Military Conscription in the Meran District Court and Reflections on Army Expenditures

P. Meran, 8 Nov. The military conscription balloting in the municipalities of the local district court proceeded in complete order and calm. Only the peasants of Schenna initially gave the impression, in an impulse of their well-known recalcitrance, that they were waiting for a more urgent invitation; gradually, however, it became clear that they too did not wish to make an exception. The former general aversion to military service seems to be softening now that people have seen war and soldierly life with their own eyes, reducing the horrific aspects of old tales and legends to their proper proportion.

On the occasion of this recruitment, we cannot help but reflect upon our armed peace. Italy and Hungary have been subdued and have lost all possibility of rising again soon; foreign countries, far from troubling Austria, demand on the contrary nothing other than that their own calm not be disturbed, and thus we believed we had reached the point of our most ardent expectations: that the Emperor would trade his sword for an olive branch. In doing so, we did not go so far as to make the sanguine demand that such a state of affairs should immediately set in across the reconquered provinces as though nothing had happened, for a revolution does not conclude as abruptly as it breaks out; however, when the state of siege, instead of ceasing, spreads even to peaceful parts of the country, while entire armies are stationed in other calm Crown lands, when states of exception become the rule, and amid all this there is no prospect of an assembly of people's representatives being able to direct an inquiry to the government on such matters, material enough accumulates from such forceful measures to stir up all manner of grave concerns. Hitherto we maintained too great a trust in the ministry to suspect, like some other pessimists, an absolutist coup d'état behind these armaments, and we therefore pass over all fears voiced in that realm; yet all the more candidly do we wish to point to a matter that profoundly affects life under all circumstances: the financial question. For the present, we naturally have no exact knowledge of the figures of our immense military establishment; this information has not yet strayed down from the highest spheres into our depths; yet if one considers that it is comprised of those armies that fought two great wars victoriously and that, alongside the customary military replenishment, 60,000 Honvéds have newly joined, one certainly arrives at an exorbitant figure. What expenditure arises from such a mass of troops, which, if we are not mistaken, still draws its increased wartime pay, we can certainly suspect, even if we cannot measure it. We were therefore filled with rightful satisfaction when the well-informed Allgemeine Augsburger Zeitung reported that Minister Kraus had insisted with all emphasis on a comprehensive troop reduction, and we confess that the Viennese press brought us no joy when it informed us: 'the army cannot be reduced.' But where is this to lead us? Do the manifold needs of our state possess no legitimacy in the face of arms, and is it impracticable to bring a sensible balance to expenditures? How long have the most longed-for improvements of the state apparatus and the most necessary innovations of every kind waited in vain, for lack of money, for the golden moment that was to translate them from paper into reality, and how stepmotherly and scantily must that highly important institution, the school, allow itself to be treated, and despite all this the ministerial accounts present us with a monthly deficit of several millions! And how is this to be covered? Where the printing of banknotes and their forced currency have brought the state, we need hardly mention, and the appeal addressed by the Minister of Finance through the loan to the patriotism of taxpayers did indeed supply the momentary emergency need, yet failed to resolve the question for the near future. It is true that, despite conditions already so severely depressed, a notable increase in the land, building, and earnings tax system of the other provinces was also intended for us, while diligent care is simultaneously taken to discover new sources of income; but, indubitable as it is that Austria's rich lands will in future, under proper administration, be capable of yielding incomparably greater revenue than hitherto, these goldmines yet to be discovered are not yet opened, their canals not yet dug; indeed, on the contrary, significant construction costs and considerable time will still have to be spent before they can be brought to flow. But what is to happen in the meantime, what the interim is to subsist on, remains a dark mystery to us. Truly, our state treasury has grown phthisic enough through constant bloodletting that it would be high time to think in all seriousness of strengthening it; hence we hope, indeed we expect with confidence, that a saving, and a comprehensive one at that, will very soon be effected where expenditure has hitherto been boundless—that is, we expect the speediest reduction of the army.