n of the emperor at Prague. In 1890,
however, instead of proceeding to the coronation as was expected, Taaffe
attempted to bring about a reconciliation between the opposing parties. The
influence by which his policy was directed is not quite clear, but the
Czechs had been of recent years less easy to deal with, and Taaffe had
never really shown any wish to alter the constitution; his policy always
was to destroy the influence of parliament by playing off one party against
the other, and so to win a clear field for the government. During the month
of January conferences were held at Vienna, with Taaffe in the chair, to
which were invited representatives of the three groups into which the
Bohemian representatives were divided, the German party, the Czechs, and
the Feudal party. After a fortnight's discussion an agreement was made on
the basis of a separation between the German and the Czech districts, and a
revision of the electoral law. A protocol enumerating the points agreed on
was signed by all who had taken part in the conference, and in May bills
were laid before the diet incorporating the chief points in the agreement.
But they were not carried; the chief reason being that the Young Czechs had
not been asked to take part in the conference, and did not consider
themselves bound by its decisions; they opposed the measures and had
recourse to obstruction, and a certain number of the Old Czechs gradually
came over to them. Their chief ground of criticizing the proposed measures
was that they would threaten the unity of the Bohemian country.[18] At the
elections in 1891 a great struggle took place between the Old and the Young
Czechs. The latter were completely victorious; Rieger, who had led the
party for thirty years, disappeared from the Reichsrath. The first result
was that the proposed agreement with Bohemia came to an end. But the
disappearance of the Old Czechs made the parliamentary situation very
insecure. The Young Czechs could not take their place: their Radical and
anti-clerical tendencies alarmed the Feudalists and Clericalists who formed
so large a part of the Right; they attacked the alliance with Germany; they
made public demonstration of their French sympathies; they entered into
communication with other Slav races, especially the Serbs of Hungary and
Bosnia; they demanded universal suffrage, and occasionally supported the
German Radicals in their opposition to the Clerical parties, especially in
education