school age ends with the completion of the twelfth year. The subjects taught are reading, writing, arithmetic, religion, grammar, geometry, geography, natural history, physics, history, drawing, singing, gymnastics (to boys), and household work (to girls). The schools are built and supported by the communes. There were 17,926 elementary schools, with 59,200 teachers and 2,857,669 pupils in 1887. The gymnasia in 1889 numbered 172, with 3,510 teachers and 55,089 pupils; the Realschulen or scientific middle schools, 85, with 1,370 teachers and 18,860 pupils. The University of Vienna in 1889 had 368 professors and tutors and 5,218 students; the Bohemian university at Prague, 121 instructors and 2,361 students; the German university at Prague, 142 instructors and 1,470 students; Gratz University, 130 instructors and 1,296 students; Cracow University, 111 instructors and 1,206 students; Lemberg University, 62 instructors and 1,129 students; Innsbruck University, 96 instructors and 862 students; Czernowitz University, 42 instructors and 259 students. The colleges for Catholic theology in 1888 numbered 49, with 225 instructors and 2,199 students. There was one school for Protestant theology, with 41 students, and one for Greek Oriental theology, with 16 students. The Polytechnic Institute in Vienna had 91 teachers and 796 students in 1889. In Prague there is a Bohemian polytechnicum with 63 teachers and 334 students and a German one with 49 teachers and 184 students. There are besides 1,460 special technical schools for art, music, commerce, agriculture, mining, and various industries, with about 150,000 students. In 7,001 of the elementary schools the language is German; in 4,246, Czech; in 4,058, other Slavic languages; in 870, Italian; in 63, Roumanian; in 3, Magyar; and in 448 more than one language is used. In 1886 there were 851 per cent. of the children of school age in actual attendance in the schools.

The Bohemian Ausgleich.-Count Taafe's policy of compromise has been described by himself as durchfretten, or "rubbing along." He came into office after the German Liberals had been governing for years under Prince Alexander Auersperg and were no longer able to crush down the rising spirit of nationalism. The mission that he undertook was to build up a Conservative party by making the Czechs, Poles, Slovenians, and Italians of Istria and the Trentine work together with the feudal and Ultramontane German elements. To maintain this union the Germanizing policy of Prince Auersperg and Count Beust was reversed, the liberalizing tendencies in religious, educational, and social legislation were checked to please the Clericals, and the democratic wave that was sweeping away the remnants of aristocratic privileges was retarded. The coalition worked harmoniously by the aid of concessions to the nationalities and Conservative elements of which it was composed until the once supreme German Liberal party became so feeble that it threatened to resort to the final but always effective manœuvre of dissolving the party and withdrawing from the Reichsrath, having already left the Bohemian Diet. Dangerous defections began to take place in the unwieldy and heterogeneous majority, and new opposition parties began to

form, which menaced the stability and internal order of the composite empire. In the Trentine and Istria Italian nationalism began to exhibit affinities with Irredentism. Among the Germans of Austria anti-Semitic and Socialistic tendencies showed themselves. The Clericals began to present exorbitant demands. Prince Aloys Lichtenstein sought to use the Conserva tive coalition for the purpose of passing a school bill that would place primary education under the complete control of the clergy. The interference of the Emperor caused the bill to be dropped, and Prince Lichtenstein retired to private life; but the Ultramontanes waited only for an opportune juncture to renew their effort. Bohemia was from the beginning the chief battle-ground on which the struggle between Germanism and Slavdom in Austria has been fought out. The elaborate adjustment of the rights and claims of both nationalities was satisfactory to the extremists of neither party. The Young Czech party arose with Radical as well as ultra-Nationalist sentiments. They made demonstrations in commemoration of John Huss, demanded the restoration of the Kingdom of Bohemia by the coronation of the Emperor at Prague and the proclamation of an independent constitution like that of Hungary, under which they could suppress the German language, and betrayed Panslavistic and Russophile leanings. The Young Germans, on their part, ceasing to talk of themselves as Austrians, yearned for incorporation in the German Fatherland. About three fifths of the population are Czech in language and two fifths German; but of the latter a considerable proportion are attached to one or the other of the Czech parties. The Young Czechs, who declared war against the Schwarzenbergs and other feudal magnates and rejected the Conservative and Clerical lead under which previous concessions had been attained won many seats in the Diet, and grew with a rapidity that threatened soon to give them a majority over the Old Czechs.

