hitherto been the leader and declared that he would not actively oppose the Government. On the following day 24 members of the Constitutional party joined the supporters of the Govern- ment. Under the leadership of Count Stephen Tisza, on Feb. 19 1910, the National Party of Work (Nemzeti munkapart) was formed as the direct successor of the Liberal party established in 1875 by Coloman Tisza. There followed scenes of extraor- dinary violence provoked by the Opposition in Parliament, which was dissolved before its time by a speech from the throne on March 22. In the general election that followed in June Count Khuen-Hedervary was surprisingly successful; for of the 413 members returned 255 belonged to the party of the Govern- ment. The parties of Justh and Francis Kossuth were wiped out the parties which aimed at bringing the army under parlia- mentary authority, which were working for the separation of Hungary from Austria, and whose programme included the establishment of an independent Hungarian Bank. Fresh life was put into the party of 1867 which for decades had determined the fate of Hungary.
The speech from the throne, with which the new Parliament was opened on July 25, proclaimed as one of the most urgent tasks it would have to face the reform of the franchise in such a way as to safeguard the uniform national character and the democratic development of the State. In the debate on the address the prime minister defended himself against the charge that he was pursuing a policy of abnegation, and that he was attempting to restore the disturbed harmony between the King and the nation by the surrender of all national aims. At the same time he announced that it would be necessary to increase the Hungarian army in proportion to those of the Great Powers. In Nov. the civil code was finally adopted. On Dec. i the Minister of Finance laid before Parliament a convention for the extension of the privilege of the Bank, which lapsed on Dec. 31 1910, and on the resumption of payment in specie. On Dec. 13 Parliament adopted by a large majority the provisional budget, up to April i IQII. In general it can be said of the year 1910 that it was for Hungary a year of gradual internal consolidation. That the project of raising in March a loan of 560,000,000 kr. in Paris broke down was due to political reasons, since there was an objection there to lending money to a member of the Triple Alliance. But, after the signature of the commercial treaty with Serbia on Jan. 10 1911, a loan floated on the German money market (Jan. 13) met with immense success. It may be reckoned as a result of the promises made in the speech from the throne in 1910 that on May 2, at Bonyhad, a general meeting of the Hungarian Peasants' League, which was attended by 6,000 small cultivators from 181 communes, passed a resolution pledging support to any political movement aiming at securing universal, equal and secret suffrage.
After several days of obstruction Parliament began to debate the question of the reform of the defence force, which was met by the party of Kossuth and Justh and by the People's party by obstructive tactics carried to an extreme of technical perfec- tion. This obstruction, which lasted for several months, led on Nov. 3 to the resignation of the president of the House of Deputies, Albert von Berzeviczy, who had been severely criti- cized for his mild interpretation of the rules of the House, the vice-president, Navay, being elected in his stead. On Nov. 8 the Opposition, under Count Julius Andrassy, declared itself ready to discuss the budget for 191 2, to drop its technical obstruc- tion of the Defence bill, and to debate it on two days a week during the discussion of the budget. The estimated expenditure under the budget for 1912 was increased from 1,706,544,999 kr. to 1,852,747,661 kr., the latter sum being the estimated receipts.
The effect of the alliance with Germany was illustrated during the year 1911 by the introduction of the German language as a compulsory subject in the teachers' training colleges, a rule which came into effect on Sept. i. In view of the outbreak of the war between Turkey and Italy, Count Apponyi, on Oct. n, interpellated the prime minister as to the attitude of Austria- Hungary, urging the duty of the neutral Powers to offer their mediation under the Hague conventions of 1899 and 1907; and
at the meeting of the Hungarian Delegation on Dec. 29 he pro- posed that Hungarian public opinion should make it clear that the preservation of peace was the loadstar of Hungary's policy, and should declare itself, from this point of view, unalterably attached to the tried principles of Hungary's traditional for- eign policy. The internal situation, however, gave little prom- ise of peace. The hostile attitude of Croatia had, so early as Feb. 1911, given rise to stormy scenes in the Hungarian Parlia- ment. On Feb. 6 the deputy Polonyi accused Dr. Tomacic, the Ban of Croatia, of making unconstitutional statements to the Croatian Diet as part of a deliberate policy. At Agram, from Aug. 12 to 16, there was held a great Pan-Slav gymnastic festival, which was attended by over 5,000 members of Sokols from Austria-Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, Russia and America. On Nov. 7 the Croatian Diet was dissolved by royal rescript, on the ground that it had not fulfilled the expectations with which it had been summoned, and that no further fruitful activity was to be expected of it. The Hungarian press fulminated against the administrative methods of the Ban, whom it accused of introducing into Croatia a reign of terror prejudicial to the good name of Hungary. At the new elections to the Diet 67 mem- bers were returned by the five groups of the Opposition, 27 by the party attached to the Government. The anti-Magyar party of the Right increased its representation from 14 to 25.
The Army Question. At the outset of the year 1912 it seemed as though a peaceful atmosphere would prevail in Parliament. On Jan. 22 Count Apponyi announced the conditions on which the Kossuth party would sever its connexion with the Opposi- tion, viz. (i) settlement of the question of flags and military emblems in accordance with the rights of Hungary as a State; (2) expunging from the military penal code of all regulations connected with the use of the German language; (3) redrafting of the individual paragraphs of the Defence bill; (4) an interpre- tation of Article 18 of the law of 1888 concerning the calling-up of the reserves and special reserves (Ersatz-Reservisten). In view of the perilous situation in the Balkans, Count Andrassy urgently appealed to the majority of the House and to the Opposition not to drive matters in connexion with the Defence bill to extremes and urged the Government to accept Apponyi's four points. Of these the most contentious was the article of the law of 1888, to which par. 43 of the Defence bill referred. The Kossuth party demanded pledges from the Crown that, in the event of its again finding itself, as in 1905, faced with a hostile majority in Parliament, it would not have recourse to a prorogation and to the expedient of meeting the refusal to vote the quota of recruits by calling the reserves and special reserves to the colours. The Opposition saw in Article 18 of the law of 1888 a handle for the Crown to nullify the right of Parliament to vote the annual quota of recruits, and for this reason wished to introduce into the new Defence bill specific provisions making such a course impossible. The prime minister took up the posi- tion that in this matter the Government and the Opposition were of one opinion, and it was therefore decided that the Party of Work should propose a resolution calculated to placate the Kossuth party. But this was not the opinion of the heir to the throne, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, nor of the Austro- Hungarian Minister of War, Ritter von Auffenberg, who saw in this an infringement of the rights of the Crown. The King- Emperor himself shared this view, and the situation became so strained that a crisis involving the whole State was expected. Francis Joseph, in an interview with Count Khuen-Hedervary, declared that he would rather abdicate than submit to the pro- posed resolution. The only way to avoid the disastrous shock which the carrying-out of this resolve would infallibly have caused seemed to the prime minister to be that he himself should resign. On March 7, accordingly, he handed in his resignation, which was not, however, accepted. On March 30 Francis Joseph addressed to him an autograph letter, in which he expressed his deep regret at the differences of opinion which existed as to the rights of the Crown. It was far from his inten- tion to dispute the constitutional powers of the nation, of which the right to vote the quota of recruits was one. But he, too, as
