Neue Freie Presse
- Paneuropa and the Economy
- A Greeting to Richard N. Coudenhove-Kalergi
- Central European Transport Conference
This Vienna edition gave generous space to the idea of European economic unity. In a signed column, Siegfried Strakosch argued that Paneuropa had to begin with economic cooperation among its peoples, but warned that abolishing tariffs would ruin industries artificially protected in the wrong places and threaten jobs, even under the gradual reduction suggested by the Austrian envoy Riedl. He noted a reported Yugoslav plan for a Balkan customs union, judged it easier in less industrialized states, and proposed instead bringing governments and industries to the negotiating table, as the new iron pact had done. A glowing portrait hailed Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi as a pure and creative leader, grounding his standing in his father, a Habsburg diplomat in Tokyo who wrote a philosemitic book on antisemitism and married a Japanese woman. A notice listed expert contributions, including pieces by Elemér Hantos, Georg Gothein and Gustav Gratz, for a Central European Transport Conference in Vienna from 2 to 5 October.
Translation
Paneuropa and the Economy
By Dr. h. c. Siegfried Strakosch.
…states; not only once the territory of states has been united and become Paneuropa, but already the economic cooperation of those peoples whose union into Paneuropa is still our dream and our expectation. Even such a modest beginning toward Paneuropa cannot simply be forced into being. It is not to be expected that the industrialists, the tradespeople and the commerce of the various states will unconditionally find their way to international cooperation. Economic competitors are just as little inclined as the nations and their politicians to fall into one another's arms in emotion, so long as the advantages and disadvantages have not been clearly weighed and laid open. The abolition of tariffs: who would want to push it through today, who would undertake to make the immediate consequences of abolishing tariffs bearable for the states? How many an industry, artificially secured in the wrong place by high tariffs, would have to go under; how many a job would be endangered even further! Endangered even if the tariffs were slowly dismantled in that cautiously tentative way which the Austrian envoy Riedl has suggested. According to newspaper reports, the Yugoslav government intends, on the proposal of the Minister of Commerce Dr. Krajac, to come forward with the plan of a customs union of the Balkan states. Given the relatively low industrialization of these states, this might perhaps be easier to carry out. How difficult, by contrast, in the rest of Europe! But if it does not work this way, then perhaps in another way that meets with fewer objections. What if one tried to bring the states and their industries and trades to the negotiating table? If one now tried for once, just as the iron pact has now been brought ab-
A Greeting to Richard N. Coudenhove-Kalergi
A Greeting to Richard N. Coudenhove-Kalergi. Portrait of a phenomenon.
That this man exists is a consolation and a splendid encouragement. That, amid decay, the bankruptcy of ideas, casualness, weakness of resolve and empty phrases, there is a man who is in every way the opposite of all this: positive, creative, matter-of-fact, persistent, exact, that is a consolation; that in the onrushing flood of filth made of party spirit, laxity and anti-morality there is a man who is in every way the negation of all this: pure down to the secret of thought, a partisan of redemption, that is splendidly encouraging. Much light radiates from this man. He leaves a trail; it gleams, it is seductive. Astonishing that this is a leader, and how he became one. Astonishing how here a will has blasted apart the lethargy and skepticism of the world.
Who that was, Richard Coudenhove-Kalergi, very few people knew even five years ago. A few people knew the name because someone of that name had once written a book: "Antisemitism." The author of this book was a count, an imperial and royal legation secretary and chargé d'affaires in Tokyo: so, naturally, a book in favor of antisemitism? Embarrassing surprise! The imperial and royal diplomat had written a thoroughly philosemitic book. Heedless of all resistance, a manly, a free voice spoke here, unwilling to become less decided when decided interest counseled it, or to fall silent when silent consensus recommended it. The man who spoke here was Richard Coudenhove's father, someone who put his convictions above his office. He had no use for convention in other matters either: he married a Japanese woman. She became Richard Coudenhove's mother. Two ancient cultures touch, intermingle. The fanatical, probing, penetrating Japanese insistence that reaches its goal joins with the aristocracy of an inwardly noble…, with the artistry of the… grow- in Austria
Central European Transport Conference
Central European Transport Conference. Vienna, 2 to 5 October. Contributions by eminent experts.
"Possibilities of Central European Economic Cooperation." By Dr. Richard Reisch.
"A Greeting to the Central European Transport Conference." By Dr. Hans Schürff.
"Regional Agreements toward a European Economic Community." By Dr. B. Schuster (Prague).
"On the Central European Transport Conference." By State Secretary Dr. Elemer Hantos.
"The Central European Transport Conference as a Pioneer of Rationalization." By Dr.-Ing. Georg Gothein.
