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CHAPTER XV

The Persecution of the Non-Magyar Press

"Against arbitrary action as such, men feel no antipathy ; but what disgusts, enrages, embitters them is that duplicity by which they are told, ' You have Liberty of the Press,' and it is not true ; ' You are subject only to the law,' and it is not so ; ' Your nationality is not endangered,' and it is a lie. . . . Such trickery infects even the mildest blood with poisonous venom."

széchenyi, Ein Blick auf den anonymen Rückblick (p. 39).

PRESS freedom in the proper sense of the word cannot be said to exist in Hungary — or rather it exists for the Magyars alone of all the races of the country,[1] and even then only for those Magyars who refrain from espousing the cause of the downtrodden proletariat, and who in their criticisms of the present reactionary régime succeed in evading the ever-watchful Public Prosecutor. The law which regulates Press affairs dates from 1848 and was drawn up amid the enthusiasm and excite­ment kindled by the news from Paris. In its own day it was a genuinely liberal measure and represented a decided advance upon previous practice ; but it has long ago become antiquated, and now stands in urgent need of revision. More than one of its clauses shows that its authors sympathized with Wilkes and Június, but recent Governments have none the less found it possible to interpret its phraseology in a highly reactionary sense.

The Press Law of 1848 (Article XVIII.) finally abolishes the preventive censorship and secures to every one the right to com­municate and spread his thoughts freely through the medium of the Press. This phrase expressly includes all printed litera­ture, engravings or prints produced either for sale or for distri­bution. Leaving aside the provisions which deal with libel and with incitement to crime or to breach of the peace, we find that the restrictions imposed upon liberty of the Press in political questions are contained in paragraphs 6 to 8. Press attacks on the dynasty and its members are punishable with imprisonment up to six years and a maximal fine of 6,000 crowns ; and this formed the ground on which Mr. Polónyi was being prosecuted at the very moment when he was admitted to the Coalition Cabinet as Minister of Justice. He who through the Press incites (a) to the dissolution of the territorial unity of the State or of the dynastic link with Austria, (b) to the forcible alteration of the Constitution, (c) to disobedience against the lawful authorities, and (d) to the commission of crime, is liable to imprisonment up to four years and a maximal fine of 4,000 crowns. Special Jury Courts are erected for the trial of all Press offences.

These provisions, if strictly applied, would seem to offer little opportunity for the oppression of the nationalities ; but they have been effectively reinforced by subsequent legislation. The new Criminal Code which became law in 1878, contains specially stringent provisions (§§ 170-4) against political offenders.

(1) Instigation to the committal of any offence, whether by words in a public assembly, or by the dissemination or public display of printed matter or pictures, is punish­able by two years' imprisonment and 4,000 crowns.

(2) Similar incitement to disobedience to the law or the lawful action of the authorities, " direct incitement of one class of the population, one nationality or religious denomination to hatred of another," and " incitement against the legal institutions of property and marriage " are punishable with two years' imprisonment and 2,000 crowns (§ 172).

(3) Instigation against the monarch and his succession, the Dual System, Constitution and Parliament, may be visited with five years' imprisonment (§ 173).

(4) Glorification of any action which has been punished as an offence under these three sections (laudatio criminis) makes its author liable to six months' imprisonment (§174).

As if such provisions did not confer sufficient powers upon the Court, the Curia has interpreted " direct incitement " under section 172 to mean " any spoken or written word, any action which is capable of producing in another hatred against a nationality, etc." Direct and indirect are thus made inter­changeable terms by the highest court in the land, and all criticism of the existing régime of course becomes a penal of­fence.

