also at too low a stage of culture to enable them to be given national independence.  Dr. Wekerle also laid stress on the danger, alike in Austria, of allowing any interference from without; the risk of any such proceeding would be very great, we should find ourselves on a downward grade by so doing, and we must hold firmly to the principle that no interference in the affairs of the Monarchy from without could be tolerated.  In summing up, however, Wekerle opposed the point of view of the Austrian Prime Minister.

“I then rose again to speak, and declared that I was perfectly aware of the eminent importance and perilous aspects of this step.  It was true that it would bring us on to a down-grade, but from all appearances, we had been in that position already for a long time, owing to the war, and could not say how far it might lead us.  I put the positive question to Dr. Wekerle, what was a responsible leader of our foreign policy to do when the Austrian Prime Minister and both the Ministers of Food unanimously declared that the Hungarian supplies would only suffice to help us over the next two months, after which time a collapse would be absolutely unavoidable, unless we could secure assistance from somewhere in the way of corn?  On being interrupted here by a dissentient observation from Dr. Wekerle, I told him that if he, Wekerle, could bring corn into Austria I should be the first to support his point of view, and that with pleasure, but so long as he stood by his categorical denial, and insisted on his inability to help us, we were in the position of a man on the third floor of a burning house who jumps out of the window to save himself.  A man in such a situation would not stop to think whether he risked breaking his legs or not; he would prefer the risk of death to the certainty of the same.  If the position really were as stated, that in a couple of months we should be altogether without food supplies, then we must take the consequences of such a position.  Dr. von Seidler here once more took up the discussion, and declared himself entirely in agreement with my remarks.

“During the further course of the debate, the probability of a definitive failure of the Austro-Polish solution in connection with the Ukrainian peace was discussed, and the question was raised as to what new constellation would arise out of such failure.  Sektionschef Dr. Gratz then took up this question.  Dr. Gratz pointed out that the Austro-Polish solution must fail even without acceptance of the Ukrainian demands, since the German postulates rendered solution impossible.  The Germans demanded, apart from quite enormous territorial reductions of Congress-Poland, the restriction of Polish industry, part possession of the Polish railways and State domains, as well as the imposition of part of the costs of war upon the Poles.  We could not attach ourselves to a Poland thus weakened, hardly, indeed, capable of living at all, and necessarily highly dissatisfied with its