between them which most conduce to the | European state. The empire, before the outadvantage of both. break of the revolution of 1848, contained no less than 356,860 persons who claimed feudal exemptions and immunities from the burthens of the state. In Hungary the nobles were in the proportion of one in twenty to the population; and in the other provinces of the empire, although fewer, they exercised generally a very injurious influence. One of the worst consequences of this enormous multiplication of a privileged class was the obstruction opposed to rural improvements. If a bridge, for example, was built, all the nobles were exempt from toll. In Hungary a democratic (if we may so call them) feudal nobility lived chiefly by the oppression of the other classes, and were almost identical with the state itself. But of all the institutions of feudalism in the Austrian dominions, that of the robot was the most pernicious. This was a labour-rent, which prevailed in some of the provinces even down to the year 1848. A small landholder was obliged to work for his lord a hundred and four days in the year, or fifty-two days if he employed oxen. A peasant who occupied a house and garden was compelled to devote a hundred and fifty-six days in the year to the service of his landlord. A ninth of the produce of his land was moreover extorted from him; and all the public burthens from which the great landed proprietors were exempt fell upon him. A tenth of the produce of the soil was also due to the Church. One class of the community thus preyed upon the other; the accumulation of capital was inpossible; and agricultural improvement was the last thing thought of by the rich Hungarian noble, who either squandered his revenue in rude and profuse hospitality on his estate, or involved himself in inextricable debt by indulging in the expensive vanities of Vienna or Pesth. The result of this system was that many millions of acres of the richest soil in the world, which, with a small expenditure of capital, might have been reclaimed from the morass, the marsh, and the fen, remained unproductive, for an immense portion of a country which might be made the granary of Europe is still in a state of nature.

Many causes have long combined to keep Austria singularly low in the scale of material prosperity as compared with most of the other nations of Europe. The economical peculiarities which she exhibits are remarkable. Endowed over a vast extent of her territory with a soil so rich and fertile that it can be compared only to some of the virgin prairies and savannas of the New World, the Austrian empire did not until within a recent period grow grain enough for the consumption of its own people. In 1854 the quantity of grain and flour imported exceeded that exported by not less than 5,630,000 cwts., of which a large proportion came from Turkey, the most barbarous and neglected country in Europe. With plains which resemble in the richness and abundance of their grasses the pampas of South America, and are almost as well adapted for the grazing of innumerable herds of cattle, Austria still imports stock from Servia and Wallachia; and horses, which might be bred on any scale in Hungary, are occasionally procured from Southern Germany and from Russia.* With forests of almost primæval grandeur, the imports of wood for fuel exceeded until recently the exports. With every conceivable natural advantage for growth of the vine, and with numberless gentle eminences, slopes, and sheltered vales, where the grape acquires its highest flavour and perfection, the wines of Hungary, Styria, Transylvania, and Dalmatia, which might vie with the choicest produce of France and Spain, have, with the exception of a few of the more expensive sorts which are occasionally produced as rarities at the tables of the wealthy, until recently scarce been heard of beyond the limits of the empire. This very imperfect development of one of the most valuable of its resources is the characteristic of a country two-thirds of the population of which is employed in agriculture, and where the grandest river of Europe is available for the transport of surplus produce to foreign shores. Among the causes which have contributed to keep the natural resources of Austria in so undeveloped a state, must be specified the defects and shortcomings of its Government. Austria retained the feudal system of the middle ages longer than most of the other nations of Europe, and she retained it with many of its most oppressive and injurious burthens. The nobility and privileged classes were far more numerous than in any other

*Report on the Commerce of Austria,' by Mr. Elliot, Her Majesty's Secretary of Legation, 1858.

It cannot, moreover, be denied that notwithstanding its paternal character the government of Austria for a long period lagged behind the progress of modern improvement, even in matters which could not in any degree come into conflict with the principle of absolutism. It would be difficult, nevertheless, to name any government which has been actuated by better intentions, or which has laboured more steadily to promote the public good. The objects it had at heart

tear of horses, must considerably increase the price of all articles of consumption. In this respect Austria contrasts unfavourably even with Russia, where the principal approaches to the capital have been solidly constructed and are kept in excellent repair.