The time being ripe for a new combination, the Emperor interposed, as he has done before at similar junctures. He definitely rejected the plan of a Bohemian coronation, and induced the Prime Minister and the leader of the German party, Herr von Plener, to seek an agreement. The governing party in Austria, dominated by the Clericals, who were inimical to the Protestant dynasty in Prussia and the excommunicated monarch of Italy, were not altogether friendly to the triple alliance and endangered the success of the combination on which the future of the Hapsburg Empire is staked. For that reason a firmer direction of the foreign policy of the empire could be expected from a new disposition of the political forces and the construction of a Conservative majority by discarding the extreme Nationalist and Clerical elements and replacing them by the Moderate Germans, who had been neglected for ten years. An agreement between the Moderate Germans and the Old Czechs in Bohemia, with new concessions to the Poles, would make the Government independent of exacting Czechs and Ultramontanes. With this object a conference was arranged, which was held at Vienna in January, 1890. A preliminary understanding was reached, on the strength of

which the Germans agreed to re-enter the Bohemian Landtag. The agreement arrived at between the Prime Minister and the leaders of the Old Czech and German parties, Dr. Rieger and Ernst von Plener, required to be embodied in laws by the Provincial Diet and the Reichsrath. Between the time of its publication on Jan. 21 and the session of the Landtag that was to give it the final sanction in May the Young Czechs carried on a lively popular agitation against the compromise, which struck a fatal blow to their aggressive nationalism, which aims at making Bohemia entirely Czechish, in that it divides the governing and judicial bodies into Czechish and German sections and partitions the kingdom into judicial, electoral, and administrative districts in which each of the two nationalities will enjoy the use of its own language and separate civilization without coercion or restraint from the other. The Ausgleich embraces the following principal points: 1. The division into Czech and German sections of the Provincial Educational Council, which exercises control, subject to the approval of the Government, over all the primary and industrial and many of the intermediate schools; the division in like manner of the local school boards in districts having a mixed population, and the establishment of minority schools in districts where the parents of forty children who have been five years in a district demand the instruction of their children in their native language. 2. The separation into two national groups of the Landesculturrath or Provincial Agricultural Council, which was originally a free association, but has been endowed with official powers, having control of the agricultural schools and societies and the traveling teachers of agriculture and of the distribution of Government and provincial subsidies for the improvement of agriculture. The Germans, not being represented in this body, founded an association of their own, but have hitherto enjoyed no favors or subventions from the Government. 3. The division of the Supreme Court into two national sections. 4. The redistricting of the kingdom for administrative, judicial, and electoral purposes on a comprehensive plan that will afford a legally recognized geographical basis for language regulations. 5. The repeal of the regulation requiring Government and local officials to know both languages. Of the superior judicial officers about one fourth, destined for employment in German districts, are no longer obliged to prove their familiarity with the Czechish tongue. 6. The division of the Bohemian Diet into national sections. Members before taking their seats will have to declare to which national curia they belong. On the demand of a certain number of members that a vote shall be taken curiatim, each national curia votes separately, and a majority in both is necessary for the passage of the measure. The curia of large proprietors will be preserved, while the curia of the towns and rural communes will be merged in the two national curia. In the former provision will be made for a larger German representation by changing electoral divisions and placing allodial property more on an equality with trust estates.

The conference was called together again in April to consider the bills that were framed by

the Government before they were submitted to the Landtag. The popular opposition to the compromise, fostered by Dr. Gregr and the Young Czechs, was such as to threaten the Old Czechs with extinction in the coming elections; and therefore in the Diet a part of them were disinclined to carry out all the arrangements to which they had pledged themselves. The bill for dualizing the Educational Council was passed on June 3, and was promptly signed by the Emperor in spite of the expressed desire of the Czechs that the measures should be sanctioned as a whole. Enough of the former followers of Dr. Rieger voted with the Young Czechs to prevent the passage of any measure requiring a twothird majority. Consequently, the compromise bills were postponed, with a prospect of a continuation of the conflict of nationalities, unless the Germans will abate some of their demands, especially in regard to the use of German as the official language of courts and administrative authorities. Dr. Rieger, once the popular champion of Czech pretensions, but now the object of general opprobrium, announced in July his intention of retiring from public life.

