Europe, with its workings and counter-workings between East and West, bore so strongly the stamp of uncertainty that all States were, for the sake of precaution, strengthening their powers of defence." Overtures were now made by Russia to detach Austria from the German alliance by representing to her that both Powers are interested in maintaining the position of France in Europe; but these suggestions did not meet with any response at the Austrian Court.

While Germany and Austria-Hungary were thus consolidating their alliance, an article in Prince Bismarck's organ, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, surprised Europe by making revelations whose object it was difficult to understand, unless it was to create an estrangement between the Cabinets of Vienna and Berlin. The purport of these revelations was that the occupation of Bosnia by Austria-Hungary formed part of a formal agreement with Russia which had been concluded long before the Turkish war. This article created great excitement in Hungary, and the Opposition stigmatised M. Tisza, the Premier, as a traitor to his country, because he either knew of the agreement with Russia-in which case he should at once have protested. against it—or the agreement was kept secret from him-in which case he should have resigned directly it came to his knowledge. An inquiry was made of M. Tisza on the subject in the Hungarian Parliament by M. Iranyi (May 22), upon which the Premier admitted that a treaty was concluded between Russia and Austria on Jan. 15, 1877, but denied that the occupation of Bosnia was in any way a consequence of that treaty. The treaty was broken by Russia in the San Stefano Convention, upon which Austria secured the co-operation of England, and compelled Russia to accept the decisions of the Berlin Congress, one of which was that Austria should be given a mandate to occupy Bosnia and the Herzegovina. Austria, therefore, owes those two provinces to the will of United Europe, and not to the arrangement she made with Russia in 1877. Moreover, that arrangement had been communicated to several friendly Powers, including Germany. The semi-official Pester Lloyd thus describes the provisions of the treaty in question:-"There are seven conditions laid down for Austria's neutrality, with three supplementary stipulations, the violation of any one of which would constitute a casus belli. They stipulate, in the first place, that no Christian Power shall assume the exclusive protectorate over the Christian population of the Balkan Peninsula; secondly, that whatever the issue of the war, the final settlement shall require the assent of all the European Powers; thirdly, that Russia is not to acquire any territory on the right bank of the Danube; fourthly, that Roumania shall not be made a dependency of Russia, still less be incorporated in the Russian Empire; fifthly, that no secundogeniture shall be established in the Balkan States; sixthly, that Constantinople shall not be occu

pied by Russia; and seventhly, that no large Slavonic State shall be established in the Peninsula, the utmost concession under the new order of things being the autonomy of the then existing Balkan States under native rulers. At a later date it was added that Russia shall not permanently establish herself in Bulgaria or anywhere on the right bank of the Danube; and lastly, that Russia shall not march troops into Servia even as a temporary measure. Under clause 5 Austria promised that she would likewise refrain from establishing a secundogeniture in the Balkan Peninsula."

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This somewhat lame explanation, was accepted by the House, and the revelations of Prince Bismarck's organ were soon forgotten in the incessant anxiety caused by the development of events in Bulgaria and the menacing attitude of Russia. Further steps were taken to cement the Austro-German alliance during Count Kalnoky's visit to Prince Bismarck at Friedrichsruhe (Sept. 15), and especially by the subsequent visit to the German Chancellor of the Italian Premier, Signor Crispi. of the first results of the latter event was a friendly agreement between the Austro-Hungarian and Italian Governments as to certain questions of frontier between the two States. The Commissioners who negotiated the agreement celebrated its conclusion by a banquet at Roveredo, in the Trentino, a province which only a few years ago the Italia Irredenta party was loudly claiming as the rightful property of Italy. But this strengthening of the Austro-German alliance only seemed to increase the arrogance of Russia, which again demanded that the Bulgarian question should be settled in accordance with Russian views. On this subject Count Kalnoky made some significant remarks at the sitting of the Foreign Committee of the Hungarian Delegation on November 5. He said that "all isolated intervention in the Bulgarian question was absolutely precluded; foreign interference had been averted hitherto, and he hoped for ever." Prince Ferdinand of Coburg had, he added, gone to Sofia not as the candidate of any Power, but as the Bulgarian candidate. The Berlin Treaty guaranteed to Bulgaria a free right to choose a prince, and that was a right which Austria-Hungary had always recognised without question, but the selection required the assent of the Porte and the acquiescence of all the Powers. AustriaHungary had recognised the Bulgarian Government as existent de facto, but could not at present recognise Prince Ferdinand as the lawful ruler of the country nor hold official intercourse with him. The Imperial Government lent its support to everything which was calculated to advance the interests and welfare of the Balkan peoples, and was loyally striving to make the other Powers their friends also. The Bulgarian question was not the sole ground of the prevalent uncertainty. He (Count Kalnoky) believed that Austria-Hungary and Germany had, by the peaceful policy which they had pursued for years past, carried on a

propaganda full of blessing to the world; and the adhesion of Italy, as well as the identity of England's aims, which permitted of the hope of support for their peaceful policy in the East from that quarter also, should be considered as the most gratifying factors in the present situation. The Count added that he did not abandon the hope that Russia would be induced to join the other Powers in their efforts to maintain peace.

This speech produced great irritation in Russia. The semiofficial Journal de St. Pétersbourg pointed out that "Count Kalnoky's opinion that Prince Ferdinand's position only requires confirmation by the Powers differs essentially from that of the Russian Government, which has never recognised the legality of the election by the Sobranje, as that assembly is itself the result of violence and illegality;" and it remarked that the Austrian Minister's endeavour to win Russia to the cause of peace "could be better addressed elsewhere, since Russia neither threatens the peace of Europe nor the independence of the Balkan nationalities."

