388 



HUNGARY. 



in Southern Hungary on a charge of exciting 

 agitations and being an agent of the Servian 

 Omladina. The minister-president authorized 

 a prosecution to be instituted against him. On 

 the reopening of the Parliament, September 

 28th, the case was referred to the Committee 

 on Privileges. They made a report, October 

 2d, justifying the arrest, and their report was 

 approved by the Chamber. About this time 

 Tisza declared in the House of Deputies that 

 the Government was in entire accord with the 

 policy of Count Andrassy. On the 17th of 

 November the minister declared, in answer to 

 interpellations by Simonyi and Helfy, that the 

 administration must and would treat the East- 

 ern question by consideration neither of Rus- 

 sian nor of Turkish, but of Austro-Hungarian 

 interests. The principles announced by Tisza 

 were afterward strongly supported by Si- 

 monyi, leader of the Conservative Opposition, 

 who defended the policy of peace, and said that 

 the interests of the Magyars and the German- 

 Austrians were to be regarded as well as those 

 of the Slavs, There "should be no talk of a 

 Magyar-Turkish policy. Austria will, in case 

 Russia oversteps her bounds, know how to de- 

 fend the interests of the whole state with 

 arms, but till then she must observe a friendly 

 neutrality toward the southern Slavs. This 

 was the true Austro-Hungarian policy in for- 

 eign affairs." A few days after this, in reply to 

 an interpellation in reference to some proceed- 

 ings of the Austrian Government against the 

 Statthalter of Dalmatia, the minister-presi- 

 dent stated that while the Hungarian Govern- 

 ment was in accord with that of Austria with 

 respect to its foreign policy, it had nothing to 

 do with Austrian internal affairs. A demon- 

 stration of students at Pesth, in the shape of a 

 torch-light procession to the Turkish minister, 

 was arranged to take place late in October, 

 but it was forbidden by the police. Some of 

 the adherents of the extreme Left attempted 

 to take advantage of this occasion to make 

 a demonstration against the ministry and its 

 position on the Eastern question, but the au- 

 thorities had anticipated such an event, and 

 had made ample preparations to repress any 

 -disorder that might arise. Patrols were sta- 

 . tioned throughout the city, the streets were 

 promptly cleared of disorderly persons, and a 

 wholesome impression was made upon the pop- 

 ulace. 



The estimates for 1877 were submitted to 

 the House of Deputies by the Minister of Fi- 

 nance in October. The total expenditure for 

 the coming year was calculated at 233,000,000 

 florins, and the revenues were estimated at 

 218,000,000 florins, leaving a deficit of about 

 15,000,000 florins, or about the same as the 

 deficit of the preceding year. That the deficit 

 was not reduced, was not because the expen- 

 ditures had not been lessened, for there was 

 an actual reduction in the year's estimates 

 of administrative expenditures of 4,000,000 

 florins; but was partly because of the high 



price of gold, and partly because the estimates 

 of the proceeds of various sources of revenue 

 had been reduced, which had been set at too 

 high a figure in former estimates. The proba- 

 ble receipts from these sources of revenue had 

 now been calculated on the actual proceeds of 

 the last few years, and the minister thought 

 the calculation would prove a correct one. 

 He pointed out that there must always be an 

 uncertainty about the revenues of a country 

 depending mainly on agriculture. In spite of 

 the floods which had devastated the land in 

 the spring, and the frosts which had come 

 afterward, the returns of revenue had been 

 beyond all expectation favorable, there having 

 been a large increase in the nine months past 

 over the receipts for the corresponding period 

 of the previous year. 



The first session of the Hungarian Diet was 

 dissolved by a royal decree, March 27th. A 

 second session was called to meet the next 

 day (the 28th), which after completing a few 

 formalities, adjourned to meet again April 20th. 

 On the 20th of June the Diet again adjourned 

 till September 28th. Aside from the discus- 

 sions concerning the compact with Austria, 

 the relations of the kingdom to the Eastern 

 question, and the adjustment of financial af- 

 fairs, its proceedings were not of marked im- 

 portance. On the 20th of January the House 

 of Deputies approved a proposition of the 

 Government for the redemption of from 20,- 

 000,000 to 22,000,000 florins out of the proceeds 

 of the second half of the rent-loans, to make 

 the beginning of a sinking-fund. On the 16th 

 of February the House of Deputies adopted a 

 measure recommended by the ministry to have 

 a register of the services which had been ren- 

 dered to the country by Francis Deak enrolled 

 among the statutes, and approved of a plan 

 for the erection of a monument to Deak by a 

 national subscription. 



The floods at the end of February and be- 

 ginning of March were very destructive. The 

 villages along the banks of the Danube and the 

 Theiss were submerged, hundreds of houses 

 were carried away or ruined, and immense 

 quantities of property and crops were de- 

 stroyed. The Ofen and Alt-Ofen quarters of 

 Buda-Pesth were overflowed ; a hundred man- 

 ufactories of Neu-Pesth, and numerous fine 

 buildings in the river quarters of the city, 

 were undermined ; and 12,000 out of the 18,000 

 inhabitants of Alt - Ofen were reported to 

 have been rendered homeless. On the 28th 

 of February the Emperor devoted 15,000 

 gulden to the relief of the sufferers by the 

 flood in Pesth and its vicinity, and the Em- 

 press added a gift of 10,000 gulden. The Em- 

 peror and Empress also bestowed 40,000 florins 

 for the relief of the people throughout Hun- 

 gary who had been visited by the inundations. 



A remarkable speech was made in February 

 by Bishop Herwarth to his electors in Pesth, 

 in which among other things he declared him- 

 self in favor of the introduction of a law mak- 



