“It would be well one day to give statistical details of the share which fell to the assistants in this great work of oppression and revenge, and of the portion that still remains in the hands of the families of those who were then rewarded, and with these details--for the sake of comparison--a statement of the political views of the present holders of those confiscated estates. It would be a very singular picture to see people who have grown rich and powerful through the destruction of Bohemian autonomy now promoting its restoration. “That would in truth be a most extraordinary reaction. But one should be very cautious in crediting the sincerity of our large landowners who make common cause with the Czechs in opposing the Constitution, and in the aspirations and efforts that are ostensibly directed towards that end. Their reactionary aspirations do not extend so far back. They would be satisfied with a return to the conditions of the period immediately preceding 1849, to the Austria which flourished under Schwarzenberg and Bach. They and the Ultramontanes have allied themselves with the Czech Federalists in order to prepare for this reaction and to undermine and weaken the present political system of the Empire, reducing it to a state of permanent instability. Like their fathers, who once worked from Vienna against Prague, so do they now from Prague oppose the political and religious influence of the Austrian capital. “Our ultramontane Princes of the Church, who now join with the remainder of the reactionary mob in attacking the Constitution, were formerly by no means in favour of Federalism or autonomy. The same bishops who are to-day fanatical supporters of the Czech demands, declared at the time when the Concordat was under discussion that the variety of languages was one of the evil consequences of the building of the tower of Babel which should be abolished, and emphasised the necessity of a centralised State. Even now they are not irreconcilable opponents of centralisation, but what they desire is to see Rome made the centre for all affairs of importance. For them a centralised Austria, under its present constitution, is an abomination. But a centralised Austria held together by Ultramontanism and thoroughly permeated with it, with a Vienna Star Chamber policy, like that of Metternich, coercing, in co-operation with Rome and the old nobility, all the contending nationalities and utilising them for their own ends and those of the Pope, far from being repugnant to them, would be the realisation of their ideal. And the members of our landed aristocracy who have fallen into line with these ecclesiastical allies of the Czechs have exactly the same ideas on the subject.