So far, then, the German national movement had, on the whole, been guided wisely and moderately; but when the discussions began about the basis of the election of the future Assembly there quickly appeared that German national arrogance which was destined to inflame to so intolerable an extent the antagonism of feeling between the rival races in Bohemia. It was, indeed, unavoidable that the German movement in Austria should be met by some expression of friendliness and some attempt at common action on the part of the Frankfort Parliament; but the desire to welcome all Germans into the bosom of the newly-united Germany became at once complicated with the question of the best way of dealing with those districts where Slavs and Germans were so closely mixed together. This question, indeed, would in all probability have been summarily answered by the German Parliament in favour of absolute German supremacy and of the absorption of Bohemia in Germany; but the Slavonic question in the South could not be considered apart from that other phase of it, which was concerned with the mutual relation between Poles and Germans in the Polish districts of the Kingdom of Prussia. Even the most extreme champions of German supremacy were influenced in their decision of this _North_ Slavonic question by their desire to restore an independent Poland as a bulwark against Russian oppression; and they could not deny that the claims of the Poles to the possession of Posen, at any rate, were as justifiable morally and historically as their claims to that part of their country which had been absorbed by Russia. They were desirous, therefore, of making concessions to Slavonic feeling in Posen; and this desire was increased by the connection which Mieroslawsky had established between the struggle for Polish freedom in Posen and that for German freedom in other parts of Prussia. Under these circumstances they could not wholly disregard in Bohemia the feeling which they humoured in Posen; and thus it came to pass that the Preparatory Parliament, unwilling either to abandon German supremacy or to violate directly the principle of unity and autonomy of race, came to the conclusion so common to men under similar difficulties, to throw the burden of the decision on others. They therefore passed a vague resolution which might be differently interpreted by different readers, while they left the practical decision of the question to the Committee of Fifty which was to govern Germany from the dissolution of the Preparatory Parliament on April 4 till the meeting of the Constituent Assembly on May 8.