inhabitants of
the gaol or the hospital. The government, however, in 1880 declared
Slovenian a customary language, so that provision had to be made in public
offices and law courts for dealing with business in Slovenian. It must be
remembered, however, that even though the town was German, the rural
population of the surrounding villages was chiefly Slovene.

It was in Bohemia and Moravia that the contest was fought out with the
greatest vehemence. The two races were nearly equal, and the victory of
Czech would mean that nearly two [v.03 p.0033] million Germans would be
placed in a position of subordination; but for the last twenty years there
had been a constant encroachment by Czech on German. This was partly due to
the direct action of the government. An ordinance of 1880 determined that
henceforward all business which had been brought before any government
office or law court should be dealt with, within the office, in the
language in which it was introduced; this