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.[1] 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 Débats (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 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 The crisis, 1909–1910. 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 Demand for separate Hungarian Bank. 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 it revealed also something more—the determination of the emperor Francis Joseph, if 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 Lukacs, 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 Lukacs 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 hands of the extremists; for supplies had not been voted, and the question of the credits for the expenditure incurred in connexion 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 party[2] and the Independence party, on a basis of suffrage reform with plural franchise, the
- ↑ The Times, September 27, 1908.
- ↑ 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 Zichy, in a speech of Jan. 1, 1897, declared it to be neither national, nor Liberal, nor Christian to oppress the nationalities. See Seton-Watson, p. 185.
