THE KING OF HUNGARY.
rr HE attempt of the Emperor of Austria to conciliate his 1 Hungarian subjects will, we fear, fail. We say fear, for just at this moment the weakness of Austria is injurious to Europe, as encouraging the Prussian Court to annul the Constitution. With Austria strong and united, King William would be compelled either to give up his ascendency in Germany or to fall back for support upon his Parliament and people, to concede to the Chamber finally the control of the budget, and thus set the example so greatly needed upon the Continent of a monarch after a desperate struggle yielding to a Chamber which has never quitted its legal base, and which when victorious is still not republican. The Kaiser is thoroughly aware of the position, and, personally not indisposed to the Hungarians, would gladly find air accept- able way out of the dilemma, but the problem is 'almost insoluble. He has gained one or two steps, but the great obstacle, the radical antagonism in the objects of the two great nations he rules, remains as insurmountable as ever. His visit to Pesth has pleased the populace, and his offer to submit to coronation as king,—thus giving up the theory that " Austzia " is an estate, one and indivisible, devolving by hereditary right,—bas conciliated politicians, but upon the main point Hungary stands firm. Her 'constitution is legal spite of all patents, and consequently submission to a common Parliament can be secured only by a vote of the Diet, which the Diet will never pass. The majority, taking their stand upon strict legal ground, are of course willing to make all legal concessions, to leave the control of foreign affairs to the King, to supply him with an army the strength of which the Diet will fix, and to support his prerogative in all ecclesiastical affairs. But the Diet is to control the budget, and all measures of finance and taxation, and this control leaves the pivot of Hungarian power still in Hungary. Even the Conservatives; 'though willing to re- model the constitution of 1848 in 'the Conservative sense,' to increase the prerogatives of the monarch and limit the suffrages of the people, still adhere to this cardinal point. This is the one which the Emperor finds it hard to grant,— so hard that probably nothing short of an irresistible pressure will compel him to give way. Left to himself'he would, it is possible, act wisely, form. a Parliament with limited but still great prerogatives for Austria, including Bohemia, acknow- ledge the Hungarian Diet, and then leave the two Parlia- ments to come in the course of years to some endurable compromise, or eventually to an equal alliance. But this arrangement, which would make him at once the most power- ful military prince in Europe, destroys the theory of an united Empire, the hereditary object of the Hapsburgs, resolving it once more into a congeries of independent and separate States. If the authority of the Reichsrath is not universal, why should it cover any but the German possessions of the monarchy,—why include Venetia or Galicia any more than Hungary ? Each has its separate rights, and in acknow- ledging them the ascendency of the German section would be at'once destroyed. This is what the Germans cannot endure, and will not, except upon compulsion, grant. Hungary and the border provinces have been to them as colonies, which. they have supplied with everything, from governors to calico and rails, and they cannot bear to surrender a prerogative which they believe, justly in the case of Galicia and the Slavon provinces, with only partial justice in the case of Hungary, and most unjustly in the case of Venetia, belongs as of moral right to their higher civilization. They feel as George III. and the merchants of London felt about the Plantations "—that they have a right to rale, and make- tariffs, and tax at their own discretion. Unfortunately the Emperor cannot disregard their convictions, as he can those of his remaining subjects. Not to mention that the Ger- mans, being sincerely attached to his House,—which with all its crimes has governed the hereditary States in such wise that the Austrian commonalty is probably the most loyal in the world,—are the very buttresses of his throne, they are backed by forty millions of allies. The Austrian- Germans have never been ardent for an United Germany,. but they sent deputies to Frankfort in 1848, and any shock to their pride or, if you will, to their arrogance, would induce- them ,to turn their eyes towards a project which the Kaisers view with equal alarm and disgust. The Hapsburgs do not want the task of rearing a great Danubian 'Empire, a bulwark between Russia and the East, kit' -tebe great German Sovereigns, foremost among the Princes of the West, heads it. may be ultimately of the irresistible German Power. Herr von Bismark's scornful advice to them to make Buda the centre of gravity for the Empire is still recalled as an insult, and they would probably regard the most natural division of Europe into the four Empires of France, Germany; Russia, and the Danube as one to be resisted to the death. Yet this is the goal towards which events must tend if the German element- in Austria is disregarded or deprived of its ascendency, and it. is the resistance to this tendency which will, we fear, keep Austria and Hungary apart. If the Diet is independent and the Reichsrath exists, the German element must be isolated in the Empire, and isolated, it will tarn towards the race to which it naturally belongs.
There is one other alternative, and that is the one to which the Hapsburgs, unable to surrender their ideal or to face their position without surrendering it,"have time after time been driven. There is one common bond among all the States of the Empire which no one attempts to question, and that is the authority of the Emperor. The exaggeration of that authority is therefore the device by which inter-State difficulties have hitherto been met, and 'to which the present Severeign will, if hard pressed, be tempted to have recourse once more. The Conservatives" in Hungary, the reactionaries in Germany, the army everywhere will support this course, which hits this further recommendation, that though it obliterates none of the internal divisions it makes them for the 'time invisible. The Reichsrath has as yet but a feeble' hold on the country, the Diet is suspended, and may for the time remain so,' while the Emperor, almost as strong as a central Parliament, legis- lates for the whole country. The obstacle to that course is finance, but the Emperor has raised money before without a Parliament, and were the Reichsrath absent would possess himself of the great revenue to be derived from a policy of free trade. Immediately'he will doubtless try to conciliate, and see how far it may be possible to bring Diet and Reichs- rath into something approaching harmeny, but we greatly fear, unless the Hungarians can content 'themselves with equality in the Central Chamber, and a proviso that if that Chamber is interfered with, their own Constitution shall revive in all its separate plenitude, the end of the negotiations will be one more experiment at autocracy, one more effort, that is, to turn back the shadow on the dial.
Previous page
