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Show WASHINGTON IS NOT SURPRISED OVER THE NEWS WASHINGTON, May 4. Press dispatches dis-patches from Amsterdam, saying that Emperor Charles was about to prorogue the Austrian parliament, were read with deep interest today by officials here, who had expected some such drastic dras-tic action since the news leaked out from Vienna of the stormy sessions of the reichrath and of the open defiance of the government by the elements ill opposition. oppo-sition. The debates connected with the Brest-Litovsk Brest-Litovsk peace treaty were particularly acrimonious, and it appeared that the government practically had lost its majority when the Polish delegates, desperately des-perately resisting tho secession of part of their provinces in Ukrainia, joined with the Czechs and Bohemians, who had long persistently opposed the government gov-ernment because of the refusal to grant them national unity. The difficulties in the way of securing sufficient food for the population, the only cause given in the Amsterdam dispatch dis-patch for the suspension of the reichrath, reich-rath, have created a critical situation throughout Austria-Hungary, according to advices received here. In the early spring, General Hoeffer, the Austrian food controller, declared that 600,000,-000 600,000,-000 pounds of foodstuffs would have to be obtained somewhere to last until the next harvest. The normal harvest of wheat in the dual monarchy has been reduced from 13,000,000,000 to 8,000,-000,0.00 8,000,-000,0.00 pounds through shortage of fertilizers fer-tilizers and the willful action of the Czech peasants, who refused to sow and harvest grain. Famine during the winter was said to have been prevented only by the acy cession of 50,000 carloads of grain from Rumania, but even this was insufficient, insuffi-cient, as was evidenced by food riots in Prague, Pilsen, Brun and Vienna. In some of the prison camps of Austria the death rate from starvation was reported re-ported to have reached forty a day. The separate peace with the Ukraine failed to relieve the situation on account ac-count of the difficulties of transportation transporta-tion and the fact that some of the ae- tive divisions of the Czech-Slovak j troops took along everything they could lay hands on in the course of their retreat. re-treat. The opinion here, however, is that the food situation alone could not justify jus-tify the government in dissolving parliament. par-liament. Czech papers predicted a month ago that the Viennese government govern-ment contemplated a dissolution of the parliament and a return to the abso-lutest abso-lutest era which prevailed during the first three years of the war. Ever since the convocation of the reichrath a year ago the Slav deputies have shown decided opposition to the government's policies, hampering it in increasing the army and raising loans. United action, however, was lacking and the government was able to retain a majority in parliament. Information reaching here now, however, how-ever, is that the Czech, Jugoslavo and Polish deputies have formed a compact bloc to oppose the policies of the Germanic Ger-manic Austrians. The adhesion of the three elements into a cohesive group would give them a majority and fear of this is believed to be the real reason rea-son whv Emperor Charles has ordered parliament dissolved. |