All this is merely part of a system for creating patriotism by Act of Parliament. What is known as " a tendency hostile to the State " is pursued with ruthless severity by the Magyar authorities. Law XXVI. of 1893, which specially enjoins the prosecution of primary schoolmasters for such a tendency, defines it to include " every action which is directed against the Constitution, the national character, unity, independence, and territorial integrity of the State, and against the use of the language of State as prescribed by law." This is at once so far-reaching and so evasive, that it affords unlimited scope for arbitrary sentences against all who decline to renounce their racial identity, and who dare to draw the all-important distinc­tion between " Hungarian " and " Magyar," a distinction which the language of State alone of all the languages spoken in Hungary is incapable of drawing. All such persons are with­out further ado branded as Panslavs or Irredentists, though this is in reality a mere tu quoque in the mouths of the Pan­Magyars, who naively admit that the language question can only be solved by force, and in the same breath assert that no­where in Europe is freedom so complete as in Hungary. The falsity of this last assertion may be gathered from the records of political trials for Press offences during the last quarter of a century.

Before, however, passing to a discussion of these trials, it is necessary to point out the exceptional position enjoyed by Transylvania in matters of the Press. Though Magyar states­men have for the last two generations laid repeated stress upon the need for political unity, and have on this ground justified the assimilation of Transylvania and the iniquitous treatment of the Saxon University, on the other hand they have not scrupled to uphold a special franchise and special Press laws for Transylvania, so contrived as to place the Magyar minority in a favoured position. A stringent Press Law had been promulgated for Transylvania in 1852 by the Absolutist Government in Vienna ; and the Constitutionalists who framed the Ausgleich of 1867 allowed this reactionary measure to remain in force, while reviving the more liberal law of 1848 for the benefit of the rest of the country. Hence in Transylvania the Public Prosecutor possesses special discretionary powers, of which he makes full use against the Roumanian Press ; and it is still possible to impose severe punishment for the spread, not only of confiscated pamphlets and other literature (as else­where in Hungary), but even of printed matter which had been allowed to pass unchallenged.

The composition of the special Jury Courts by which Press offences are tried, forms a still more serious grievance. Since no one with an income of less than 400 crowns can sit as jury­man, the non-Magyars are handicapped by their poverty, and the majority rests automatically in the hands of their enemies.[2] In 1871 three Press Jury Courts were erected in Transylvania by ministerial order — two in the Magyar towns of Kolozsvár (Klausenburg) and Maros-Vásárhely, and the third in Her­mannstadt. In the latter, however, the Saxon jurymen ac­quitted the non-Magyar editors whom the Government saw fit to bring before it for political articles ;' and consequently in 1885 the Jury Court of Hermannstadt was abolished — once more by ministerial order — and all cases which it would have decided fell under the jurisdiction of the Chauvinists of Ko­lozsvár. Similar drastic measures were not found necessary against the other Press Courts : for all save that of Hermann­stadt had from the first proved to be docile instruments of a tyrannous executive. Their entire proceedings were of course conducted in the Magyar language, and the natural result was that no one who was not entirely conversant with Magyar could be appointed as a juryman.

In other words, not merely are 40 per cent, of the population of Hungary disqualified from serving as jurymen in political trials, but the non-Magyars have almost invariably been tried by their bitterest political enemies, and the sentences have been notoriously coloured by the prevailing disease of Chauvinism. Little wonder that the committee of the Roumanian National Party, when tried collectively in 1894 for their political activity,[3] declined to defend themselves before a court com­posed of those against whom the incriminated petition had been directed. " Do not then ask us," they exclaimed with a defi­ance worthy of those Romans from whom they claim descent, "do not ask us to become the accomplices of this mock justice of yours."

