mpact was adopted, the estimates were discussed and the
commercial treaty with Germany ratified. In the early autumn, however, a
radical change came over the spirit of Austrian politics. For nearly three
years Austria had been watching with bitterness and depression the course
of the crisis in Hungary. Parliament had repeatedly expressed its
disapproval of the Magyar demands upon the crown, but had succeeded only in
demonstrating its own impotence. The feeling that Austria could be
compelled by imperial ordinance under paragraph 14 to acquiesce in whatever
concessions the crown might make to Hungary galled Austrian public opinion
and prepared it for coming changes. In August 1905 the crown took into
consideration and in September sanctioned the proposal that universal
suffrage be introduced into the official programme of the Fejervary cabinet
then engaged in combating the Coalition in Hungary. It is not to be
supposed that the king of Hungary assented to this programme without
reflecting that what he sought to further in Hungary, it would be
impossible for him, as emperor of Austria, to oppose in Cisleithania. His
subsequent action justifies, indeed, the belief that, when sanctioning the
Fejervary programme, the monarch had already decided that universal
suffrage should be introduced in Austria; but even he can scarcely have
been prepared for the rapidity with which the movement in Austria gained
ground and accomplished its object.

[Sidenote: Franchise reform.]

On the 15th of September 1905 a huge socialist and working-class
demonstration in favour of universal suffrage took place before the
parliament at Budapest. The Austrian Socialist party, encouraged by this
manifestation and influenced by the revolutionary movement in Russia,
resolved to press for franchise reform in Austria also. An initial
demonstration, resulting in some bloodshed, was organized in Vienna at the
beginning of November. At Prague, Graz and other towns, demonstrations and
collisions with the police were frequent. The premier, Baron Gautsch, who
had previously discountenanced universal suffrage while admitting the
desirability of a restricted reform, then changed attitude and permitted an
enormous Socialist demonstration, in support of universal suffrage, to take
place (November 28) in the Vienna Ringstrasse. Traffic was suspended for
five hours while an orderly procession of workmen, ten abreast, marched
silently along the Ringstrasse past the h