parliamentary difficulties.]

Despite these public works Dr von Koerber found himself unable to induce
parliament to vote the Budgets for 1903, 1904 or 1905, and was obliged to
revert to the expedient employed by his predecessors of sanctioning the
estimates by imperial ordinance under paragraph 14 of the constitution. His
attempts in December 1902 and January 1903 to promote a compromise between
Czechs and Germans proved equally futile. Koerber proposed that Bohemia be
divided into 10 districts, of which 5 would be Czech, 3 German and 2 mixed.
Of the 234 district tribunals, 133 were to be Czech, 94 German and 7 mixed.
The Czechs demanded on the contrary that both their language and German
should be placed on an equal footing throughout Bohemia, and be used for
all official purposes in the same way. As this demand involved the
recognition of Czech as a language of internal service in Bohemia it was
refused by the Germans. Thenceforward, until his fall on the 31st of
December 1904, Koerber governed practically without parliament. The Chamber
was summoned at intervals rather as a pretext for the subsequent employment
of paragraph 14 than in the hope of securing its assent to legislative
measures. The Czechs blocked business by a pile of "urgency motions" and
occasionally indulged in noisy obstruction. On one occasion a sitting
lasted 57 hours without interruption. In consequence of Czech
aggressiveness, the German parties (the German Progressists, the German
Populists, the Constitutional Landed Proprietors and the Christian
Socialists) created a joint executive committee and a supreme committee of
four members to watch over German racial interests.

[Sidenote: Baron Gautsch premier.]

By the end of 1904 it had become clear that the system of government by
paragraph 14, which Dr von Koerber had perfected was not effective in the
long run. Loans were needed for military and other purposes, and paragraph
14 itself declares that it cannot be employed for the contraction of any
lasting burden upon the exchequer, nor for any sale of state patrimony. As
the person of the premier had become so obnoxious to the Czechs that his
removal would be regarded by them as a concession, his resignation was
suddenly accepted by the emperor, and, on the 1st of January 1905, a former
premier, Baron von Gautsch, was appointed in his stead. Parliamentary
activity was at once resumed; the Austro-Hungarian tariff contained in the
Szell-Koerber co