A number of legal restrictions attend upon the foundation of a newspaper in Hungary. A declaration must be handed in to the local authorities, stating the place where it is to appear, and who are its proprietor, printer, and responsible editors ; and this must be communicated to the Minister of the Interior. It is no longer possible, as in the period preceding 1848, to withhold for years the permission to found a non-Magyar newspaper[4]; and the security cash deposit of 20,000 crowns which is required for every daily paper[5] naturally affects the entire Hungarian Press irrespective of lan­guage. None the less this weighs far more heavily upon the non-Magyars, not merely because they have so little spare capital at their back, but especially because fines imposed upon their newspapers can be deducted from the caution money and as publication can be at once stopped by the authorities if the deficiency is not speedily made good, it will be seen that this provision supplies the Government with a con­venient handle against the non-Magyar Press. It was doubtless this fact which suggested to Coloman Tisza the policy which was elaborated by Bánffy and brought to perfection by the present Coalition Government — the deliberate design namely of involving the Nationalist Press in chronic financial difficulties and if possible of reducing it to bankruptcy. And indeed the levy of countless fines for the most trivial Press offences would undoubtedly have produced the desired effect, but for timely financial support from abroad. Just as the Irish Party was financed from America, so the Roumanians of Hungary receive aid from their kinsmen in Roumania, the Serbs from Belgrad, the Slovaks from Bohemia and the United States. The Mag­yars, instead of treating this as natural and inevitable, indulge in wild charges of treason and bribery. The chief reason, how­ever, that the grapes are sour, is that the Magyars have no kinsmen of their own outside Hungary, from whom they could under any circumstances receive support, whether financial or military.

.. A copy of every newspaper must be deposited with the local authorities, signed by the responsible editor, under a penalty of 400 crowns. Advantage is taken of this and other trifling regulations, to worry the life of non-Magyar or Socialist editors by endless petty formalities and vexatious summonses and inquiries. Proceedings are instituted on the very flimsiest pretext, often without any intention beyond involving a "Panslav" or "Irredentist" editor alarm, expense or loss of time. Here again there are great differences between the different counties and municipalities ; but I am understating the facts when I say that it is the exception for the local authorities to treat the non-Magyar journalists with courtesy and common fairness.

Quite apart from continual press-actions, the non-Magyar Press is handicapped byj frequent confiscations of single num­bers of a newspaper. Not merely the regular political journals, but even the comic papers are confiscated, for a joke or carica­ture which is distasteful to the Government, or for a poem or folksong which seems calculated to kindle national sentiment. Such confiscations have been especially frequent since the Coalition Government came into power. In 1907 the Slovak weekly newspaper Ludové Noviny was confiscated no less than twenty times,[6] and more than one of the leading Slovak or Roumanian journals has frequently shared the same fate. The lengths to which this practice is carried may be gathered from an incident which occurred only last year. A people's Almanac edited by Dr. Paul Blaho, the Slovak member of Par­liament, was confiscated for reproducing an ancient folksong of the seventeenth century. This song, which sings the praises of Jánošík, the Johnnie Armstrong of Slovak popular tradi­tion, was regarded by the authorities as threatening the exist­ence of the Magyar national state.

Another not uncommon device for the annoyance of the non­Magyars is the withdrawal of the post-debit.[7] In the case of non-Magyar newspapers which are actually published in Hun­gary itself, this step is only resorted to occasionally and for brief periods, by way of a salutary warning. But all the Slovak newspapers published in the United States are under this ban, and quite a number of important Czech, Roumanian, Servian, and Russian papers have from time to time been subjected to the same indignity, on account of their articles in defence of the nationalities.

The severity of the laws as they stand in the statute book is of less importance than the manner in which they are inter­preted by the Courts : and here Hungary has an unique record in the matter of political persecution. I am fully aware of the serious nature of this charge, and I propose to prove it not by vague generalizations but by concrete examples — by passing in review a number of the press actions to which Slovak and Roumanian journalists have been subjected during the past thirty years.

