RELATIONS BETWEEN AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY 541 



part this law fixes again the sense of the Pragmatic Sanction, as 

 stated above, emphasizing its two principles : our sovereign national 

 independence and the mutual obligation to mutual defense with 

 Austria. Then it proceeds to state that the fact of Austria's having 

 been endowed with a constitution which gives to her people a right 

 of controlling their government (as we control ours) makes some new 

 provision necessary in those branches of administration which bear 

 direct relation to mutual defense, and in which it is, therefore, to 

 say the least, highly desirable that the joint action of both countries 

 should be unfailingly secured. To that end, the two great agencies 

 of national defense - - foreign affairs and war-administration - - are 

 to a certain extent declared common affairs, but in the executive 

 sphere only, where action originates. Legislation on them (such 

 as assenting to international treaties, framing of laws on the con- 

 ditions of military service, on recruiting, etc.) is expressly reserved 

 to the juridically independent action of both legislatures, which are, 

 however, desired to do their best to agree on these matters. To 

 provide for these common affairs a common ministry of foreign affairs 

 and of war * are called into existence; the expenses of these two 

 departments are jointly to be borne by both countries in proportion 

 to their comparative financial power - - measured until now by the 

 results of taxation of each. Both countries have equal control over 

 these common departments, a control which they can exert through 

 ways direct and indirect, as we shall see later on. 



The common ministry of foreign affairs implies a common diplo- 

 matic service. It is not so clear up to what point unity of the armed 

 force is implied in common war administration. Our law mentions 

 a Hungarian army as part of the whole army, which is to be unitedly 

 commanded and regulated as to its inner organization by the King, 

 in the exercise of his constitutional prerogative. The somewhat 

 oracular terms of this proviso have given birth to much controversy 

 and to some trouble lately. But one fact towers above all contro- 

 versy, namely, the fact that in public law the individuality of the 

 Hungarian army has been expressly maintained; and this is all that 

 need be said about the matter here, where we are considering the 

 juridical aspect of things only. 



Particular provision has been made for the annual vote on com- 

 mon, foreign and war, expenses and for a direct parliamentary control 

 over the respective common ministries. Anything like a common 



1 I did not mention in the text the third common ministry, that of finance, 

 because that high-sounding title is only apt to generate confusion. In fact, 

 the common minister of finance has nothing to do at all with finance in the sense 

 of a financial policy; he is merely a cashier who receives the contributions of 

 Austria and of Hungary to common expenses and hands them over to the re- 

 spective common departments. It is merely accidental that the common minister 

 of finance is now generally intrusted with the government of Bosnia and Herze- 

 govina. 



