22: Extra-Parliamentary Government
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LONG negotiations between the crown and
the leaders of the Coalition having failed to give any promise of a modus vivendi,
the king-emperor at last determined to appoint an extra-parliamentary ministry, and on the
21st of June Baron Fejérváry, an officer in the royal bodyguard, was nominated minister
president with a cabinet consisting of little-known permanent officials. Instead of
presenting the usual programme, the new premier read to the parliament a royal autograph
letter stating the reasons which had actuated the king in taking this course, and giving
as the task of the new ministry the continuance of negotiations with the Coalition on the
basis of the exclusion of the language question. The parliament was at the same time
prorogued. A period followed of arbitrary government on the one hand and of stubborn
passive resistance on the other. Three times the parliament was again prorogued - from the
15th of September to the 10th of October, from this date to the 19th of December, and from
this yet again to the 1st of March 1906 - in spite of the protests of both Houses. To the
repressive measures of the government - press censorship, curtailment of the right of
public meeting, dismissal of recalcitrant officials, and dragooning of disaffected county
assemblies and municipalities - the Magyar nation opposed a sturdy refusal to pay taxes,
to supply recruits or to carry on the machinery of administration.
Had this attitude represented the temper of the whole Hungarian
people, it would have been impossible for the crown to have coped with it. But the
Coalition represented, in fact, not the mass of the people, but only a small dominant
minority,¹ and for years past this minority had neglected the social and economic
needs of the mass of the people in the eager pursuit of party advantage and the effort to
impose, by coercion and corruption failing other means, the Magyar language and Magyar
culture on the non-Magyar races. In this supreme crisis, then, it is not surprising that
the masses listened with sullen indifference to the fiery eloquence of the Coalition
leaders. Moreover, by refusing the royal terms, the Coalition had forced the crown into an
alliance with the extreme democratic elements in the state. Universal suffrage had already
been adopted in the Cis-leithan half of the monarchy; it was an obvious policy to propose
it for Hungary also, and thus, by an appeal to the non-Magyar majority, to reduce the
irreconcilable Magyar minority to reason. Universal suffrage, then, was the first and most
important of the proposals put forward by Mr József Kristóffy, the minister of the
interior, in the programme issued by him on the 26th of November 1905. Other proposals
were: the maintenance of the system of the joint army as established in 1867, but with the
concession that all Hungarian recruits were to receive their education in Magyar; the
maintenance till 1917 of the actual customs convention with Austria; a reform of the land
laws, with a view to assisting the poorer proprietors; complete religious equality;
universal and compulsory primary education.
The issue of a programme so liberal, and notably the inclusion in
it of the idea of universal suffrage, entirely checkmated the opposition parties. Their
official organs, indeed, continued to fulminate against the
"unconstitutional"government, but the enthusiasm with which the programme had
been received in the country showed the Coalition leaders the danger of their position,
and henceforth, though they continued
¹ Of the 16,000,000 inhabitants of Hungary barely a half
were Magyar; and the franchise was possessed by only 800,000, of whom the Magyars formed
the overwhelming majority.
their denunciations of Austria, they entered into secret
negotiations with the king-emperor, in order, by coming to terms with him, to ward off the
fatal consequences of Kristóffy's proposals.
On the 19th of February 1906 the parliament was dissolved, without
writs being issued for a new election, a fact accepted by the country with an equanimity
highly disconcerting to patriots. Meanwhile the negotiations continued, so secretly that
when, on the 9th of April, the appointment of a Coalition cabinet¹ under Dr
Sándor Wekerle was announced, the world was taken completely by surprise. The agreement
with the crown which had made this course possible included the postponement of the
military questions that had evoked the crisis, and the acceptance of the principle of
Universal Suffrage by the Coalition leaders, who announced that their main tasks would be
to repair the mischief wrought by the "unconstitutional"Fejérváry cabinet, and
then to introduce a measure of franchise reform so wide that it would be possible to
ascertain the will of the whole people on the questions at issue between themselves and
the crown. In the general elections that followed the Liberal party was practically wiped
out, its leader, Count István Tisza, retiring into private life.
