Note (Back) — Chapter XXV

Among the diverse groups by which the Taaffe government was supported there was just one common interest, namely, the prevention of a return to power on the part of the German Liberals. Upon this preponderating consideration, and upon the otherwise divergent purposes of the Government groups, Taaffe built his system. Maintaining rigidly his determination to permit no radical alteration of the constitution, he none the less extended favors freely to the non-Germanic nationalities, and so contrived to prolong through nearly a decade and a half, by federalist support, an essentially centralist government. Government consisted largely, indeed, in perennial bargaining between the executive authorities on the one hand and the parliamentary groups on the other, and in the course of these bargainings it was ever the legislative chambers, not the Government, that lost ground. The bureaucracy increased its hold, the administrative organs waxed stronger, the power of the Emperor was magnified. The ministry became pre-eminently the ministry of the crown, and despite strictly observed constitutional forms the spirit of absolutism was largely rehabilitated.[679]