"International Freedom of Transport for Central Europe." By F. J. Shaw.
"Yugoslavia and the Transport Conference." By S. D. Alexander.
"Economic Cooperation." By Dr. Gustav Gratz.
"The Idea of Internationalization in the Field of Railways." By Dr. Ottokar Lankas.
Context
The iron pact Strakosch held up as a model
Strakosch ends his argument by pointing to an "iron pact" that had just come about as a model for bringing industries to the negotiating table instead of abolishing tariffs outright. The agreement he most likely meant was the international crude-steel community, which the steel industries of France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Saar and Germany founded on 30 September 1926, just two days before this issue appeared. It was a producers' cartel, not a free-trade arrangement, and that fits the column's logic: cooperation negotiated among competitors, with production shares weighed in advance, looked more attainable to Strakosch than exposing protected industries and jobs to open competition. Austria was not yet a member when he wrote. The Austrian steel industry, along with those of Hungary and Czechoslovakia, joined only on 1 January 1927, so for Viennese readers the pact was still a foreign example that might later be imitated.
Where the Paneuropa movement stood in 1926
Strakosch speaks of Paneuropa as "still our dream and our expectation" and looks for a "modest beginning" in economic cooperation. The portrait, for its part, presents Coudenhove-Kalergi as a leader whose will had broken through the world's lethargy, a man whom few had heard of five years earlier. The movement was only a few years old. Coudenhove-Kalergi's book Pan-Europa had come out in 1923 with a membership form for the movement, and in 1926 the Pan-European Union held its first congress in Vienna, where some 2,000 delegates elected him president of its Central Council. This helps explain the page's mix of admiration and caution. The tribute celebrates a founder at a moment of rising public recognition, while Strakosch, writing about the economy, warns that neither industrialists nor nations would give up tariff protection out of enthusiasm alone, and looks instead for a way that meets with fewer objections.
The father's book on antisemitism and the Japanese marriage
The portrait builds Coudenhove-Kalergi's moral authority on his parentage, above all on his father Heinrich, a Habsburg diplomat who, the writer says, surprised readers with a "thoroughly philosemitic" book on antisemitism and defied convention by marrying a Japanese woman. The basic facts hold up. Heinrich served Austria-Hungary in Japan (biographical summaries describe his post as deputy minister rather than using the portrait's titles of legation secretary and chargé d'affaires), and Richard's mother was Mitsuko Aoyama. Heinrich had expected his treatise Das Wesen des Antisemitismus to confirm his own hostility toward Jews, but by the time it appeared in 1901 he had reached a different conclusion. His argument, however, was more mixed than the word "philosemitic" suggests: despite rejecting crude racial theory, he still accepted that Jews were racially distinct. The portrait uses the father as a symbol of conviction set above office, and presents Richard as the product of that independence and of the meeting of two ancient cultures.
Elemér Hantos and the Central European conference agenda
The conference notice gives a list of titles rather than an argument, but the names show what the Vienna meeting was meant to achieve. Elemér Hantos, listed as a state secretary (he had become political state secretary in Hungary's Ministry of Commerce in 1917), co-founded the Central European economic conferences with Julius Meinl in 1925. He hoped closer cooperation in inland shipping, the postal service and rail transport would restore the economic division of labor among the Danube states, which the breakup of the monarchy's common economic area after 1918 had disrupted. This explains why the notice's themes run from freedom of transport and the internationalization of railways to "rationalization" and regional agreements toward a European economic community. Hantos's approach also sheds light on Strakosch's caution on the same page: he was no advocate of unrestricted free trade and wanted a gradual rapprochement and mutual economic opening among the Danube states. In this view, transport links and technical coordination were a less contentious route to integration than an immediate tariff union.
Original
Paneuropa und die Wirtschaft.