One of the greatest obstacles to the industrial progress of Austria has been the impolitic diversion of a considerable portion of her population from the cultivation of the soil to manufactures, which were brought into exist

were, however, often defeated by the means adopted for obtaining them. For a long period there was no supreme responsible ministry. The business of the State was conducted in a number of court offices or aulic chancellorships, where every measure was determined by votes. Some conception may be formed of the complex political machinery of the Austrian empire by supposing all the principal departments of the British Government to be constituted like the old double Government of India in Lon-ence by a system of prohibition. Communidon, which, we may observe, was mainly a Government of review and control. The aulic councils of the Austrian empire were not mere councils of advice; they were deliberative bodies, which might debate for days over a proposition, and then decide on it by a majority of votes. The procrastination resulting from this mode of administering the affairs of a great empire was intolerable, and led to a change of system whereby much of the business of the State was brought before the Emperor himself. In this mode of conducting the business of government everything depended upon the capacity and energy of the Sovereign; and although the Emperor Francis is said to have paid himself the questionable compliment of saying that he had become a very efficient privy-councillor, the multitude of subjects reserved for the imperial consideration threw the whole business of the country into hopeless arrear. Stagnation, and too often corruption, were the necessary consequences of inefficient administration, and the torpor of the empire was the necessary consequence of the irregular action of the heart.

The state of the internal communications of Austria has contributed almost as much as feudal oppression and inefficient government to retard the progress of agriculture, and to keep the empire poor. To the deficiency of means of transport it is still owing that wheat grown in one of the most fertile provinces of Europe is greatly enhanced in price before it can reach a port of shipment. A cask of Hungarian wine can be sent from Pesth to England more cheaply by the circuitous route of the Black Sea and Constantinople, than from the ports of Fiume or Trieste. The construction of roads is certainly difficult in Hungary. The central districts possess scarcely any wood, stone, or gravel, and the transport of materials from great distances necessarily increases the cost of highways, and makes their repair difficult; but even in the immediate neighbourhood of Vienna the roads are still allowed during winter to remain in a condition which, in consequence of the time consumed in transport, and the wear and

ties of guilds and trades were encouraged until they multiplied to such an extent as to destroy almost all individual energy and selfreliance. Every workman was restricted from the day of his apprenticeship to one narrow department of industry. He was bound by indissoluble ties to his master, for whom alone his industry could be made productive, for he could not labour for himself even if his employer did not give him work sufficient to occupy one-half his time.* Shopkeepers were subjected to the most vexatious restraints. No one could carry on a business without a licence, and the licence when granted only authorised the sale of goods of a specified character, and no tradesman could leave the town in which he was once established. All enterprise was thus extinguished, and the whole system of Austrian industry constituted a vast combination of monopolies which bound trade in fetters worthy only of the middle ages.

The high price of money, and the difficulty of borrowing in a country where the law exempted the nobles from arrest for debt, have operated, with other causes, in depressing the national industry and retarding agricultural improvement. With the rate of interest on Government securities varying from 6 to 7 per cent., money could only be borrowed on terms which considerably diminished the probability of eventual profit; and so little were monetary principles understood in parts of the empire, that the province of Transylvania in 1840 did not possess a single bank. A retail tradesman at that time undertook the transmission of money to Vienna, and he would not even receive deposits unless he was paid a percentage for keeping them.f

The want of capital has hitherto prevented the growth of an intermediate order between the landowner and the labourer, and the nonexistence of an independent, prosperous middle-class has had an important influence in retarding the material progress of Austria. Commerce has been confined within narrow limits, and restricted to a small number of

*Report of Mr. Elliot on Austrian Commerce,

1858.