For two years and a half the Coalition ministry continued in office
without showing any signs that they intended to carry out the most important item of their
programme. The old abuses continued: the muzzling of the press in the interests of Magyar
nationalism, the imprisonment of non-Magyar deputies for "incitement against Magyar
nationality," the persecution of Socialists and of the subordinate races. That this
condition of things could not be allowed to continue was, indeed, recognized by all
parties the fundamental difference of opinion was as to the method by which it was to be
ended. The dominant Magyar parties were committed to the principle of franchise reform;
but they were determined that this reform should be of such a nature as not to imperil
their own hegemony. What this would mean was pointed out by Mr Kristóffy in an address
delivered at Budapest on the 14th of March 1907. "If the work of social reform,"
he said, "is scamped by a measure calculated to falsify the essence of reform, the
struggle will be continued in the Chamber until full electoral liberty is attained. Till
then there can be no social peace in Hungary." The postponement of the question was,
indeed, already producing ugly symptoms of popular indignation. On the 10th of October
1907 there was a great and orderly demonstration at Budapest, organized by the socialists,
in favour of reform. About 100,000 people assembled, and a deputation handed to Mr Justh,
the president of the Chamber, a monster petition in favour of universal suffrage. The
reception it met with was not calculated to encourage constitutional methods. The
Socialist deputy, Mr Mezõffy, who wished to move an interpellation on the question, was
howled down by the Independents with shouts of "Away with him ! Down with him
!"Four days later, in answer to a question by the same deputy, Count Andrássy said
that the Franchise Bill would be introduced shortly, but that it would be of such a nature
that "the Magyar State idea would remain intact and suffer no diminution." Yet
more than a year was to pass before the promised bill was introduced, and meanwhile the
feeling in the country had grown more intense, culminating in serious riots at Budapest on
the 13th of March 1908.
At last (November 11, 1908) Count Andrássy introduced the
long-promised bill. How far it was from satisfying the demands of the Hungarian peoples
was at once apparent. It granted manhood suffrage, it is true, but hedged with so many
qualifying conditions and complicated with so elaborate a system of plural voting as to
make its effect nugatory. Every male Hungarian citizen, able to read and write, was to
receive the vote at the beginning of his twenty-fifth year, subject to a residential
qualification of twelve months. Illiterate citizens were to choose one elector for every
ten of their number. All electors not having the qualifications for the plural franchise
were to have one vote. Electors who, e.g., had passed four standards of a secondary
school, or paid 16s. 8d. in direct taxation were to have two votes. Electors who had
passed five standards, or who paid £4, 3s 4d. in direct taxes, were to have three votes.
Voting was to be public, as before, on the ground, according to the Preamble, that the
secret ballot protects electors in dependent positions only in so far as they break their
promises under the veil of secrecy."
It was at once seen that this elaborate scheme was intended to
preserve "the Magyar State idea intact." Its result, had it passed, would have
been to strengthen the representation of the Magyar and German elements, to reduce that of
the Slovaks, and almost to destroy that of the Rumans and other non-Magyar races whose
educational status was low. On the other hand, according to the Neue Freie Presse,
it would have increased the number of electors from some million odd to 2,600,000, and the
number of votes to 4,000,000; incidentally it would have largely increased the
working-class representation.
This proposal was at once recognized by public opinion - to use the
language of the Journal des Debats (May 21, 1909) - as "an instrument of
domination"rather than as an attempt to carry out the spirit of the compact under
which the Coalition government had been summoned to power. It was not, indeed, simply a
reactionary or undemocratic
¹ The cabinet consisted of Dr Wekerle (premier and
finance), Ferencz Kossuth (commerce), Count Gyula Andrássy (interior), Count Albert
Apponyi (education), Daványi (agriculture), Polónyi (justice) and Count Aladár Zichy
(court).
measure; it was, as The Times correspondent pointed out,
"a measure sui generis, designed to defeat the objects of the universal
suffrage movement that compelled the Coalition to take office in April 1906, and framed in
accordance with Magyar needs as understood by one of the foremost Magyar noblemen."