The year ended with a series of military councils at Vienna, in which the Emperor, the Archduke Albert, Commander-inChief, the Minister for War, and other distinguished officers of rank took part. The object of these councils was to take steps, in view of the advance of the Russian troops towards the Galician frontier, to protect Galicia against a sudden attack, without making any such demonstrative preparations as might be construed into a provocation. The exposed position of Galicia, with an expanse of plain and easily fordable rivers on the side of Russia, and the Carpathian range dividing it from the remainder of the Austrian Empire, would have rendered these precautions desirable even if Russia had not had an overwhelming force within a short march of the frontier, ready to cross it at a few days' notice.

An important change in the Russian Ministry was made on the Russian new year. M. Vischnegradzky, a railway contractor, who had acquired a great reputation for business capacity, was appointed Minister of Finance in the place of M. Bunge, who was at the same time raised to the post of President of the Ministerial Council, an office of great dignity, but in Russia of less power than the nominally subordinate position of Minister. The new appointment produced great satisfaction in business circles at St. Petersburg, as it was hoped that the talents which had enabled M. Vischnegradzky to make a large fortune (said to amount to 20,000,000 roubles) in business would be successful in

retrieving the shattered finances of the empire. He was a protégé of M. Katkoff, the all-powerful editor of the Moscow Gazette, and was believed to be an advocate of radical financial measures, such as the introduction of Government monopolies of tobacco and brandy, and the acquisition of all the railways by the State. It has also been stated that he was of opinion that in the event of a war Russia should stop the payment of interest to her foreign creditors, which naturally made his appointment less popular among business men abroad than at home. But even in Russia itself his popularity gradually waned. Since his accession to office the paper rouble fell eight per cent., and the deficit increased until the finances of the empire were thrown into the greatest disorder. Scarcely a month passed without the announcement of some new increase of taxation, and the peasants had to pay nearly three times as much in taxes relatively to income as the landowners. The roads were neglected in order to provide for military communications, so much so that in some districts it became almost impossible to convey the corn for purposes of exportation. A tax was imposed on those who were physically incapable of military service, and various prohibitive imposts were levied which strangled native staple industries and harassed foreign commerce, forcing several foreign houses in Southern Russia to close their contracts and remove their offices to Vienna, Berlin, or Paris.

During the early part of the year the Nihilists were again very active. On March 13, the anniversary of the assassination of Alexander II., the Emperor and the Court attended the usual commemoration service in the Cathedral of St. Peter and St. Paul, where are the graves of all the Czars since Peter the Great. After the service the Emperor and his eldest son were about to start in a sledge through the Nevsky Prospect on their way to Gatchina, when the police arrested six young men near the spot through which he was to pass, and took them off to the police headquarters. Three of the young men carried bombs, made to look like books. The largest of these bombs contained five pounds of dynamite and 251 small leaden cubes filled with strychnine, the slightest injury from any one of which would have caused immediate death. Shortly after the Czar received a letter from the Revolutionary Committee informing him that it had decreed his death, and that fifty persons had been entrusted with the execution of the sentence. The usual wholesale arrests and domiciliary visits followed, and another Nihilist meeting-place, with a printing press and appliances for the manufacture of infernal machines, was discovered in a street at St. Petersburg. The so-called "Russian Constitutional party," in a manifesto issued on March 19 at Vienna, repudiated any connection with the attempt on the Czar's life, but vehemently attacked the Russian Government, especially on account of its having "humiliated itself before Bismarck," and demanded the

summoning of a consultative chamber, the freedom of the press, and an amnesty to political prisoners. A further manifesto, purporting to proceed from the "Russian Free Confederation,' set forth a programme of constitutional liberties for the country, including a provision that the head of the State should be either an hereditary Emperor, subject to the control of Parliament, or "a freely-elected temporary President."

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A further attempt was stated to have been made on the life of the Czar on March 29, but no details of it transpired. The trial of those concerned in the previous conspiracy began on April 27 with closed doors, and continued till May 10. number of the accused was fourteen, including some students, several noblemen, a peasant, and two women. According to the Crown prosecutor, these persons had formed a conspiracy to kill the Czar in the previous autumn. Schevyreff, the son of a merchant, was the leader of the conspiracy, and he and four others were sentenced to be hanged, while the remainder were condemned to various terms of imprisonment. Another trial of twenty-one Nihilists took place on June 7 and 16, and on this occasion none of the death sentences were confirmed; and on November 3 eighteen officers were sentenced to various degrees of punishment for having taken part in the Nihilist propaganda.

These Nihilist trials had the usual result of increasing the stringency of the measures taken to prevent the spread of liberal ideas. The Woman's Higher Educational Institute" at St. Petersburg was closed, and Professors Dityatin and Kowalewski, of the Universities of Kharkoff and Moscow respectively, were dismissed on a charge of liberal tendencies. Both of these professors (the latter was Professor of International Law) are among the most distinguished and respected savants of Russia; they had not in any way broken the law, and their dismissal produced a very painful impression.

But the most remarkable consequence of the revival of Nihilism was the issue of decrees forbidding certain classes of the people to be educated. On learning that several of the persons who were implicated in the attempt of March 13 were professors and students who did not belong to the class of nobles, the Czar wrote on the report with his own hand the words," Perekraschtchay obrasowanye "-education to be abolished. In consequence of this decision the Minister of Public Instruction issued a decree on June 18 (30), under which "the children of dependents," including servants of all kinds, are to be forbidden admission to the middle and high schools. As the term "dependents" is very elastic, it was variously interpreted at the pleasure of each official, and the decree practically gave him the power of excluding from the schools nearly all the children in his district. The result was to withdraw from the lower classes all opportunity of improving their position, and thereby immensely to increase those dis

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