+ Paget's Hungary and Transylvania,' p. 239.

competitors; and society has been divided into two great denominations-the rich and the poor. Banking accommodation has been rarely afforded except to large landed proprietors; and the great stream of public wealth has not been augmented by those innumerable petty rills, the aggregate contributions of which in other countries so vastly augment its volume, and accelerate its course. The rural economy of Austria has scarcely yet reached that stage of development in which rent is produced. There are few persons corresponding to the British farmer who invest their capital in the cultivation of land not their own, and derive from it a comfortable subsistence. Almost every proprietor within the Austrian dominions cultivates his own estate. No social phenomenon can more clearly mark the economical difference between England and Austria. Throughout almost the whole of its varied provinces a prince or noble, although the owner of a domain compared with which the largest of English estates would be thought only a petty farm, rarely lets any portion of it to a tenant; but having erected a sufficient number of farmhouses, he places in each a person of his own selection, and pays him for cultivating the land. The capabilities of the soil are, of course, but lightly tested by this system of farming; and it affords little indication of what the future yield of land might become when science and capital are combined in its cultivation.

and respectable firms have sometimes brought themselves to the verge of bankruptcy by such speculations. Lottery agents are appointed even in the remotest and least populous districts of the empire; and the spirit of gambling has become so widely extended that the amount invested in tickets increased from 1850 to 1857 by not less than 150 per cent. The Government obtains a considerable sum annually from this objectionable source; but it is to be hoped that the blot of such a financial expedient will soon be effaced from the Austrian budget.*

Not the least influential of the causes which have kept the Austrian empire in a state of financial penury and material backwardness has been its frequent political disquiet. It has been constantly contending with the passion of provincial independence, and striving to subdue and extinguish that spirit of clanship in some one or other of its numerous provinces which was always aiming at the disintegration of the State. Innumerable conflicting local interests have from time immemorial thwarted the best-conceived plans for the common good. The union even of the German provinces has been often precarious, but the empire has long struggled, and struggled in vain, to reconcile to its dominion a people who are almost unique in Europe. An Asiatic horde burst into the province of Pannonia in the year 883, and it has kept possession, through many vicissitudes, of the territory then acquired. Nothwithstanding their long settlement in the very centre of Europe, the Magyars retain to a considerable extent their Asiatic character. Their country now constitutes nearly one-half of the Austrian empire; and from the day that the

The impediments which were long opposed to cultivation of waste-lands must have materially interfered with the course of agricultural improvement. The conversion, for example, of the smallest portion of forest into arable land required the special permission of the Sovereign, because the forest laws had enact-leader ed that, in order to prevent a scarcity of wood, the extent of forest-land should not be diminished; and a lord who desired to purchase even a few square yards of land from his tenant for building purposes was obliged to obtain the assent of the Emperor to the arrangement, because, by a well-meant enact ment, the tenant-laws had forbidden the increase of domains from tenant-lands.

To these disadvantages under which the commerce and agriculture of Austria have long laboured must be added the system of State lotteries, which has created a spirit of gambling which is diffused throughout all ranks of society, and has diverted the savings of multitudes from reproductive industry to exciting and often ruinous speculation. More than 20,000,000 florins, or nearly two millions sterling, are annually devoted by the public to this demoralising pleasure. passion for gambling is indulged by persons of the slenderest means, and even wealthy

The

of a nomadic tribe subjugated the country, it may be said that Hungary until towards the middle of the eighteenth century did not enjoy ten years of uninterrupted peace. The introduction of an Asiatic element into the very heart of Europe has necessarily considerably affected the material condition of the territory thus occupied. The Magyar is still essentially a Tartar in his habits, his occupations, and his tastes. He is a herdsman by descent and by inclination; and the peasant shepherd as he stalks over the illimitable plain in his white sheepskin robe might, from his noble bearing and majestic step, be mis

number of drawings in a year throughout the empire is not less than 450, and that the lowest amount that may be staked is two pence. We have, perhaps, scarcely a right to comment on this financial expedient of the Austrian Government. England was long an offender in the same category; but the lottery system was never carried to the same extent as it is in Austria, and we have long since abandoned our evil course.

