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its throne and country by the House of Savoy, and that there was absolutely no reason why she should assist this family, so hostile to her own, to triumph over Austria in general and the Habsburgs in particular. But the people were far from possessing such insight and historical knowledge; they adhered obstinately to their fable of treachery, and, led on by the German nationalists and Social-Democrats, they coupled this with the Emperor's supposed betrayal of Germany. Of these two calumnies they concocted an accusation against their own royal house which was eventually to become a bomb for its destruction.

The wrath of the German nationalists against the Emperor was of longer standing and had its origin in the amnesty granted by him to the Slav leaders, which had evoked vehement expressions of anger from the Germans, who considered that this action had put a premium on high treason. This point of view was erroneous, for, in acting thus, the Emperor's intentions had been good and, in themselves, by no means unwise; by this means he had hoped to conciliate the disloyal Slavs and win them back to allegiance to Austria. The worst thing about it was the clumsy, hasty manner in which the act of mercy had been carried out. Before putting it into force it should have been ascertained whether the Slavs were prepared to be conciliated by these means, and it should not have been undertaken until sufficient guarantee of this result had been given. As, however, these precautions were not taken and the Slavs continued to maintain a hostile attitude, this act of grace proved a vain attempt and merely roused the resentment of the Germans.

In order to win back the Germans, whose behaviour appeared to cause the Emperor no uneasiness, Dr von Seidler, the Austrian Prime Minister and the Emperor's most influential counsellor, hit on the naïve and unlucky idea of declaring solemnly that, henceforward, Austria would follow the lead of Germany. This declaration did indeed call forth the tempestuous approval of the Germans, who had always been Austria's most shortsighted politicians; but it naturally destroyed the last remnants of loyalty among the Slavs. Subservience to Germany in a kingdom inhabited by 10 million Germans and about 18 million Slavs (reckoning those in Cisleithania

alone), Slavs, moreover, who were on the point of forsaking the country! A more unfortunate remedy could not well have been chosen. But the Emperor in his distress grasped at any and every means suggested by his counsellors; and, as he lacked experience and perhaps, like Franz Josef, did not possess the gift of judging men and making good use of them, he sought advice and support from inept and even frivolous persons, who led him to make one mistake after the other.

One such mistake was the unlucky Manifesto of Oct. 17, 1918, in which he announced to his people the reconstruction of Austria on a national basis. This was a most superficial piece of work which, apart from the fact that it came much too late, was rendered valueless because it only took into consideration the nations of Austria and not those of Hungary, who were to continue to suffer under the Magyar knout. This Manifesto had, therefore, only one result, in direct contradiction to the effect intended; and this was to cause the people of Austria to find in it a welcome summons to break asunder, a summons which they obeyed with alacrity.

All the unhappy young Emperor's efforts to maintain his crumbling Empire and tottering throne were in vain. In such hopeless conditions as these a continuation of the war was not to be thought of, and he was forced to plead with the Entente for peace. But this merely gave the Germans in Austria and Germany another opportunity to cry 'Treason' and to heap hatred and abuse on him and his house. Once more the crazy and revolting scene was enacted in which the very same starving people who were longing for peace showed their gratitude to the man who was endeavouring to procure it by branding him as Traitor.' There could, indeed, be no question of treachery on his part, for so early as the spring of 1917 he had informed Germany that he could not hold out after the autumn of that year. The fact that, in spite of this, he had continued to fight beside Germany for a whole year beyond that period, was sufficient evidence of his loyalty as an ally.

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Many a ruler has had to learn the lesson of the uncertainty of popular favour by personal experience-it is only necessary to recall the classic example of Louis XVI-but never has the change been brought about so

suddenly; no monarch has ever been hurled so suddenly as was the Emperor Karl from the summit of popularity to the depths of ostracism and execration; no one, perhaps, has experienced mankind's shameful lack of principle in so crude a form. Surrounded by servile, fawning courtiers as he was, he found himself, when the storm broke out, almost entirely deserted, and not one raised a hand to help him. In his need he recalled the days of rejoicing at Budapest at the time of his coronation and sought refuge with the Magyars, who had taken every opportunity of assuring him of their 'intense love' and 'humble loyalty.' There, in the midst of this devoted people, he hoped to find a refuge for himself and his family. But he had scarcely arrived before a retreat was forced upon him, which in truth was a flight, a flight from the fate of Tisza. He remained for a short time in Austria, not at Vienna or Schönbrunn, but at a lonely castle called Eckartsau, cut off from all intercourse. When he left Schönbrunn for the last time the sentries did not even salute him! But neither was he to remain at Eckartsau; even there his life was in danger. Under British protection, and pursued by the vilest accusations, he left Austria, which was engulfed behind him in the seething, crimson morass of anarchy.

