THE ENGLISH CONSERVATIVES' ADVICE TO HUNGARY.
WHILE some sections of the English press are lecturing the Hungarians on the duty of accepting the consti- tutional boon now offered by Austria instead of her historical inheritance of freedom, it is not a little remarkable that those provinces of Austria which were most eager to aid the imperial conspiracy against Hungary in 1848-9, are now as confirmed as Hungary itself in their determination to re- sist the centralization forced upon them. Jellachich, Vice- Ban of Croatia, and brother of the famous Ban who, with his Croats, saved the Austrian empire from destruction in 1849, has publicly asserted in the Croatian Diet that he would rather be under the Turks than under the absolutism of civilized nations, and for that speech he has been removed from his post and ordered to take up his residence iu the heart of Bohemia. Croatia is heart and soul united against Austria. The military border colonies are not less disaffected, and a colonel in the army bas just been cashiered for merely signing the petition of these colonies to be put tinder civil instead of military rule. The representative committee of the county of Pesth has been dissolved for adhering to the protest of the Diet, and three of the committee have been indicted for high treason, among them Count Carolyi. Of course, feeling is running higher than ever against Austria among all the outstanding nationalities. The ten years of military despotism have only ended in alienating the na- tionalities which before were loyal, and uniting in a perfect unanimity of hostility the nationalities in which parties were before strongly divided. If Hungary were again able to break into rebellion, she would be more likely to have a Jellachich leading her armies than leading the armies of the Aus- trian conquerors. And yet, in spite of all this evidence that • Austria is less trusted than ever by her subject nationalities, the English Conservatives cry out that the debate which is now going on in the Austrian Parliament sufficiently proves the guilty obstinacy of the Hungarians in not availing themselves gratefully of the new constitution, and occupy- ing the benches of the Opposition along with the Poles and the Bohemians. The truth no doubt is, that but .for the gloomy attitude of the Croats and the Hungarians, the Poles and Czechs who have been permitted to speak out boldly in Vienna on the Hungarian question, would never have been permitted to do so at all. With such acts as the Austrian Government is now guilty of in Hungary and Croatia before their eyes, the diets of those provinces would have been mad to have accepted, on the faith of the Austrian Government, a constitution which in itself they thought less desirable, less permanently tenable, than the old one. They see a Carolyi impeached for using language in Pestli which is little if any stronger than the language used by the Polish deputies at Vienna. They see a Jella- chich—notwithstanding all the services that his family has rendered to the empire—punished by banishment, for lan- guage which, however unparliamentary, certainly implies no treasonable intention. And .yet they are exhorted to profit by the spectacle of a discussion freely conducted at Vienna by Poles and Bohemians on their behalf, and to infer that they might have effected yet more for themselves, had they been pliant enough to accept the Emperor's overtures. They may very well reply that it is only their resolute attitude which obtains for the opposition speakers iu the Reichs- rath this much boasted freedom of speech. Seeing that within their own territories, fellow-countrymen are se- verely punished for using an exactly similar freedom, it is easy to infer that the complaisance • practised at Vienna is only a concession made to retain the least dis- affected nationalities, lest the German deputies be left alone to represent the whole Austrian empire. Indeed, it is stated as a matter of fact that the Poles and Czechs had given fair notice to the President of the Reichsrath that if they were not permitted to speak their mind freely they would leave the Assembly in a body ; and whether this be so or not, there can be no doubt that the desire to retain the Gal- lician and Bohemian deputies would act very strongly on the Ministry, even at the very time when they were using all their powers to " conciliate" by persecution the refrac- tory leaders of Hungary and Croatia. If the Ministry of Austria were really inaugurating an era of genuine constitu- tional freedom, Hungary could not be expected as yet to feel any conviction on the subject ; and when she sees that in Hungary and Croatia at least, the simplest assertion of political distrust in the Government is summarily punished, she has the very strongest ground for disbelieving in the sincerity of the new regime. In the Vienna debate the sturdy speeches of the Poles and Czechs have elicited the explicit avowal from Baron Schmerling that Austria is treating Hungary, not as country with a constitutional history and rights, but as a conquered land, whose only political rights are boons of im. perial grace and date from the diplomas of October and Fe- bruary last. There is no longer the slightest affectation of any other position. All the historical claims of Hungary were wiped out by the revolution. " I admit that a country such as Hungary, which has for centuries, and still longer, enjoyed a political constitutional existence, must strongly regret the absence of it ; but we must, nevertheless, agree that if the Austrian Government has, on the one hand, sup- pressed liberty in Hungary, it has, on the other, done much for the welfare of the country. Gentlemen, the deputy Smolka says, that in order to come to an understanding with Hungary we must concede without reserve to that country the position in which it stood in 1848, must com- plete the Hungarian Diet, and wait to see what portion of its constitutional prerogatives that Diet will voluntarily sacrifice to the central constitution. I, however, confess, gentlemen, that I should hesitate greatly to employ that plan. I say that