570 THE CLASS STRUGGLE THE AWAKENING OF AUSTRIA 571 And if those other gentlemen who have been doing such good business, think that what they receive from Austria, is exactly proportionate to the pressure they transmit and exert downward, for my part think that one people cannot live from the rule and exploitation of another, and and if there is a classic example, it is German Austria. We German Austrians are highly gifted, but all our talents are being directed outward, being converted into downward pressure it is our chief article of export; here we are rotting and going to ruin because of the obsession that we are pre destined to rule in Austria.
In the question of the southern Slavs, let us not for heaven sake fall back into the old policy of playing off the Croats against the Serbs. It might suit the Hungarians and the Magyar junker Count Tisza to play off the Croats against the Serbs, but we forget that the Croats too are becoming wiser, and will no longer let themselves to be used as the instruments of their own oppression as they have been doing since 1848. The Croats are today where the Serbs once were. If the Christlich Sozialen tell us that the house of Hapsburg still rules there with an iron hand, and will find there rock solid support, think it is rather the voice of the past than the future that speaks. One thing is certain: upon the solution of the south slavic problem and the regulation of affairs in the south of the Monarchy, depends not only the peace of Austria, but of all Europe.
In the case of Italy we will have it easier. We could have gotten off more cheaply, if Italy had been more reasonable.
The Italians have paid a bloody price for it, and it makes one sick at heart to think that in places, where anyone who has some culture and knows something of the past, must tread respectfully with bared head, bombs are now being dropped from flying machines, so that men are being killed where the highest phase of human culture was honored by us all for centuries.
lution. But let him bear in mind that the Austro Polish adventure was first opposed, to the utmost, by the Social Democrats who did find among the Polish representatives that unanimity of agreement that might have been desired. Let the Poles learn this much from the experience of the Germans: The Ukrainians will not rest content with the mere promise that they will be well treated. But the Ukrainians must also admit that they will have to show moderation. One thing we all know: What is taking place in the East, must be swept away. It was a crime, committed perhaps as a last resort. am pleased to be able to confirm that the Social Democrats in the German Reichstag have specifically included this question among the conditions under which they will participate in the Government, and hope that they will not moderate these conditions, but will make them more emphatic. Not only must the peace of Brest Litovsk not hamper universal peace, as the German Social Democrats state, would like to add that this also holds true of the peace of Bucharest but as the Social Democrats of Austria state, it must be obliterated. The German people are too good to be made to serve as guardians of all these petty potentates that have been bred in German cities, and to spill their blood and accept the responsibility for such a purpose. No people can justify even their own dynasty, much less that of others.
The proposal of the Social Democrats seeks to enable the parliament to express itself on these questions involving the future existence of the state, and to make this expression count. We are not inclined to leave this solely to those who now rule nor to Count Tisza, the master of Austria Hungary.
Whoever it may be that Count Tisza represents in confidential or executive matters, he doesn represent us. He is not the man to whom the peoples of Austria Hungary would entrust even the smallest fraction of their affairs for even the smallest fraction of time. Insofar as it is possible for a single individual to be guilty historically, we regard him as one of those who bear the most guilt for the blood that has been shed.
The Poles! Daszynski has opposed the Austro German so