Under this bill culture was to be the gate to a share in political power, and in Hungary
culture must necessarily be Magyar.
Plainly, this bill was not destined to settle the Hungarian
problem, and other questions soon arose which showed that the crisis, so far from being
near a settlement, was destined to become more acute than ever. In December 1908 it was
clear that the Coalition Ministry was falling to pieces. Those ministers who belonged to
the constitutional and popular parties, i.e., the Liberals and Clericals, desired
to maintain the compact with the crown; their colleagues of the Independence party were
eager to advance the cause they have at heart by pressing on the question of a separate
Hungarian bank. So early as March 1908 Mr Hallo had laid a formal proposal before the
House that the charter of the Austro-Hungarian bank, which was to expire on the 31st of
December 1910, should not be renewed; that negotiations should be opened with the Austrian
government with a view to a convention between the banks of Austria and Hungary and that,
in the event of these negotiations failing, an entirely separate Hungarian bank should be
established. The Balkan crisis threw this question into the background during the winter;
but, with the settlement of the international questions raised by the annexation of Bosnia
and Herzegovina, it once more came to the front. The ministry was divided on the issue,
Count Andrássy opposing and Mr Ferencz Kossuth supporting the proposal for a separate
bank. Finally, the prime minister, Dr Wekerle, mainly owing to the pressure put upon him
by Mr Justh, the president of the Chamber, yielded to the importunity of the Independence
party, and in the name of the Hungarian government, laid the proposals for a separate bank
before the king-emperor and the Austrian government.
The result was a foregone conclusion. The conference at Vienna
revealed the irreconcilable difference within the ministry; but they revealed also
something more - the determination of the emperor Francis Joseph, H pressed beyond the
limits of his patience, to appeal again to the non-Magyar Hungarians against the Magyar
chauvinists. He admitted that under the Compromise of 1867 Hungary might have a separate
bank, while urging the expediency of such an arrangement from the point of view of the
international position of the Dual Monarchy. But he pointed out also that the question of
a separate bank did not actually figure in the act of 1867, and that it could not be
introduced into it, more especially since the capital article of the ministerial
programme, i.e., electoral reform, was not realized, nor near being realized.
On the 27th of April, in consequence of this rebuff, Dr Wekerle tendered his resignation,
but consented to hold office pending the completion of the difficult task of forming
another government.
This task was destined to prove one of almost insuperable
difficulty. Had the issues involved been purely Hungarian and constitutional, the natural
course would have been for the king to have sent for Mr Kossuth, who commanded the
strongest party in the parliament, and to have entrusted him with the formation of a
government. But the issues involved affected the stability of the Dual Monarchy and its
position in Europe; and neither the king-emperor nor his Austrian advisers, their position
strengthened by the success of Baron Aehrenthal's diplomatic victory in the Balkans, were
prepared to make any substantial concessions to the party of Independence. In these
circumstances the king sent for Dr László Lukács, once finance minister in the
Fejérváry cabinet, whose task was, acting as a homo regius apart from parties, to
construct a government out of any elements that might be persuaded to co-operate with him.
But Lukács had no choice but to apply in the first instance to Mr Kossuth and his
friends, and these, suspecting an intention of crushing their party by entrapping them
into unpopular engagements, rejected his overtures. Nothing now remained but for the king
to request Dr Wekerle to remain "for the present"in office with his colleagues,
thus postponing the settlement of the crisis (July 4).
