ing it, in opposition to the Hungarian nation. In contrast to
the majority of western European states Hungary has suffered
from the lack of uniformity of language. The existence of a
population speaking different tongues was due to several
causes. The wars of the Magyars against invading enemies,
which were continued through many centuries, caused heavy
losses which could only be made up by the immigration of for-
eign settlers, who poured in in vast, ever-renewed numbers;
and the admixture of languages due to this cause was increased
by the Rascians, Serbs and a number of Wallachians, who fled
from the Turks into Hungary, where they were hospitably re-
ceived. There was no possibility of any fusion of these alien
elements with the national Magyar stock, and the Magyar race
showed no desire for such assimilation, regarding the matter
with complete indifference. Indeed, so far from the Hungarians
making any attempt to Magyarize their country, they were
themselves in danger of Germanization, first under Joseph II.
(1780-90) and later, after the national uprising of 1848-9, under
the regime of the minister Bach. This danger was averted by
the war of 1866 and the Ausgleich with Austria that followed.
By the law of 1868 all citizens of the State domiciled in Hungary
constituted, in the political sense, the indivisible, uniform Hun-
garian nation, of which all were members with equal rights,
regardless of their nationality. Before the World War the
Magyars numbered 10 millions in the whole of the kingdom of
Hungary, constituting the majority of the population and there-
fore, in accordance with the Law of Nationalities of 1868, Hun-
garian (Magyar) was established as the official language for all,
just as Latin had been in the days of the old Diet. When the
elder Count Julius Andrassy was Minister-President, and under
his immediate successors, who clung closely to this law, there
was no Nationalist party and therefore no Nationalist question.
The latter did not arise till after 1875, when Koloman Tisza,
and still more Baron Banffy, deviated from the Law of Nation-
alities and initiated a more chauvinistic Hungarian policy. This
was, doubtless, a political mistake. Equally impolitic was the
attempt in 1907 of Francis Kossuth, the Minister of Commerce,
to make Hungarian the official language of the Croatian rail-
ways, and the action in 1909 of Count Apponyi, Minister of
Education, in ordering the Magyar tongue to be used for reli-
gious instruction in the Ruman State schools. None of these
efforts succeeded, and their only result was to create bad blood
and to rouse complaints of oppression and persecution which
found a sympathetic hearing abroad.
In spite of these specific grievances, which in any case were much exaggerated, all citizens of the Hungarian State, whatever their race or language, were guaranteed the full exercise of all their civic rights. Under the agreement of 1868 Croatia enjoyed full autonomy, with Croatian as its official language. It was to all intents and purposes independent, limited only, in the same way as Hungary, through the common army and common representation in the Delegations. The nationalities speaking languages other than Magyar had the right to build and main- tain schools, and themselves to determine the language of instruc- tion subject to the State language finding its proper place in the curriculum. In the school year 1912-3 there were 447 Ger- man, 377 Slovak, 2,233 Rumanian, 59 Ruthenian, 270 Croatian or Serbian elementary schools (not counting those in Croatia and Slavonia), which together made up one-fifth of all the ele- mentary schools in Hungary. These Nationalist schools re- ceived a State subvention of nearly 14 million kronen. The prelates, both of the Greek-Uniate and the Greek Non-uniate confessions metropolitans, archbishops and bishops had by the end of the I7th and the beginning of the i8th century a seat in the Hungarian Upper House, as, for example, the Metro- politan of Karlowitz, the Rumanian Archbishop of Balazsfalva (Blasendorf) and the Rumanian Bishop of Nagyvarad (Gross- wardein). On the other hand the prelates of the Protestant Church, which was wholly Magyar, only entered the Upper House 1 20 years later.
The nationalities had full freedom in the domain of the Church. At ecclesiastical functions, Rumanian was spoken exclusively
in 3,322 parishes, Slovak in 1,029, German in 937 and other foreign languages in 832. It is significant, too, that between 1908-13 the Rumanians in Transylvania were able to acquire land to a value of 60 million kr. at the expense of the Hungarian population. The monetary institutions of the foreign nation- alities were equally flourishing. A contrast is marked by the fact that the " Rumanian League of Culture " in Bucharest on March 28 1914 referred to the Rumanians in Transylvania as " oppressed brothers beyond the Carpathians," whose only hope, according to a resolution of 1913, lay in revolution. In Rumania, however, the domiciled Hungarians were permitted neither education nor religious service in their own tongue. The intercourse between Magyars and Slovaks furnishes an example of complete harmony. While the latter became Ger- mans in Silesia and Czechs in Moravia, they were enabled to preserve their nationah'ty intact in Hungary. The famous Cardinal Peter Pazman (1570-1637), the father of Hungarian prose, saw to it that, as early as the i7th century, they could hear sermons in their own tongue at the church of Nagysombat (Tirmau). This harmony was not disturbed till it was pre- tended that the Hungarian Slovaks were lineal descendants of Svatopluk (d. 894); and a Slovak Protestant clergyman, who was entirely ignorant of history from the loth to the I3th cen- tury, declared in 1821 : " We, the Slovaks, are the heirs of this land, and the Hungarians mere foreigners." It can truly be said that the Magyars of pre-war Hungary knew of no national or religious differences, and, just as in 1848 the Magyar, Ger- man, Slovak and Rumanian serfs were all liberated at the same time and given the full exercise of political privileges, so after 1867 there was complete equality and freedom in religion and language. But the principle of State unity was strictly main- tained, though efforts to undermine it were made in Croatia and the southern Slavonic districts, where the formation of a separate uniform Slav State was aimed at. This aspiration found its first expression in the Fiume resolution of 1006 which proclaimed the realization of the union of the Croats, Serbs and Southern Slavs. In 1916 the union of Croatia, Slavonia and Dalmatia with Bosnia and Herzegovina was demanded. Inspired by the idea of nationality which had developed during the igth century some of the Rumans in Hungary also wished for union with the kingdom of Rumania. So long as the monarchy existed in its entirety such agitations had, of course, to be conducted in secret. The Slovaks rejected all the blan- dishments of the Czechs.
Many notable Hungarian politicians were in favour of an extremely liberal treatment of the non-Magyar population of Hungary. But, like Baron Joseph Eotvos, they dismissed the idea of national divisions by purely ethnographical districts, on the ground that this must lead to the dissolution of the State. On the other hand Hungarian politicians did not wish the other nationalities to feel themselves stepchildren on the soil of Hun- gary. In conformity with their whole trend of thought, it was their ambition that their nation, through its ethical and political hegemony, should prove the centre of attraction to the subject nationalities. But they always maintained, as Count Stephen Tisza declared on Jan. 24 1917, that in districts where different races and nationalities were intermingled it was impossible for each individual race to form a national State. That race must be in the ascendent, and give the impress of its character to the State, which preponderated in numbers and culture.
Economics. Hungary, with its area of 324,851 sq. km. and pop. of 20,886,000 (according to the 1910 census), is economically one of nature's most favoured lands. As a patriotic Hungarian poet has said: "Were the earth God's hat, then Hungary would be the wreath that decked it." It is above all an agricultural country; it possesses valuable forest land and rich plains irrigated by great rivers, where the harvests are usually plentiful. A great step in the development of agriculture had been taken, when in 1848 the peasant became the free owner of his land. Under the influence of the defeat of 1849 the effects of this advance were lost, and progress remained at a standstill until after the Ausgleich with Austria in 1867, when a new period of economic prosperity set in. Among every 100 indus- trial workers 69 were employed in agriculture, which was conducted principally on extensive estates. Forestry occupies an important
