[Sidenote: Renewed conflict between Germans and Czechs.]
The Reichsrath was again summoned, and the meetings were less disturbed than in the former year, but the Germans still prevented any business from being done. The Germans now had a new cause of complaint. Paragraph 14 of the Constitutional law of 1867 provided that, in cases of pressing necessity, orders for which the assent of the Reichsrath was required might, if the Reichsrath were not in session, be proclaimed by the emperor; they had to be signed by the whole ministry, and if they were not laid before the Reichsrath within four months of its meeting, or if they did not receive the approval of both Houses, they ceased to be valid. The Germans contended that the application of this clause to the Ausgleich was invalid, and demanded that it should be repealed. Thun had in consequence to retire, in September 1899. His successor, Count Clary, began by withdrawing the ordinances which had been the cause of so much trouble, but it was now too late to restore peace. The Germans were not sufficiently strong and united to keep in power a minister who had brought them the relief for which they had been clamouring for two years. The Czechs, of course, went into opposition, and used obstruction. The extreme German party, however, took the occasion to demand that paragraph 14 should be repealed. Clary explained that this was impossible, but he gave a formal pledge that he would not use it. The Czechs, however, prevented him passing a law on excise which was a necessary part of the agreements with Hungary; it was, therefore, impossible for him to carry on the government without breaking his word; there was nothing left for him to do but to resign, after holding office for less than three months. The emperor then appointed a ministry of officials, who were not bound by his pledge, and used paragraph 14 for the necessary purposes of state. They then made way for a ministry under Herr v. Körber. During the early months of 1900 matters were more peaceful, and Körber hoped to be able to arrange a compromise; but the Czechs now demanded the restoration of their language in the internal service of Bohemia, and on 8th June, by noise and disturbance, obliged the president to suspend the sitting. The Reichsrath was immediately dissolved, the emperor having determined to make a final attempt to get together a parliament with which it would be possible to govern. The new elections on which so much was to depend did not take place till January 1901. They resulted in a great increase of the extreme German Nationalist parties. Schönerer and the German Radicals--the fanatical German party who in their new programme advocated union of German Austria with the German empire--now numbered twenty-one, who chiefly came from Bohemia. They were able for the first time to procure the election of one of their party in the Austrian Delegation, and threatened to introduce into the Assembly scenes of disorder similar to those which they had made common in the Reichsrath. All those parties which did not primarily appeal to national feeling suffered loss; especially was this the case with the two sections of the Clericals, the Christian Socialists and the Ultramontanes; and the increasing enmity between the German Nationalists (who refused even the name German to a Roman Catholic) and the Church became one of the most conspicuous features in the political situation. The loss of seats by the Socialists showed that even among the working men the national agitation was gaining ground; the diminished influence of the anti-Semites was the most encouraging sign.