This procrastinating policy played into the bands of the
extremists; for supplies had not been voted, and the question of the credits for the
expenditure incurred in connection with the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
increasingly urgent, placed a powerful weapon in the hands of the Magyars, and made it
certain that in the autumn the crisis would assume an even more acute form. By the middle
of September affairs had again reached an impasse. On the 14th Dr Wekerle, at the
ministerial conference assembled at Vienna for the purpose of discussing the estimates to
be laid before the delegations, announced that the dissensions among his colleagues made
the continuance of the Coalition government impossible. The burning points of controversy
were the magyarization of the Hungarian regiments and the question of the separate state
bank. On the first of these Wekerle, Andrássy and Apponyi were prepared to accept
moderate concessions; as to the second, they were opposed to the question being raised at
all. Kossuth and Justh, on the other hand, competitors for the leadership of the
Independence party, declared themselves not prepared to accept anything short of the full
rights of the Magyars in those matters. The matter was urgent; for parliament was to meet
on the 28th, and it was important that a new cabinet, acceptable to it, should be
appointed before that date, or that the Houses should be prorogued pending such
appointment; otherwise the delegations would be postponed and no credits would be voted
for the cost of the new Austro-Hungarian "Dreadnoughts"and of the annexation of
Bosnia-Herzegovina. In the event, neither of these courses proved possible, and on the
28th Dr Wekerle once more announced his resignation to the parliament.
The prime minister was not, however, as yet to be relieved of an
impossible responsibility. After a period of wavering Mr Kossuth had consented to shelve
for the time the question of the separate bank, and on the strength of this Dr Wekerle
advised the crown to entrust to him the formation of a government. The position thus
created raised a twofold question: Would the crown accept ? In that event, would he be
able to carry his party with him in support of his modified programme ? The answer to the
first question, in effect, depended on that given by events to the second; and this was
not long in declaring itself. The plan, concerted by Kossuth and Apponyi, with the
approval of Baron Aehrenthal, was to carry on a modified Coalition government with the aid
of the Andrássy Liberals, the National party, the Clerical People's party¹ and
the Independence party, on a basis of suffrage reform with plural franchise, the
prolongation of the charter of the joint bank, and certain concessions to Magyar demands
in the matter of the army. It was soon clear, however, that in this Kossuth would not
carry his party with him. A trial of strength took place between him and Mr de Justh, the
champion of the extreme demands in the matter of Hungarian financial and economic
autonomy; on the 7th of November rival banquets were held, one at Makó, Justh's
constituency, over which he presided, one at Budapest with Kossuth in the chair; the
attendance at each foreshadowed the outcome of the general meeting of the party held at
Budapest on the 11th, when Kossuth found himself in a minority of 46. The Independence
party was now split into two groups: the "Independence and 1848 party," and the
"Independence, 1848 and Kossuth party."
On the 12th Mr de Justh resigned the presidency of the Lower House
and sought re-election, so as to test the relative strength of parties. He was defeated by
a combination of the Kossuthists, Andrássy Liberals and Clerical People's party, the 30
Croatian deputies, whose vote might have turned the election, abstaining on Dr Wekerle
promising them to deliver Croatia from the oppressive rule of the ban, Baron Rauch. A
majority was thus secured for the Kossuthist programme of compromise, but a majority so
obviously precarious that the king-emperor, influenced also - it was rumoured - by the
views of the heir-apparent in an interview with Count Andrássy and Mr Kossuth on the
15th, refused to make any concessions to the Magyar national demands. Hereupon Kossuth
publicly declared (Nov. 22) to a deputation of his constituents from Czegléd that he
himself was in favour of an independent bank, but that the king opposed it, and that in
the event of no concessions being made he would join the opposition.