THEODORE VON SOSNOSKY.

Art. 5.-THE AGRARIAN MOVEMENT IN CANADA.

1. Deep Furrows. By Hopkins Moorhouse. Toronto and Winnipeg McLeod, 1918.

2. Wake up, Canada! Reflexions on Vital National Issues. By C. W. Peterson. Toronto: Macmillan, 1919.

3. Profitable Grain-growing. By Seager Wheeler. Winnipeg: Grain Growers' Guide, Ltd., 1919.

4. Farm and Ranch Review. Calgary.

5. Grain Growers' Guide. Winnipeg.

THE prosperity of Canada must always be a subject of vital interest to residents of Great Britain in several respects, firstly, because of the close ties between the Mother-Country and the Dominion, both in peace and in war; secondly, because of the importance of the Canadian farms as a source of food supply; thirdly, because of the wide-open field for emigration and development by personal exertion or capital investment, provided by the varied and to a large extent unexplored natural resources of British North America.

There is no good reason why the history of the agrarian movement in Canada should not be discussed in a purely English publication. England, indeed, is full of potential Canadian citizens. The man who has thought of emigrating, the man who might emigrate some day, the man who intends to emigrate soon-all these should know as much as possible about matters under discussion in the country of which they may become actual citizens. Moreover, since the whole movement represents an attempt by the newer citizens of Canada-by those who have settled and pioneered within the last thirty years-to drive from power the old Canadians of the eastern provinces (whose Canadian citizenship dates from thirty to three hundred years further back), and, since it has its root in economic conditions which official propaganda has always been careful to conceal, the struggle is bound to be the personal concern of the Canadians of to-morrow.

There was an old saying in British Columbia that 'a mine is a hole in the ground the owner whereof is a liar.' It is assuredly not in this sense that Mr Moorhouse's book 'Deep Furrows' is hereby recommended to

Dedicated

the curious reader as a mine of information. to the 'Men and Women of the Soil,' it tells of pioneer trails along which the farmers of Western Canada fought their way to great achievements in co-operation.' Mr Moorhouse has dug deep, and brought up masses of stuff that must be pronounced genuine. Making full use of printed records, the author has supplemented this scanty material by personal contact and familiar intercourse with the pioneers of the Grain Growers' Associations in the provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta. It is largely from their lips that he has learned the story of their pressing needs, their purposes, their early mistakes, their continual struggle, their final success. Concerning each, he has some vivid anecdote to tell; and every anecdote helps to form an atmosphere of raw beginnings and primitive conditions, of which people who have not lived and worked in them can have no conception.

I cannot resist giving a short sketch of the career of one old-timer, a man whose name deserves to be known in the land of his birth, a man who by patience and a dogged fortitude and contempt for immediate reward, through long years of penury, hardship, and a combination of almost incredibly adverse conditions, fought his way to victory at last, and in doing so conferred upon the land of his adoption benefits of a permanent and farreaching nature. This man is Seager Wheeler, of Rosthern, Saskatchewan, cereal-growing wizard, who has originated three or four new varieties of hardier, earliermaturing, heavier-yielding wheats, and has obtained yields of forty bushels per acre and more, on three inches of rainfall. Born of a sea-faring family in the Isle of Wight, news-boy for five years at a W. H. Smith & Son's book-stall, he joined an uncle in Saskatchewan about 1885. The uncle was not yet a millionaire, but he had a roof over his head. It was a sod roof; the rest of the house was made of logs.

'The first harvest at which he helped,' writes his biographer, was thirty acres of wheat. He and another man cut it with cradles and tied the sheaves by hand. The hay was cut with scythes, and raked with hand-rakes. Grain was sown broadcast and harrowed in with branches of trees. Wheat-birds, blackbirds, and later on gophers, went after

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