*It is stated by a writer on Austria that the

Poor land, as heath, marshes, commons; also land totally unproductive, as rocks, summits of mountains, lakes, beds of rivers, roads

Comparative population:-Inhabitants per square mile:

This table, which, however, was formed be- | districts of Hungary. In Austria the proporfore the separation of Lombardy from Austria, tion of land in tillage is about equal to that suggests some important considerations. The in Great Britain, and the produce of the most proportion of land altogether uncultivated is fertile districts of Lower Austria is certainly nearly equal in Austria, Great Britain, and not less than that obtained from similar soils France; the mountains and commons of Eng- in England; but in an estimate of comparaland, Scotland, and Wales, and the bogs of tive value of the agricultural produce of the Ireland, corresponding to the Alpine pro- three countries we have the following revinces of Austria and the marshes and sandysults:*Approximate value in franes of agricultural produce (not including live stock) in Britain, France, and

Austria

}

Britain. 6,900,000,000

France. 4,000,000,000

Austria. 3,000,000,000

The area in tillage, either continuously or by | Herds of white cattle, flocks of sheep, droves rotation, is 3582 square miles, of which the al- of swine and of horses, give occasional diversiluvial district of the Danubian valley, a por- ty and animation to what would otherwise tion of Moravia, the north-east of Galicia, part be a monotonous scene. Villages, few and of the Bukowina, and pre-eminently the great far between, and nestled amidst green acacias, Hungarian plains, are the most prolific. The look like islands risen from the deep. These quantity of oats produced is considerably great- wide-stretching plains formed the first settled er than that of any other grain, being about home of the Hungarian race in Europe. double that of wheat; the proportions of wheat, and barley, and maize produced are about equal. Four-fifths of all the barley and oats are grown in Hungary, Galicia, Bohemia, and Moravia.

The far-famed Banat is another of the districts of which the produce is extraordinary. This great wheat-growing country lies between the Theiss, the Maros, and the Danube. The Turks were in possession of the province. One of the principal physical features of only a hundred years since; but the thought the Austrian empire is the great plain or of turning its agricultural capabilities to any prairie which extends for nearly 300 miles profitable use never of course entered their from the Danube to the eastward, and known sluggish minds. Nothing could be more as the Puszta, or the Steppes of Hungary, wild, savage, and desolate than the aspect of where millions of acres might be converted the Banat, even in recent times. Immense into such a picture of agricultural wealth as morasses tainted the air with foul exhalais seen nowhere else in Europe. They are tions, and diffused pestilence and death over divided into three kinds of soils: first, a deep the neighbouring country. This rank wildersand, easily worked, and yielding fair crops in ness was termed by the French 'le tombeau wet seasons; secondly, that in the immediate des étrangers; but, notwithstanding its bad neighbourhood of the Danube and its great repute, the wonderful fertility of the soil tributaries the Theiss and the Temes, boggy gradually attracted settlers, who were enabled in its character and subject to frequent inunda- to purchase land at a low price; and Gertions, but which could be reclaimed and made mans, Servians, Greeks, and even Turks, were productive at very little cost; thirdly, a rich tempted to risk their lives in a district which black deep loam, the fertility of which pro- promised unexampled returns. The soil is a bably exceeds that of any other known soil. black loam, which until the end of the The crops are astonishing; and it is said that eighteenth century had never been turned when the maize has attained its full growth, by the plough. Rapid fortunes were then a tall man riding on a high horse would be made; and some of the wealthiest subjects undiscernible amidst the gigantic stalks even of the Austrian Empire were originally agriwhen they are bent under the weight of the cultural adventurers in the Banat. Wheat, bargolden ears. Slight elevations occur in this ley, oats, rye, rice, maize, flax, hemp, tobacco, region, but its general aspect is that of an un-wine, silk, and even cotton, are the products of broken plain. The vast level, where cultivated, and when green with young corn waving in the wind, can only be compared in its motion and its expanse to the ocean. When a village spire rises in the distance before the traveller, it takes him a day to reach it. 100,000,000 metzen. 50,000,000 50,000,000 44,000,000

→ Oats

Wheat
Barley

Maize.

■ 1 metzen = 1.691 bushels.

แ

"

this wonderfully favoured region. The climate is more nearly tropical than temperate, and the same crops are repeated year after year. With the exception of the orange and the olive, there is scarcely a vegetable product of Europe that does not thrive luxuriantly in the Banat.

Other portions of the Austrian Empire are

*The calculation having been made before the separation of Lombardy from the Empire, the proportions would now of course be considerably more unfavourable to Austria.