How desperate the situation had now become was shown by the fact
that on the 27th the king sent for Count Tisza, on the recommendation of the very
Coalition ministry which had been formed to overthrow him. This also proved abortive, and
affairs rapidly tended to revert to the ex-lex situation. On the 23rd of December
Dr Lukács was again sent for. On the previous day the Hungarian parliament had adopted a
proposal in favour of an address to the crown asking for a separate state bank. Against
this Dr Wekerle had protested, as opposed to general Hungarian opinion and ruinous to the
national credit, pointing out that whenever it was a question of raising a loan, the
maintenance of the financial community between Hungary and Austria was always postulated
as a preliminary condition. Point was given to this argument by the fact that the premier
had just concluded the preliminaries for the negotiation of a loan of £20,000,000 in
France, and that the money - which could not be raised in the Austrian market, already
glutted with Hungarian securities - was urgently needed to pay for the Hungarian share in
the expenses of the annexation policy, for public works (notably the new railway scheme),
and for the redemption in 1910 of treasury bonds. It was hoped that, in the circumstances,
Dr Lukács, a financier of experience, might be able to come to terms with Mr de Justh, on
the basis of dropping the bank question for the time, or, failing that, to patch together
out of the rival parties some sort of a working majority.
On the 28th the Hungarian parliament adjourned sine die,
pending the settlement of the crisis, without having voted the estimates for 1910, and
without there being any prospect of a meeting of the delegations. On the two following
days Dr Lukács and Mr de Justh had audiences of the king, but without result; and on the
31st Hungary once more entered on a period of extra-constitutional government, After much
negotiation a new cabinet was finally constituted on the 17th of January 1910. At its head
was Count Khuen Héderváry, who, in addition to the premiership, was minister of the
interior, minister for Croatia, and minister in waiting on the crown. Other
¹ The People's party first emerged during the elections of
1896, when it contested 98 seats. Its object was to resist the anti-clerical tendencies of
the Liberals, and for this purpose it appealed to the "nationalities"against the
dominant Magyar parties, the due enforcement of the Law of Equal Rights of Nationalities
(1868) forming a main item of its programme. Its leader, Count Ziely, in a speech of Jan.
1, 1 897, declared it to be neither national, nor Liberal, nor Christian to oppress the
nationalities. See Seton-Watson, p. 185.
ministers were Mr Károly de Hieronymi (commerce) Dr Lukács
(finance), Ferencz de Székely (justice, education, public worship), Béla Serenyi
(agriculture) and General Hazay (national defence). The two main items in the published
programme of the new government were the introduction of universal suffrage and - even
more revolutionary from the Magyar point of view - the substitution of state-appointed for
elected offficlals in the counties. The real programme was to secure, by hook or by crook,
a majority at the polls. Meanwhile, the immediate necessities of the government were
provided for by the issue through Messrs Rothschild of £2,000,000 fresh treasury bills.
These were to be redeemed in December 1910, together with the £9,000,000 worth issued in
1909, out of the £20,000,000 loan agreed on in principle with the French government; but
in view of the opposition in Paris to the idea of advancing money to a member of the
Triple Alliance, it was doubtful whether the loan would ever be floated.
The overwhelming victory of the government in June at the polls
produced a lull in a crisis which at the beginning of the year had threatened the
stability of the Dual Monarchy and the peace of Europe; but, in view of the methods by
which the victory had been won not the most sanguine could assert that the crisis was
overpassed. Its deep underlying causes can only be understood in the light of the whole of
Hungarian history. It is easy to denounce the dominant Magyar classes as a selfish
oligarchy, and to criticize the methods by which they have sought to maintain their power.
But a nation that for a thousand years had maintained its individuality in the midst of
hostile and rival races could not be expected to allow itself without a struggle to be
sacrificed to the force of mere numbers and the less so if it were justified in its claim
that it stood for a higher ideal of culture and civilization. The Magyars had certainly
done much to justify their claim to a special measure of enlightenment. In their efforts
to establish Hungarian independence on the firm basis of national efficiency they had
succeeded in changing their country from one of very backward economic conditions into one
which promised to be in a position to hold its own on equal terms with any in the world.
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