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AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



gramme of parliamentary reform. The action 

 of the Magnates on the bill to permit mixed 

 marriages between Hebrews and Christians 

 precipitated the question of reforming the ob- 

 solete constitution of the Upper House. The 

 House of Magnates is the largest Upper Cham- 

 ber in the world, containing from 700 to 800 

 members. For many years past seldom more 

 than 50 or 60 have taken part in the delibera- 

 tions. The House has attempted neither to 

 initiate, amend, nor reject legislation, but has 

 contented itself with allowing the regular at- 

 tendants formally to approve the enactments 

 of the Chamber of Deputies. The list of Mag- 

 nates comprises the princes of the blood royal, 

 who own lands in Hungary, 2 in number ; 50 

 or 60 dignitaries of the Roman Catholic, Greek 

 Catholic, and Oriental Greek Churches ; 10 

 Barons of the Empire and the Count of Pres- 

 burg ; the 68 Counts Palatine, who are simply 

 Government officers ; 18 princes ; 386 counts ; 

 288 barons ; 2 Deputies of the Croatian Diet ; 

 and 5 regalists of Transylvania. Tisza's 

 scheme of reform cuts down the representa- 

 tion from the hereditary nobility, all of whose 

 male members have held a seat by right of 

 birth. The Esterhazy, Zichy, Szapary, Bathy- 

 any, and other great houses, furnished twenty 

 or thirty peers each. In the reformed House 

 of Magnates only those noblemen have a seat 

 who pay 3,000 guldens of land-taxes. Mag- 

 nates naturalized in Hungary are not to lose 

 their seats if they sit in the Austrian Upper 

 House. To the spiritual peers are added rep- 

 resentatives of the Evangelical, Calvinist, Uni- 

 tarian, and Jewish bodies. Another feature 

 of the scheme is the creation of life-peers, not 

 to exceed one third of the total number, from 

 the ranks of citizens who have distinguished 

 themselves in any sphere of public life. 



The plan by which Koloman Tisza proposes 

 to reform the Lower House is by changing the 

 duration of the Legislature from three years 

 to five. The motives for this seemingly reac- 

 tionary step are to prevent the petty gentry, 

 who constitute the bulk of the representatives 

 from ruining themselves in election expenses, 

 and to minimize the excitement, the abuses, 

 arid the scandals of the periodical elections. 



A third measure is the enlargement of the 

 disciplinary powers of the parliamentary pre- 

 siding officers, which have been limited to the 

 right to call to order, and, if the member prove 

 refractory, to administer a rebuke. 



The Croatian Question. The episode of the 

 escutcheons has united the Croatians in as 

 strong a determination for independence from 

 Hungary as that which fired the Hungarians 

 in their struggle with Austria. After the 

 revolution of 1848, the Slav provinces of 

 Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia were sev- 

 ered from Hungary. A year after the estab- 

 lishment of the dual monarchy, Croatia, Sla- 

 vonia, and a part of Dalmatia, merged into a 

 single state, were reunited with the Magyar 

 Kingdom. The compact of union was carried 



through under pressure by a Magyarophile 

 Ban, and was so unpopular that in 1871, three 

 years later, the National party, which repre- 

 sented the Croatian sentiment of national in- 

 dependence, gained a majority in the Diet. 

 The Hungarian Government dissolved the As- 

 sembly, and when a still larger Opposition ma- 

 jority was returned, would have proceeded 

 to more arbitrary measures if the Nationalists 

 had not offered to come to terms. They agreed 

 to uphold the compact on the promise of con- 

 cessions and benefits, but soon sank into the 

 position of a Government party, neglecting to 

 demand the fulfillment of these pledges, prac- 

 ticing the same official and military pressure 

 at elections, and perpetuating the administra- 

 tive abuses that they had denounced when 

 in opposition. Those of the party who were 

 dissatisfied with the treatment of Croatia by 

 the Hungarian Government, and with the 

 practices of the party in power, seceded and 

 constituted a Moderate Opposition, under the 

 name of the Independent National party. A 

 Radical Opposition, which aimed at complete 

 independence, grew up under the lead of An- 

 tun Starchevich, who was at first almost the 

 solitary representative of the Great Croatian 

 idea. They took the name of the Legality 

 party, in reference to their assumption that 

 the compact of 1868 was not concluded in a^ 

 regular and constitutional manner. The status' 

 of Croatia under the compact is variously in- 

 terpreted in the various parties, and by the 

 Hungarian Government, which has treated it 

 as a province or land of the crown, with 

 certain guaranteed autonomous rights, while 

 certain Croatian jurists insist that the union 

 is personal, with a common Legislature for 

 common purposes, of the same nature as that 

 which subsists between Hungary and Austria. 

 The Croatians consider that they are exploited 

 by the Magyars. Of the taxes collected in the 

 land, 55 per cent, go into the royal treasury, 

 only a small portion of which is returned in 

 public improvements or any other useful form. 

 They are cut off from the port of Fiume by 

 differential railroad tariffs, which favor their 

 Hungarian competitors. The popular support 

 of the secessionist and Great Croatian move- 

 ments is derived partly from the notion that 

 the growing agrarian distress, which is chiefly 

 due to backward agricultural methods and the 

 too sudden breaking-up of feudal and commu- 

 nistic institutions, is caused by the stepmother- 

 ly treatment of Croatian economic interests by 

 the Hungarian Government. To this convic- 

 tion is joined the fear that Hungary intends 

 to destroy the autonomous institutions of Cro- 

 atia, reduce it to a Hungarian province, and 

 eventually crush out the Croatian nationality 

 and language. Hence the outbreak which 

 Minister Szapary occasioned by replacing the 

 Croatian with the Hungarian arms on a public 

 building. The national aspirations are of vari- 

 ous degrees. The movement has grown strong 

 in sympathy with the success of the Slav peo- 



