70 



AUSTRIA-HUNGARY. 



Finances. The ordinary revenue in 1896 

 amounted to 500,574,000 florin's, and transitory and 

 extraordinary revenue to 17,625,000 florins; total, 

 518,453,000 florins. The ordinary expenditures were 

 445.967,000 florins; transitory expenditures, 15,- 

 795,000 florins; investments, 47,261,000 florins: 

 and extraordinary expenditures, 6,920.000 florins ; 

 total, 515,943,000 florins. The budget for 1898 

 makes the ordinary revenue 470,605,451 florins and 

 the transitory revenue 27,710,840 florins ; total, 498,- 

 316,291 flori'ns. The sources of ordinary "revenue 

 are : Ministry of Finance. 308,841,770 florins ; Min- 

 bbr of Commerce, 13s.325.269 florins; Ministry of 



National Defense, 367,041 florins; ministry ad latus, 

 800 florins. The total ordinary expenditure is esti- 

 mated at 449,0*4,228 florins, transitory expenditure 

 at 14,086,378 florins, and investments at 35,069,964 

 florins; total, 498,240.570 florins. The items of 

 onlimiry expenditure are as follow: National debt, 

 190,199,796 florins ; Ministry of Commerce, 97,326,- 

 100 florins ; Ministry of Finance. 74,720,382 florins ; 

 contribution to common expenditure, 27,882,870 

 florins: Ministry of Agriculture, 18,470,464 florins; 

 Ministry of the Interior, 17,053,907 florins; Ministry 

 i>f .Justice. 16.539,356 florins; Ministry of National 

 IVfense, 16.104,135 florins; debts of guaranteed 

 railroads taken over by the Government, 13,671.287 

 florins : Ministry of Public Worship and Instruction, 

 13,118,716 florins; pensions, 8.687,457 florins; ad- 

 ministration of Croatia, 8,307,881 florins ; civil list, 

 4,650,000 florins; Parliament, 1,758,906 florins; 

 minister presidency, 457,290 florins; guaranteed 

 railroad interest, 43*8,508 florins; administration of 

 courts, 264,118 florins; Accountant General's office, 

 150,343 florins; Cabinet Chancery, 76,864 florins; 

 ministry ad lnhiH, 74,478 florins; Ministry for Croa- 

 tia, 43,908 florins; common pensions, 25,460 florins. 

 Agrarian Socialism. After the harvest strike 

 of agricultural laborers of the Alfoeld, the great 

 plain of Hungary, which took place in 1897, the 

 Government in the beginningof 1898carried through 

 Parliament a measure intended to prevent its recur- 

 rence. This Government bill delivers the laborer 

 up to the arbitrary discretion of his employer, em- 

 powering the latter to put an end to the contract he 

 has entered into and to withhold the wages he has 

 agreed to pay if the laborer should, in his opinion, 

 be a Socialist agitator. If the laborer, however, 

 should fail to appear at the time and place appoint- 

 ed, the employer is entitled to call upon the author- 

 ities to enforce him to carry out his contract, and 

 the laborer has no legal defense against such a pro- 

 ceeding. This remarkable piece of class legislation, 

 branding a strike as an act of mutiny and insurrec- 

 tion, overshot the mark, stimulating rather than 

 checking the agrarian movement. The liberty of 

 speech and of public meeting was so restricted for 

 the laborers by law that they could not hold polit- 

 ical gatherings for the expression of their grievances. 

 They therefore resorted to the stratagem of public 

 balls, which were followed bv acts of pillage in many 



C laces, the wrecking of public buildings, incendiary 

 tiers to landowners, and a refusal to pay taxes, ne- 

 cc->itating tlie intervention of the milita'ry. In the 

 neighborhood of Dcbrcczin a peasant revolt was 

 suppressed by a considerable military force, and in 

 other districts encounters took place between starv- 



ing laborers and the gendarmerie, accompanied by 

 loss of life and acts of incendiarism. When a dep- 

 utation of landownersof theSzabolsc Comitat asked 

 for the energetic intervention of the Government, 

 the Prime Minister promised military precautions 

 on an extensive scale and even a law further re- 

 stricting the freedom of the press. The authorities 

 arrested and expelled agitators wherever found. 

 Still the peasantry, whose ultimate demand was for 

 a division of the soil among all the inhabitants. 

 prepared for a new strike and combined to refuse to 

 make contracts for the next harvest, so that employ- 

 ers were compelled to offer better terms than before 

 in spite of the new labor law and the bitter distress 

 among the laborers. The agricultural depression of 

 recent times has not only lowered the standard of 

 life and comfort among the landless laborers. l>ut 

 has reduced to their condition a large class of proud 

 and independent peasant proprietors, who have been 

 compelled to give up their small farms from which 

 they could no longer extract a livelihood, and these 

 properties have been swallowed up in the great es- 

 tates. The Catholic People's party in Parliament 

 supported a proposal to break up the huge entailed 

 estates and other large domains which have grown 

 enormously as a result of the present agrarian sys- 

 tem. The Moderate and Conservative politicians as 

 well as the Radicals condemned the methods pursued 

 by the Government in dealing with the agricultural 

 laborers, who, while denied the right of parliament- 

 ary representation, have the right of association 

 also taken away from them and are placed under 

 permanent police supervision. At the request of the 

 Hungarian Minister of the Interior the Imperial 

 Government sent a commissioner into the S/a- 

 bolsc country, which was the center of the agitation, 

 and arranged to replace with Bosnian and Croatian 

 troops the Magyar regiments stationed in some of the 

 disturbed districts, because these seemed to sympa- 

 thize with the peasants. As the bulk of the Minis- 

 terial party belonged to the landowning class, the 

 Liberal Cabinet could not deal with the agrarian 

 problem independently. Nevertheless, the Minister 

 of Agriculture promised remedial measures that 

 would take into consideration the views of the labor- 

 ing classes as well as those of their employers. 

 Socialist leaders in Buda-Pesth were subjected to 

 domiciliary visits and the books and funds of trade 

 unions were confiscated, acts which were denounced 

 by the Opposition as illegal. The Minister of the 

 Interior affirmed that the wires of the peasant move- 

 ment were pulled from the capital. He denied that 

 there was distress in the Szabolsc. saying that wages 

 there were high, the authorities offering half a florin 

 a day for labor on public works. On March 31, near 

 Temesvar, a mob armed with pitchforks and hat di- 

 ets charged upon a force of gendarmes and put them 

 to flight after being fired upon with fatal results. 

 Baron Banffy accused the Ultramontane People's 

 party, which had lately adopted Anti-Semitism and 

 denounced the Government for succumbing to Jew- 

 ish control, with seeking to foster this agrarian 

 socialism, which dreamed of a Russian conquest of 

 the Magyars and hoped for a subversion of all 

 authority and a division of the land among the pro- 

 letarians. The Magyarizing policy of the Govern- 

 ment in Transylvania cost it the support of the 

 Saxon representatives. The premised remedial 

 measures to stem the asrrarian discontent had not 

 taken definite form when Parliament was prorogued 

 on Julv 28. 