Session of the Reichsrath.-The Clerical party refused the concessions contained in a bill prepared by Minister von Gautsch, and the bishops went beyond the Lichtenstein proposals in a declaration read by Cardinal Schönborn on March 12 in the Committee of the House of Lords demanding Catholic public schools in which Catholic children would not have to mix with those of other confessions. They not only ask that nothing repugnant to Catholics should occur in the course of instruction, but would require it to conform in all respects to the Catholic character of the schools. The right of supervision must be restored to the clergy, and the teachers must be trained in Catholic normal schools and receive their appointments subject to the consent of the ecclesiastical authorities.

The Clerical demands, if it were possible for the Government to yield, would necessitate the revocation of one of the most popular and cherished liberties secured by the Constitution of 1861, that of compulsory and undenominational primary instruction embodied in the educational acts of 1868 and 1869, according to which children of all creeds are taught in the same schools except during the single hour that is set apart every day for religious instruction, at which time those who are not Catholics are at liberty to withdraw.

The Slav majority, on which the Taafe Cabinet has heretofore depended, carried a bill releasing Galicia from a debt of 106,000,000 florins to the Austrian treasury, although outside Galicia the measure was very unpopular, since all the other provinces have paid the debts of a similar character that they owed. The debt was incurred in 1848 in connection with the creation of a peasant proprietary. The Clericals, who have voted in favor of the other rewards that the ministry has conferred on its Polish supporters, refrained from voting either for or against this measure, which passed by a narrow majority.

Labor Disturbances.-In the beginning of April a strike of the masons and bricklayers was followed by strikes of the shoemakers, tailors, turners, and barbers in Vienna. The servant

girls threatened to cease work unless their demand for higher wages was granted. Meetings were held in the suburbs that were attended by thousands of persons who were voluntarily or involuntarily out of employ. A mass meeting in the Schmelz parade ground was broken up on April 8 by the police, who made many arrests and were stoned by the mob. In the evening a larger crowd gathered in the neighboring suburb of Neu-Lerchenfeld, which, after listening to some speeches, attacked the police, who attempted to check them by firing blank cartridges, broke into the station house and drove out the officials, and then overran Lerchenfeld, Ottakring, and Hernals, stoning the windows of Jewish shopkeepers, plundering the shops of four or five who sold liquors and comestibles, setting one on fire, and only ceasing their depredations when two troops of hussars appeared on the scene. A week or two later occurred a general strike of coal miners in Moravia and Silesia. Demanding an eight-hours' shift and two florins a day, more than 30,000 men left work. Bands of strikers enforced the stoppage of the iron mills at Witkowitz, and soldiers were sent to the scene of the disturbances. All work was suspended in the districts of Ostrau and Karwin. On April 17 a collision occurred between troops and miners at Karwin, and on the following day strikers were bayoneted in Polish Ostrau. In several towns the strikes were followed by antiSemitic riots and the sacking of stores and dwellings. There were strikes at Prague, Lemberg, Innsbruck, Pressnitz, Meran, Gratz, Marburg, Znain, and Steyr, Workmen in railroad shops and gas works demanded shorter hours, higher wages, and the abolition of piece work. On April 23 a serious anti-Jewish riot occurred at Biala, in Galicia, where workmen plundered the spirit shops and defied the infantry, who tried to intimidate them with blank cartridges and finally fired ball cartridges, killing or wounding fatally 13 persons. On April 29 striking weavers in Frankstadt, Moravia, wrecked a factory, wounded the burgomaster, and resisted the military, the women taking the lead. Great anxiety was felt regarding the eight-hour labor demonstration that was planned for May 1, and elaborate dispositions were made to check possible outbreaks by a prompt evolution of military force. The parade in Vienna, in which 50,000 working men took part, passed off without the slightest disorderly manifestation. On May 19 several strikers were killed by troops at Nürschau, Bohemia.

