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with which Parliament itself is not endowed. Were it otherwise, a man who is entrusted with a commission would have greater rights than the man who appoints him : the committee would have greater authority than his principal, which would be a legal absurdity. It is the fact that the Delegations have a series of rights which the two Parliaments do not possess, and this might perhaps be taken to decide the point. As a legally independent State, Hungary is supposed to have an army of her own ; in fact, the eleventh clause of the twelfth law of 1867 mentions the existence of the Hungarian army as “a portion of the whole army.” This law gives the king as a royal prerogative the right to command and to organise the army according to his will. On the other hand, the nation has reserved to itself the right to vote the recruits and to fix their number, as well as to determine the conditions on which these recruits are granted. In the period of despotism, which lasted from the end of 1849 to the beginning of 1867, the Hungarian contingent of recruits was wholly incorporated in the Imperial army, which was entirely Imperial and Austrian, the language of the army being German, and its colours Imperial. An attempt was made in 1867 to separate the Hungarian army ; but this attempt met with stubborn resistance, and the Sovereign was not disposed to agree to it on any consideration. The difficulty was solved by the insertion of clause eleven in the above-mentioned law, which creates the Hungarian army by force of law, but gives the right of commanding and organising the same as a regal prerogative to the king, who, as he happens to be also Emperor of Austria, possesses, as such, the same rights over the Austrian army. This was perhaps ingenious, but it was by no means clear; and it is evident that this arrangement must necessarily lead to many a collision between the Crown and the nation, whenever the latter feels that it is no longer disposed to leave the question open for settlement at some future date. Practically, the right of the State to have an army of its own was destroyed by an arbitrary extension of the regal right of supreme command, by force of which the supreme commander decided that the army should remain as it was up to 1867, that is to say, Imperial and Austrian. This extension of the regal prerogative is clearly arbitrary, for the right of a king to command and organise the army of a State cannot go so far as to suppress that army, and to arrange matters in such a way that there shall be nothing left for him to command and to organise by virtue of that regal prerogative. This legal proposition may be unanswerable ; but, as a matter of fact, the King of Hungary is absorbed by the Emperor of Austria, and the process of absorption is rendered all the easier by the fact that the king and the emperor happen to be one and the same person. Lord Brougham has remarked in one of his works that there is no worse position for a State to be in than in one of imperfect union with another State. This is precisely the case with Hungary, and the legal distinction of two personages in one, and one personage in two, with two crowns on one head, and with some organs in common and others quite separate, looks very much like something that cannot work smoothly for long. Of this fact we have had clear proof for the last year in Hungary and for the last seven years in Austria. As the identity of the Sovereign of Austria and Hungary has to be maintained (for this is a condition of the fundamental law of 1723 known as the “Pragmatic Sanction ”), there is no practical way of solving this problem except by accepting the political platform of the Party of Independence; i.e., the principle of the establishment of a “personal union ” between the two entirely independent States of Hungary and Austria ; the latter remaining as it is now, or becoming a federation of smaller States, such as it must necessarily become if peace is ever to be made in Austria. The two States would have absolutely nothing in common except the sovereign, and the strict and permanent obligation to defend each other against all attacks. Each State could develop its own forces according to its own national spirit, and thus one State would not impose a constant restraint on the growth of the prosperity and power of the other. The identity of the person of the sovereign could not have the same consequences as it now has, because the two States would have no common affairs, no common functionaries, and no means of interfering with each other's concerns. The principle of “personal union" is founded on the most fundamental law of the State, the law of 1723 ; there is consequently nothing subversive and nothing extraordinary about it. The description which I have given of the existing state of affairs as regards the army in Austro-Hungary will enable every one to see that a conflict could easily arise between the Minister of War and a large section of the Hungarian Parliament. The following has actually happened. The Minister of War took it into his head (no doubt on superior order) that the effective strength of the army should be raised at one stroke by 25 per cent. The increase by one-fourth of the total number of recruits would be a serious burden on any country, but it was doubly so on Hungary, considering the fact that these recruits have to go and serve in an army which is not even
common to the two States, but is purely Austrian ; its colours being Imperial, and the language of command and administration being German. Further, 77 per cent. of its officers are Austrians ; all the arsenals, &c., are in Austria, and most of the supplies are purchased in that country. The proposed increase was made still more onerous by the fact that when it was demanded a large portion of Hungary (three-fourths of the population of which depends on agriculture for its subsistence) was in great want, several successive harvests having been bad. Wheat had to be distributed among the people to keep them alive, and a Bill had to be introduced for the starting of “famine works” to the value of several millions of florins. The moment could not have been worse chosen to ask for an increase of 25 per cent. in the effective strength of the army, and, consequently, of taxation for army purposes. The demand was not even justifiable by absolute need, considering that later it was given up without any inconvenience when it had already done all the harm that was possible. No war was threatening ; no State in the neighbourhood had increased the effective strength of its army ; consequently the whole idea was a mere useless caprice and absolutely inopportune. The entire country rose up against the ill-conceived attempt, and the Party of Independence strongly resisted it. The great majority of the electors of the party in power expressed their intention of supporting this resistance; the Councils-General of the counties wrote officially approving it, and over a hundred monster deputations waited on the President of the House of Deputies (the Speaker of the Commons) in order to give expression to public opinion. In spite of all this, the Szell Cabinet stubbornly upheld the Bill, and would allow no other subject to be discussed and settled in the House, not even the Budget of the year, nor the Ausgleich. An unconstitutional extra legem position was thus created, and the Szell Cabinet had to resign.
