Sonderband 3. „wir aber aus unsern vorhero sehr erschöpfften camergeföllen nicht hernemben khönnen…” – Beiträge zur österreichischen Wirtschafts- und Finanzgeschichte vom 17. bis zum 20. Jahrhundert (1997)
Ronald E. Coons - Carey Goodman: An Audacious Proposal. A Memorandum Attributed to Finance Minister Karl Ludwig Freiherr von Bruck
An Audacious Proposal: A Memorandum Attributed to Karl Ludwig von Bruck bleiben und sohin die ganze für die Zukunft erweiterte Gemeinde-Gestion, dann alle Zwischenkorrespondenzen, welche zwischen den wegfallenden politischen Behörden gepflogen wurden, sowie die ganze Geschäftsführung, welche in den aufzuhebenden Kreisbehörden den Abschluß fand, würde ein reines Erspamiß für das künftige Staatsbudget bilden45. Only in this manner, the Finance Ministry indicated, could it hope to achieve significant reductions in the domestic budget which could heal the monarchy’s fiscal wounds. Although the sequel would show that Brack's initiative of October 1859 failed to achieve positive results, when read in conjunction with his 1855 manuscript his ministry’s memorandum is noteworthy because it suggests that his opposition to centralization was less radical than his eldest son believed it to be. Of Brack’s desire to decentralize certain governmental functions and to transfer the burden of paying for them to local populations there can be no doubt. Nevertheless, it is significant that neither in the memorandum of 1855 nor in that of 1859 did Brack or his ministry in any way indicate that they supported true federalism as a possible means of reducing governmental costs. In 1855 Brack was admittedly willing to make symbolic concessions to the monarchy’s historical units by allowing for the establishment of separate Hofkanzleien in Vienna. As has already been suggested, however, his insistence upon maintaining the principle of monarchical sovereignty excluded the possibility of creating representative provincial institutions whose members might seek to compete with the Emperor and his ministers for political power. Furthermore, neither in 1855 nor in 1859 did Brack or his ministry question the central government’s authority to formulate policies in matters affecting the entire monarchy or to establish guidelines for their local implementation. What they energetically attacked was not the existence of a strong central government in Vienna but the large bureaucratic structures that existed at the regional level, whose number and areas of competence they wished to diminish in favor of communal agencies funded through local taxation. For good reason, therefore, following the Laxenburg Manifesto Brack proved an opponent rather than an ally of the Minister of Education and Cults, Leo Graf Thun-Hohenstein, who actively promoted a program of overt political decentralization that would have weakened the crown to the benefit of the feudal aristocracy46. Opposed though Brack may have been to the Bach system, he can hardly have desired to emasculate or dismantle the central 45 As the memorandum further explained „Die den Bezirkshauptmannschaften vorzubehaltenden Geschäfte würden von einem bestimmten Zeitpunkte an an jene Bezirksämter übergehen, welche als künftige Bezirkshauptmannschaften zu bezeichnen sind; und die übrigen Bezirksämter hätten sich allmählig in Organe eines neu entstehenden Gemeindeverbandes zu verwandeln. Solche Haupt- oder Bezirksgemeinden sind für alle größeren Gemeinde-Angelegenheiten und für den übertragenen Wirkungskreis, sohin für Con- currenzsachen zum Schul=Kirchen=Armen=Sanitäts= und Baubudget der Gemeinden, dann für Schub= Vorspann=Bequartirung, Rekrutirung und sonstige Militär=Prästationsangelegenheiten ein unausweichliches Bedürfniß, dessen Regelung eben so sehr zur moralischen Kräftigung der Gemeinden als zur Erleichterung des Staatsärars beitragen würde“. 46 AsMacartney: House of Austria, p. 147 pithily observes, Thun’s goal was „to secure the establishment of an ultra-conservative and highly decentralized regime, resting on the feudal magnates“. 163