Hungary. The Hungarian Parliament con-sists of an Upper House, called the Magnatentafel, and a Lower House, called the Representantentafel. The House of Magnates is composed of hereditary peers, who pay a land tax of 3,000 florins or over, 40 Roman and Greek Catholic prelates, 11 lay representatives of the Augsburg and Geneva Confessions, 82 life peers, 17 state dignitaries, 3 delegates from Croatia-Slavonia, and princes of the imperial family. In 1889 there were 20 archdukes and 286 hereditary peers possessing the property qualification. The members of the House of Representatives, elected for five years, by direct vote of the people under a slight property limitation, numbered 453 in 1889, including 40 delegates of Croatia-Slavonia.

The ministry, constituted in March, 1890, was as follows: President of the Council, Count Julius Szapary, appointed March 7, 1890; Minister of Finance, Dr. Alexander Wekerle, appointed April 9, 1889; Minister of National Defense, Baron Géza Fejéváry, appointed Oct. 28, 1884; Minister ad latus to the King, Baron Béla Orczy, appointed Aug. 12, 1879; Minister of the Interior, Count Joseph Zichy, appointed March 13, 1890; Minister of Education and Public Worship, Count Albin Csáky, appointed in September, 1888; Minister of Justice, Desiderius von Szilagyi, appointed April 9, 1889; Minister of industry and Commerce, Gabriel von Baross, appointed Dec. 21, 1886; Minister of Agriculture, Count Andreas von Bethlen, appointed March 13, 1890; for Croatia and Slavonia, Emerich von Josipovich, appointed Aug. 23, 1889.

Area and Population. The population of Hungary, including Transylvania, with an area of 108,258 square miles, was estimated for Dec. 31, 1888, at 14,859,288; that of Croatia and Slavonia, having an extent of 16,773 square miles, at 2,098,161; and that of the town of Fiume, occupying 8 square miles, at 22,364; making the total population of the monarchy 16,979,813, or 135 to the square mile. The number of marriages in 1887 was 151,511; of births, 745,080; of deaths, 568,533; the surplus of births over deaths, 175,947. Buda-Pesth had in 1886 a population of 422,557, the next largest city being Szegedin, with 74,355 inhabitants.

Education.-The number of elementary schools in 1887 was 17,786, with 27,119 teachers and an average attendance of 1,621,656 children, not including 447,711 in supplementary schools. There were in 1888 102 gymnasia, with 2,510 teachers and 38,503 pupils, and 33 Realschulen, with 630 teachers and 7,416 pupils. The Minister of Education in the session of 1890 presented a bill to make the study of Greek in the gymnasia optional except for pupils intending to study theology, philosophy, history, or philology. The university at Buda-Pesth in 1889 had 211 professors and teachers and 3,660 students; that at Klausenburg, 81 professors and 525 students; that at Agram, 49 professors and 413 students. There were 38 Roman Catholic schools of divinity, with 1,151 students; 4 Greek Oriental schools, with 279 students; and 14 Protestant schools, with 437 students. The special schools of law numbered 11, with 119 instructors and 709 students. There are 405 special technical institutes, including a high school for mining and forestry, lower and intermediate forestry schools, 6 agricultural colleges, and commercial and industrial schools of various kinds. By the trade law of 1884 every commune where there are 50 apprentices is obliged to provide special instruction. In 1888 Buda-Pesth had 16 schools for apprentices, with 6,459 pupils. In other towns and counties there were 229 such schools, with 38,081 pupils. In Hungary proper the Magyar tongue is used in 7,938 elementary schools, various other languages in 4,801, and more than one language in 2,766. In 1886, the children attending school made 80-41 per cent. of the total number between the ages of six and twelve.

Agriculture. According to an official report made in 1888, the Crown lands constitute 4.7 per cent. of the soil of Hungary, 26.9 per cent.

