338 



HUNGARY. 



'35 ; " The New Roman Poesy in France," 

 Leipsic, 1833 ; " The English Universities," 2 

 vols., Cassel, 1839-'40 ; translated into Eng- 

 lish by F. Newman in 1843, and acknowledged 

 by English authorities to be the best work on 

 the subject; and "Essays on Ireland," Berlin, 

 1850. He was strongly attached to England, 

 and was often present at the meetings of the 

 cooperative societies of Rochdale and other 

 great manufacturing centres in Lancashire. 



HUNGARY, a kingdom of Europe, united 

 with Austria under one sovereign, but separated 

 from it in local government. (For the statistics 

 of population and nationalities, see AUSTRIA.) 



In February a conference of the non-Magyar 

 nationalities was held at Temesvar. Besides 

 Croatians and Slavonians, who form a group 

 apart and have a special convention with Hun- 

 gary insuring to them complete independence, 

 there are, dispersed in larger and smaller groups 

 and intermingled with the Hungarian and Ger- 

 man elements, Serbs in the south, Rumanians 

 in the east of Hungary and in Transylvania, 

 and Slovaks and Ruthenes in the north. All 

 these, of course, enjoy the same civil and polit- 

 ical rights as the Hungarian and German popu- 

 lations, and in the last Diet a special law was 

 carried by which the free use of their language 

 in local administration and in the courts of law 

 has been insured to them, the Hungarian lan- 

 guage retaining merely the precedence in the 

 Diet and the Central Government and in the 

 courts of appeal, without which any thing like 

 a political union of the country would have 

 been an impossibility. 



The position thus created for these national- 

 ities did not satisfy their leaders, who brought 

 in a project of their own by which the whole 

 internal division of Hungary into counties was 

 to have been remodelled according to nation- 

 alities, so that in each administrative unit the 

 language of the majority should be the ruling 

 one, to the exclusion of the language of the mi- 

 nority. This proposal, which was tantamount 

 to cutting up Hungary into so many Swiss can- 

 tons, was, however, not even supported by all 

 the representatives of the different nationali- 

 ties in the Diet, as only a few of the Northern 

 Slovaks and Ruthenes gave it a qualified sup- 

 port ; only the Rumanians of Transylvania and 

 Hungary and the Serbs stood up for it, and 

 when they saw they could not carry their point, 

 they withdrew from the debate. The following 

 programme was agreed to : 



1. Solidarity of all non-Magyar nationalities or 

 races, as they have a common interest. 



2. The question of nationalities is to be solved in 

 the sense of the proposal made in the last Diet by the 

 Serbs and Rumanians. 



3. The conference adopts the declaration of the Bu- 

 manian deputies of Transylvania, protesting against 

 the union of Transylvania with Hungary. 



4. The nationalities will work with all their power 

 to upset the compromise of 1867, as its decisions are 

 fatal to the national rights of the non-Maoyar races 



5. The nationalities will support the opposition of 

 the party in Croatia, which is against the compromise 

 effected between that country and Hungary 



6. Municipalities are to be organized on the prin- 

 ciple of liberty and democracy. 



7. The conference protests against the insinuations 

 that the nationalities follow a policy which aims at 

 the destruction of the Hungarian state. 



8. The members sent by the non-Magyar races to 

 the Diet will form there a distinct national party 

 which has nothing in common with any of the Hun- 

 garian parties. 



This programme aims at something like the 

 Swiss Confederation. 



The Rumanians held also a conference by 

 themselves on February 15th, at Dees, in 

 which, after exhaustive debates, almost all the 

 members decided in favor of abstaining from 

 the elections, because, after the sufferings of 

 centuries, the just claims of the Rumanian na- 

 tion had been disregarded by the Pesth Reichs- 

 rath, and the unjust electoral law had been 

 maintained. 



The elections were conducted with no little 

 asperity, and resulted favorably to the Deak 

 party. Both Houses of the Hungarian Diet 

 were opened by the Emperor Francis Joseph 

 in person, who made the following peaceful 

 address : 



Magnates and Gentlemen : It is with feelings of sat- 

 isfaction that I welcome you at the opening of this 

 new session, the more so as I am convinced of the 

 necessity of your wise and powerful support in order 

 to bring to an early and successful solution the great 

 questions which lie before us. Although the last Diet 

 has, through the settlement of state questions which 

 had been pending for generationSj created a safe basis 

 upon which the work is now carried on more easily, 

 there is still much to be done to lay the foundations 

 of a better future, and the greatest and most pressing 

 part devolves upon the present Legislature. JFor the 

 fate of nations the constitutional state relations form 

 but one part of the elements or pledges of success ; 

 the chief and most enduring among those pledges, 

 without which not even the best constitution can oifer 

 a lasting success, lies in the internal development of 

 the strength of the nation itself. 



The development of this vitality depends upon those 

 traditions of the past which are opposed to the pro- 

 gressive spirit of the times, and to frame, according 

 to it and to the wants of the new situation, the insti- 

 tutions of the country ; to develop the moral and ma- 

 terial weight of the nation in every direction, so that 

 it may fill with dignity the place which it has taken 

 in the rank of states, as one of the guardians and 

 representatives of. Western civilization. My govern- 

 ment will lose no time in claiming your activity in 

 that direction. It is, above all, the grave question 

 regarding the administration of justice which I rec- 

 ommend to your serious consideration. A just, rapid, 

 and impartial administration of the laws is one of the 

 first requirements of a well-ordered state. It is, 

 therefore^ necessary that, on the one side, he to whom 

 the exercise of judicial power is intrusted should be 

 surrounded with every guarantee of independence, 

 individually as well as officially ; while, on the other, 

 every person should be secured against any usurpa- 

 tion of judicial authority. My government will, there- 

 fore, present to you projects of law regard'nig the 

 exercise of judicial power, as well as the responsibility 

 of judges. In conjunction with this is the project of 

 law concerning the organization of tribunals of the 

 first instance, which proposes that those tribunals 

 should have permanent official places of judicature, 

 distributed according to the requirements of the popu- 

 lations and traffic, so that every one may find, in a 

 sure and speedy manner, the judicial assistance ne- 

 cessary for his ease. 



At a later period there will be brought before you 



