It is true that Count von Harrach proposed to introduce far-reaching economic reforms which, he argued, would make it possible for the taxpayers to raise these huge sums, but since it would have taken more than ten years before these became effective, they could not have brought the taxpayers any perceptible immediate relief.
A conference accordingly rejected Count von Harrach’s proposal by a unanimous vote, which I had specially recorded, and since no one present was able to suggest anything different or better than Haugwitz’s draft plan, on which I had already decided, after private consultation with Bartenstein, I resolved to send Count Haugwitz to Moravia and Bohemia to sound the Estates there, whether they were prepared to adopt the principles of his plan as in their own best interest.
The Ministers, and particularly the Supreme Chancellor Count Harrach, had firmly convinced themselves that the Estates would never accept any such proposals; even wires were pulled, great efforts were made from Vienna to foment ill will among the Estates, which was the more to be feared because the Estates had been sent very misleading interpretations of the proposals.
Yet even as I had commended to Divine Providence, with sincere confidence, the execution of my idea for preserving the Monarchy, so I was now made visibly aware of the Divine help which I had expected, for in spite of all the obstacles put in his way from Vienna, Count von Haugwitz was successful in obtaining the consent of the Moravian Estates to the proposed military system and to the financial obligations involved. I therefore instructed him to make the same proposals in Bohemia. Here, it appeared, more difficulties were to be anticipated, since the Estates had been affected by the talk and minework from Vienna.
Nevertheless, the business was carried through quite successfully in Bohemia also, and the Deputies of the Bohemian and Moravian Estates arrived for the close of the Recess. Count von Harrach and some other Ministers maintained that the Estates in these two Provinces had been hurried into their decisions, or even corrupted (although I had neither given nor promised the smallest consideration in any Province, nor had any been asked), or ought at least to have stipulated other conditions on the lines of Harrach’s own opinion.
I thereupon personally asked the Deputies of both Provinces to say on their consciences whether they thought Harrach’s ideas preferable for their Provinces; and they assured me unanimously that Harrach’s plan was quite impracticable, a simple chimera which could neither exist nor be realized, especially as most of the advantages Harrach was dangling before their eyes were only hypothetical and lacked any real basis.
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