Federation. In the Australian Federal Council that assembled in Melbourne in February, 1890, all the colonies were represented, with the exception of Fiji. After a discussion that extended over several days, an address to the Queen was adopted, on the motion of one of the representatives of New Zealand, Sir John Hall, declaring that in the opinion of the conference the best interests and the present and future prosperity of the Australian colonies will be promoted by an early union under the Crown, with a single legislative and executive government, on principles just to the several colonies. A resolution to the same effect had been offered in the conference by Sir Henry Parkes. A national Australian convention was proposed, to which delegations of not more than seven members from each of the self-governing colonies and of not more than four members from each of the Crown colonies shall be sent. The conference was called at the suggestion of Sir Henry Parkes, the Premier of New South Wales, who had become the most earnest advocate of federation, although his colony had stood aloof from the Federal Council, the deliberative body that was constituted in 1883 with a view to concerted action for certain limited purposes. Nor would his Government now recognize the Council as a medium for the discussion of the details of the contemplated union. Mr. Gillies, of Victoria, and the other colonial premiers therefore proposed, and Sir Henry Parkes accepted, a compromise whereby the members of the Council in their private capacities met at Melbourne representatives sent by the Government of New South Wales. Duncan Gillies presided over the meetings, which began on Feb. 6 and closed on Feb. 13. The convention, which is to work out the details of the federal constitution, is to be held in the early part of 1891. Sir Henry Parkes was in favor of a union modeled on that of the Dominion of Canada, with a Governor-General appointed by the Crown and upper and lower houses of Parliament. A. J. Clarke, from Tasmania, thought it would be better to follow the Constitution of the United States. Some members of the Conference considered union to be imperative only for purposes of military and naval defense, while the New Zealand delegates, though approving the project of a common navy, denied the benefit to their colony of a federal army. James Service, speaking in behalf of Victoria, declared national unity to be impossible without uniform tariffs. The difficulties in the way of an early agreement, springing from intercolonial jealousies that have no connection with the practical questions of fiscal rivalry and the many divergent interests, are exemplified by the course of New South Wales in refusing to take part in the original Federal Council and in the recent proposal of Sir Henry Parkes to appropriate to his own colony the name of Australia. Still, the conference and the coming convention give evidence of a national spirit that has already gained such strength in Australia that statesmen are preparing to give it form. In the course of the summer the colonial legislatures elected the delegates who are to act for the several colonies in the Federation Convention.

New South Wales.-The Governor is Lord Carrington. The Cabinet in January, 1890, con

sisted of the following members: Premier and Colonial Secretary, Sir Henry Parkes; Colonial Treasurer, William McMillan; Attorney-General, George Bowen Simpson; Secretary for Lands, James N. Brunker; Secretary for Public Works, Bruce Smith; Minister of Public Instruction, Joseph H. Carruthers; Minister of Justice, Albert J. Gould; Postmaster-General, Daniel O'Connor; Secretary for Mines, Sydney Smith; Vice-President of the Council, William H. Suttor.

The session that opened in the beginning of December, 1889, was short, confined principally to the passing of the estimates. The revenue returns indicated the beginning of returning prosperity. The year ended with a surplus of £70,000 in the treasury. The exports of wool had amounted to £3,000,000 more than was expected, the lambing season had proved one of the best ever known, and the wheat harvest was larger than ever before, being sufficient to supply three fourths of the requirements of the colony. The Parliament met again in April. The Protectionist minority expected to defeat the Government on the question of direct taxation. Mr. McMillan, the Colonial Treasurer, was challenged to propose the removal of the remaining duties that were inconsistent with the principles of free trade, which would necessitate the raising of £500,000 a year by direct taxation. The Government did not shrink from proposing a reform of the tariff in this sense. Other parts of their programme embraced the fixing of rents and license fees for Crown lands; district selfgovernment; regulation of coal mines; protection for women and children in factories; amendment of the licensing law by the adoption of the principle of local option; extension of railroads and public works; improving the water supply in town and country; an amendment of the law relating to public health; water conservation and irrigation; uniform penny postage; amendments of the mining and criminal laws; drainage of low-lying lands; and the amendment of the electoral law by granting the franchise to both sexes, and limiting the suffrage to a single vote for each elector, instead of allowing a holder of real property to vote in each or any district where he has property. The revenue for the year ending June 30, 1890, amounted to £9,100,000, an increase of £214,000 over the receipts of the preceding year.

The recovery from depression in New South Wales and other Australian colonies was accompanied by a series of labor conflicts. Every trade has its union, and through the Trades and Labor Council of New South Wales and analogous central bodies in the other colonies the unions act together to aid each other in their strikes. The power and influence of the laborers is enhanced by the relations of a large number of them to the Government, which employs 6,000 men on the railroads and on the tramways of Sydney, who are organized in a union that is affiliated to the corresponding organizations in the other colonies. The Government is the owner likewise of many of the wharves in Sydney. In June dock laborers were forbidden by their union to load wool that had been shorn by non-union men, and in consequence the steamship was unable to proceed till the sheep-shearers had gained