the man who is in possession of his house is httppy, and that no one has ever been advised to give up possession so long as he could maintain it. I affirm that a general would be blamed by all soldiers if he were to abandon an excellent position with the prospect of being obliged to retake it the next day at perhaps the cost of 10,000 dead ; he would do better to remain in the position, and to incur the risk of being attacked and expelled. Such is the point of view which the Austrian Government adopts, and must adopt ; and the Government will not abandon it voluntarily to obtain perhaps part of its prerogatives as a concession and the gift of the Hungarian Diet." The Hungarians, then, may be glad of what they can get, and grateful if any liberties of any kind are accorded to them. Now is it really possible that any Englishman, however conservative, can find fault with the Hungarians for not ac- cepting the assumption that the revolution has cancelled all the constitutional history of the previous centuries—that the gross and unconstitutional Austrian oppression which caused that revolution is to be rewarded by a remission of all the pledges which the Crown had given to the people, while the act of self-defence itself is to be punished by the loss of all the rights which the people had wrung out of the Crown ? Had Charles II. on his restoration proposed to make a clean sweep of the English Constitution, on the ground that it was forfeited by the rebellion, and to accord such new liberties to England as he chose to think compatible with his dynastic safety, in its place, we do not think we should have much re- spected any exhortations to be grateful for such generosity. The truth is that the only possible pacific end to a conflict like the present is for both sides to go back to the constitutional era preceding the revolution, and to begin again from the last acts which were freely sanctioned by both parties in the struggle. This is all the Hungarians require. " Give us," they say, " the constitutional laws which received the Emperor's sanction in 1848, and we will overlook all subse- quent oppression on your part, in consideration of your overlooking all subsequent rebellion on ours." Nothing can be fairer than such a request. To inaugurate an untried Austrian Constitution by a deliberate insult to the only tried and historical Hungarian Constitution, is a policy so insane towards Hungary that we can scarcely comprehend how any English voices can speak a single word in approval. But it is said that it is merely childish to quarrel about the form, in case Hungary can secure the substance. Sup- pose her ancient constitution is violated, suppose the. newone is based on royal favour and nothing better,—still, if it is enough to guarantee a substantial liberty, no more can be asked or desired. Now this, of course, assumes the only point the Hungarians care about. is this new-fangled central constitution certain to secure .them substantial liberty ? Is there any reliable honesty of purpose in the Emperor's offer ? Suppose, to take the most obvious case, that Baron Schmerling were defeated in the Assembly by a union of Hungarian and Polish deputies, what would the Emperor do.? Would he summon an Hungarian and Polish Ministry for the whole empire, and be guided by their advice ? Does any rational being believe this for a moment ? And if he did not, what policy could ho pursue, except the old one of dissolving the Reichsrath, and not summoning any suc- cessor ? If on the other hand he refused to accept a Ministry imposed on him by an Hungarian and Polish majority, what have the Hungarians gained by this foolish concession, except the loss of their old intelligible, historical rights ? And let it be remembered that the position is not a new one. This is not the first time that a Viennese assembly has affected to represent the empire. It is not even the first time that Baron Schmerling has been in the confidence of his sovereign. Neither the previous essay at Austrian con- stitutionalism, nor the previous services of Baron Schmerling, are in any degree calculated to reassure the Hungarians. The former Assembly would not work, and was speedily dis- pensed with ; and such, we fear, will be the fate of this. We do not doubt Baron Schmerling's personal intention to govern constitutionally in German Austria. But what security is there that Baron Schmerling will continue to govern at all as soon as it seems evident that the Austrian Parliament is not willing to be guided by German Austria ? And even while he remains in power, the Hungarians have little reason to anticipate any tenderness for Hungarian freedom. Not only is he now adopting a tyrannical policy in Hungary, but his antecedents are bad. He was in the Austrian ministry between April 1849 and 1851, and during the whole cata- strophe of the Hungarian revolution. He was, if we mistake not, the Minister of Justice at Vienna at the time the sentence of death by the halter was passed on Count Louis Bathyany and the other Hungarian patriots, and executed on all those of them who did not escape their fate by suicide. It is not to his Ministry, therefore, that the Hungarians are likely to look with any favour. He is of the straitest of the sect of Germanizing Liberals, who in the pride of their book-culture despise the severe political virtues of the comparatively bar- barous dependencies. We must say that far from regarding the Hungarian attitudewith disapproval, we should consider it one of the greatest political derelictions of modern times if Deak and his followers had abandoned their historical rights for the delusive offer of the Emperor, without some far stronger guarantee than any we are able to imagine, for such a work- ing of the constitutional principle as would have ensured the Hungarians and Poles the means of directing the central Government at Vienna whenever they might be dissatisfied with M. von Schmerling's administration. And no politi- cian in his senses believes that the Emperor really intended any concession of such a nature.
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