Count Khuen-Hedervary came next, and he withdrew the ominous Bill, but too late. The national spirit had been aroused by the unjustifiable obstinacy of the Szell Cabinet; and the Party of Independence, which would have been disposed to accept this withdrawal and the fall of the Cabinet as a constitutional solution of the difficulty, was actually forced by public opinion to continue its obstruction, or rather to resume it for a new reason ; that is to say, in order to combat the violation of the law, which had been tolerated since 1867, whereby the regal prerogatives granted by law were stretched so far as to bring about the suppression of the State language and colours in the army.
The Khuen Cabinet also soon had to resign, and a lengthy period ensued during which no new Cabinet could be formed. Finally, Count Tisza was called upon to form the new Cabinet; and the majority of the House, for the first time since 1867, decided that the introduction of the Hungarian language and colours in the army does not form for the time being a part of the political programme of the majority. To show how reasonable the Hungarian claim had been it may be as well to note that the Hungarian contingent forms 43 per cent. of the whole army, and that Hungary is the only State which has an official language. Austria has no such language, and no justification could be found for employing in the army the language used by only 25 per cent. of it, when the official language of the 43 per cent. of it is discarded. Further, most of the orders are given with trumpets, bugles, and drums; and no trumpet, bugle, or drum has ever yet been heard to sound in the German or Hungarian language. Be this as it may, the decision of the majority of the House being in conformity with that adopted by the king (who had pledged his word never to sanction any law that would change the language and colours of the whole army), these two decisions forming the necessary element of all parliamentary act, the party of independence saw that it had become impossible to carry a resolution and pass a law for the immediate realisation of the national claim, and preferred to come to a settlement with the Government. In accordance with the terms of the compromise arrived at, it abandoned its obstructive tactics in return for some important concessions concerning military matters, and, more especially, with reference to military education. The result of this will be that within a few years the Hungarian portion of the army will be commanded by exclusively Hungarian officers, educated in a national spirit and speaking the Hungarian language to perfection; also that the use of the Hungarian language in military criminal proceedings, the code of which is to be entirely reformed, will be assured. Further, it was agreed that the electoral law should be reformed, the suffrage extended, the rotten borough system abolished, &c., and that several laws, which it would take too long to enumerate, should be passed, in order to promote the welfare of the poorer classes in the country and to spread gratuitous Hungarian education. These important and beneficent arrangements have not been accepted by a small number of men, who call themselves members of the Party of Independence, but who have always refused to submit to the leaders and the rules of the great party which bears this name. These ten or twelve men abuse the liberal spirit of the rules of the House, and take advantage of the fact that the Party of Independence cannot allow these rules to be altered, for the reason that they may serve in future, as they did in the past, as a parliamentary bulwark to defend the laws and liberty of the State when attacked by a preponderating foreign influence. This small number of desperate obstructionists is being supported by the Clericals; and it is very likely that the Government will, in consequence, be induced to resort to a coercive modification of the rules of the House. This would, no doubt, create new difficulties, because it is to be foreseen that the bulk of the Party of Independence, though strongly disapproving the aimless and harmful obstruction which is still going on, would not consent to a violation of the rules of the House to an extent which would make them unfit for use in future, for days—which may God avert l—when Hungary might again stand in need of the strong bulwark provided by these regulations, which were drawn up by legislators who were patriotic and wise, but who could never foresee that a number of men could be found in Hungary to abuse them, and thus to dismantle the rampart of national defence which they afford.