Appendix No. 1.

The imperial message to the diet of Prague.

to the diet of our kingdom of bohemia!

When by our ordinance of the 30th July, 1870, we convoked the diets of our kingdoms and countries, we were thereto decided by the grave events of which Europe had become the theater, and the development and incalculable bearing of which had demanded all our attention. Thanks to the Divine protection, we have succeeded in preserving in the midst of those events the blessings of peace, and now we can in all security devote ourselves to the task of consolidating the interior peace of the empire. Our first desire is to regulate in a manner just and satisfactory to all, the relations of our kingdom of Bohemia with the rest of the monarchy, of which the revision was promised by our rescript of the 25th of August, 1870. Considering the constitutional position of the crown of Bohemia, the glory and the power which it has afforded to us and our predecessors, considering besides the unshaken fidelity with which the population of Bohemia have always sustained the throne, we recognized willingly the rights of the kingdom, and we are ready to renew their acknowledgment by the oath of our coronation. We can no longer exempt ourselves from the solemn obligations which we have contracted in regard to our other kingdoms and countries by our diploma of the 20th October, 1866, by the fundamental laws of the 26th February, 1861, and of the 21st December, 1867, in fine by the oath taken on the occasion of our coronation to our kingdom of Hungary. We, therefore, take cognizance with satisfaction of the disposition expressed in the respectful addresses of the diet of the kingdom of Bohemia (of the 4th September and the 5th October, 1870) to place the demands of the country in harmony with the power of the empire, and with the legitimate exigencies of the other kingdoms and countries. It is in this sense that we invite the diet to devote itself to the work. We invite it to discuss in a spirit of moderation and of conciliation the manner in which it is advisable to regulate our kingdom of Bohemia, and to furnish us with a possibility of terminating, without violating the rights of our other kingdoms and countries, a constitutional conflict, the prolongation of which would gravely menace the interests of the faithful populations of our empire.

In charging our government to submit to the diet the new electoral system and a law for the protection of the two nationalities, we send to the diet our imperial and royal salutations.

FRANCIS JOSEPH.