Staaten; nicht erst des geeinten, zu Paneuropa gewordenen Staatengebietes, sondern die wirtschaftliche Kooperation jener Völker, deren Zusammenschluß zu Paneuropa noch unseren Traum und unsere Erwartung bildet. Auch ein solcher bescheidener Anfang zu Paneuropa läßt sich nicht einfach herbeizwingen. Es ist nicht zu erwarten, daß die Industriellen, die Gewerbetreibenden und der Handel der verschiedenen Staaten sich bedingungslos zu internationaler Zusammenarbeit finden werden. Wirtschaftliche Konkurrenten sind ebenso wenig geneigt wie die Nationen und ihre Politiker, einander gerührt in die Arme zu fallen, so lange die Vor - und Nachteile nicht klar abgewogen zutage liegen. Die Aufhebung der Zölle, wer wollte sie heute durchsetzen, wer es unternehmen, die nächsten Folgen der Zollaufhebung für die Staaten erträglich zu machen? Wie manche Industrie, künstlich auf unrechtem Platz durch hohe Zölle gesichert, müßte nicht daran glauben, wie manche Arbeitsgelegenheit nicht noch mehr gefährdet sein! Selbst dann gefährdet, wenn die Zölle in jener vorsichtig tastenden Art langsam abgebaut würden, die der österreichische Gesandte Riedl angeregt hat. Die jugoslawische Regierung beabsichtigt nach Zeitungsmeldungen, auf Vorschlag des Handelsministers Dr. Krajac mit dem Plane einer Zollunion der Balkanstaaten hervorzutreten. Bei der relativ geringen Industrialisierung dieser Staaten wäre dies vielleicht eher durchzuführen. Wie schwer dagegen im übrigen Europa! Geht es aber nicht auf diese Weise, so vielleicht auf eine andere, weniger Bedenken begegnende Art. Wie wäre es, wenn man versuchte, die Staaten und ihre Industrien und Gewerbe an den Verhandlungstisch zu bringen? Wenn man jetzt einmal versuchte, so wie nun der Eisenpakt zustande ge -
Gruß an Richard N. Coudenhove-Kalergi.
Gruß an Richard N. Coudenhove-Kalergi. Porträt eines Phänomens. Daß es diesen Menschen gibt, ist ein Trost und eine herrliche Ermutigung. Daß es, inmitten von Zersetzung, Ideenbankrott, Beiläufigkeit, Entschlußschwäche und Phrase einen Menschen gibt, durchaus all dessen Gegenteil: positiv, schöpferisch, sachlich, beharrlich, exakt, das ist ein Trost; daß es in der heranbrausenden Schmutzflut von Parteispirit, Laxheit und Antimoral einen Menschen gibt, durchaus all dessen Verneinung: rein bis ins Geheimnis des Gedankens, Parteigänger der Erlösung, das ist herrlich ermutigend. Viel Licht strahlt von diesem Menschen aus. Er hinterläßt eine Spur, sie glänzt, sie ist verführerisch. Unerhört, daß dies ein Führer ist, und wie er es wurde. Unerhört, wie hier ein Wille die Lethargie und Skepsis der Welt gesprengt hat. Wer das war, Richard CoudenhoveKalergi, das haben noch vor fünf Jahren die wenigsten gewußt. Ein paar Leute kannten den Namen, weil einer, der so hieß, seinerzeit ein Buch geschrieben hatte: " Antisemitismus. " Der Verfasser dieses Buches war Graf, k. u. k. Legationssekretär und Geschäftsträger in Tokio: also selbstverständlich ein Buch für den Antisemitismus? Peinliche Ueberraschung! Der kaiserliche und königliche Diplomat hatte ein durchaus philosemitisches Buch geschrieben. Jeden Widerstands ungeachtet, sprach hier eine mannhafte, eine freie Stimme, nicht gewillt, unentschiedener zu werden, wenn das entschiedene Interesse und zu schweigen, wenn es die schweigende Uebereinkunft empfahl. Der hier sprach, war Richard Coudenhoves Vater, jemand, dem die Meinung über das Amt ging. Er hatte auch sonst für Konvention nichts übrig: er heiratete eine Japanerin. Sie wurde Richard Coudenhoves Mutter. Zwei uralte Kulturen berühren sich, vermischen sich. Die fanatische, schürfende, eindringende, ans Ziel kommende japanische Insistenz geht mit der Aristokratie eines innerst adeligen, mit dem Artistischen des in Oesterreich heran -
Mitteleuropäische Verkehrstagung.
Mitteleuropäische Verkehrstagung. Wien, 2. bis 5. Oktober. Mitteilungen hervorragender Fachmänner. " Möglichkeiten mitteleuropäischer wirtschaftlicher Kooperation. " Von Dr. Richard Reisch. " Ein Gruß an die Mitteleuropäische Verkehrstagung. " Von Dr. Hans Schürff. " Regionalabkommen zur europäischen Wirtschaftsgemeinschaft. " Von Dr. B. Schuster (Prag). " Zur mitteleuropäischen Verkehrskonferenz. " Von Staatssekretär Dr. Elemer Hantos. " Die Mitteleuropäische Verkehrstagung als Bahnbrecher für die Rationalisierung. " Von Dr. - Ing. Georg Gothein. " Internationale Verkehrsfreiheit für Mitteleuropa. " Von F. J. Shaw. " Jugoslawien und die Verkehrstagung. " Von S. D. Alexander. " Wirtschaftliche Zusammenarbeit. " Von Dr. Gustav Gratz. " Der Internationalisierungsgedanke auf dem Gebiete des Eisenbahnwesens. " Von Dr. Ottokar Lankas.