Rassegna storica del Risorgimento

172 Ronald E. Coons
of ridding themselves of their master* by the slaughter of the nobles. The feeling on the part of the opposilion inembers, (with whom rests the superiority both in nnmbers and talent) towards the Austrian government, is quite hostile, and frequently finds vent in the course of debate, as the following circunistance will show. A few days silice, a member of the Upper House, in the course of hia reniarks stated, that they (the Hungarians) would no longer submit, that the time had come to resist the infamous system of the Anstrian government, of placing over them every where in Hungary salaried Anstrian officerà.41> The Palatine, (the Arch-Duke Stephen, who presides over that body), immediately arose and with more temper than discretion warned the member to he careful of his langnage, and to recollect that he (the Palatine) was al so an Austri an officer , hut the member not [at] ali subdued, retorted that though the Palatine Was ex officio an Anstrian officer , yet that he too should recollect that unlìke the officers to whom allusion had been made, he received his salary from the Hungarian and not the Anstrian government , and the member might also have added, with equa! force and truth that unlike them, he was besides an officer of their own selection. The animosìty between the two parties is so great that severa! dnels between the members of the Diet have recently taken place occasioned by offensive langnage employed in debate.
The situation of the Austrian Empire, at this time, menaoed on every side, by the increasing discontent of its provinces, at the perseverance of the govern­ment, in * system of immobility -and hatred of reforms, is criticai in the extreme. On the North, in her Polish provinces, where the insnrrectionary spirit which burst forth in Gallicia two years since, has never been entirely suppressed, and where by the last accounts, clandestine depois of arms intended for another rising, had just been discovered, the government is stili compelled to keep up there a large military force. On the east in her Hungarian provinces, owing to the increasing discontent of the nobles, as referred to above, a similar pre-canti onary measure has been render ed necessary. On the west in her Tyrolian provinces, from their proximity on the one side to Switzerland with its radicai opinione and on the other to Italy with its fever for reform, and from the faci that the Tyrolians by intercourse and feeling are more closely allied with either of these countries than with Austria, a heavy body of Imperiai trops is kepi constantly quartered among them. And on the south in her Italian provinces, bordering on the regenerating States of the Church, and of Sardinia, with which they were formerly connected, and to which they are stili much more attached than to Austria, Uìe danger as I have had occasi on to report in previous des-patches, is most imminent, and requires consequently a concentration there of the largest and most efficient force of the empire. In the mean time another
41 ) Questi salaried Austrian officers erano gli amministratori che il cancel­liere ungherese, il conte Gyorgy Apponyi, nominò per esercitare le funzioni normalmente esercitate in diciotto dei governatorati del Foispàn. L'osservatore ufficiale dell'Inghilterra alla Dieta spiegò: Count Apponyi's principal motive for introducing ibis system was, no doubt, to increase the influencc of the Government, and to seoure, through this mfluence, a majority in the Chamber of Delegatcs. In this respcct, the system has, in so far answered his expeclalions that severa! Counties represcnled at the last Diet by ultra-Liberals have now sent either men of moderate opinion or Conservatives for their delegates . Angio­li ungarian Documenta 1841-1859. Rcports of J. A. Blackwell on e/te Hungarian Parliament of 1847-1848, in South Eastern Ajjuirs, a. II (1932), p. 31.