In May, 1886, Cornelius Pop-Pacurar was sentenced to a year's imprisonment for an article published in the Roumanian news­paper Tribuna, which contained the assertion : " this country belongs neither to the Magyars nor to the Roumanians, but is the common country of both.'' The article was really a polemic against a violent effusion of the Magyar paper Kolozsvári Közlöny, which had argued that the Hungarian State could never be anything but Magyar and could never make any con­cessions to the nationalities, since this would merely prove fatal to itself. Provoked by such sentiments, Pacurar had broken a lance against the Kossuth cult, and exclaimed, " The Magyar should not keep coming and telling us that this territory (i.e. Transylvania) is Magyar and only Magyar ; for they force the Roumanians to try to prove to them that it is Roumanian — or else a desert." Needless to say, the extreme provocation under which he had written was not taken into account, and no action was taken against the incendiary articles of the Magyar news­papers in Kolozsvár. Indeed, during the whole period succeed­ing the Ausgleich, not a single Magyar newspaper has ever been prosecuted for incitement against one of the other nationalities, though the whole press has re-echoed year in year out with the most libellous and venomous attacks upon the non-Magyars. To no people in Europe is the idea of fair play so alien as to the Magyars. A Magyar newspaper may with impunity express regret that the city gates are no longer receptacles for the head of traitors,[8] or describe flaying alive as suitable punishment for a Slovak patriot.[9] But if a non-Magyar journalist vents his wrath in unmeasured adjectives or lays unwelcome stress upon the polyglot nature of Hungary's population, he is haled with­out mercy before the courts and left in prison to repent his rashness.

In September, 1888, General Trajan Doda, M.P., was brought to trial for the address which he had issued to the electors of Karánsebes in October, 1887. In it he had accepted the man­date, but announced that he would not take his seat, in order to show to the sovereign and to the world at large " that there is something rotten in the State," and that the Roumanian people has been "by violence and intrigue ejected from all its positions in the constitutional struggle." It was not, he added, merely a vote in Parliament, but the national honour of the Roumanian people which was at stake. For this address, General Doda was sentenced to two years' imprisonment and a fine of 2,000 crowns ; as a fit of apoplexy prevented the old man from ap­pearing, the verdict was pronounced in his absence.[10] Joan Slavici, who had reproduced Doda's address in the Tribuna, and had commented on it as a sign of national awakening, was also sentenced in April, 1888, to a year's imprisonment and a fine of 200 crowns.

On September ir, 1890, John Macaveiu was brought to trial before the Court of Kolozsvár for two brilliant articles in the Tribuna,[11] criticising the idea of the Magyar state (a magyar állam eszme) as a monstrous and impossible dogma. The State, he argued, cannot belong to the Magyars alone, for it is not to them alone that it owes its existence. If the Magyars were to acquire a monopoly in the State, the Roumanians would be forced to regard themselves as subjects of another state, but "so long as our beloved monarch calls all nationalities under his sway ' my beloved peoples,' so long have we the right and duty to call ourselves his loyal subjects and not strangers." "Europe," he contended, "and Europe alone, is called upon to solve the future of this country." For this article Macaveiu was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment, and S. Albini, as responsible editor, to six months' common gaol ! Macaveiu returned from prison broken in health and died shortly after­wards.

In 1891, the students of Bucarest University published in several European languages a pamphlet describing the situation of their Roumanian kinsmen in Hungary. To this the Magyar students of Budapest and Kolozsvár published an answer purporting to refute the charges of oppression and intolerance. Hereupon the Roumanian students of the various Universities of Austria-Hungary in their turn entered the fray, and ap­pointed a committee out of their midst, to draw up and publish a counterblast to the Magyar pamphlet. This so-called "Replique" duly appeared at a printing press in Hermannstadt, was sent openly through the post and allowed by the public prose­cutor, who duly received a copy, to go unchallenged. After a whole year had elapsed, the "Replique" was confiscated by the authorities in Kolozsvár, and those who had helped to spread it were brought to trial for "incitement against the Magyar nationality" (which was, of course, treated as coincident with the "Hungarian nation"). The printer, Nicholas Roman, was sentenced to a year's imprisonment and 600 crowns, Aurel Popovici, a member of the students' committee, to four years' imprisonment and 1,000 crowns. Mr. Popovici, who evaded the execution of this sentence, is of course an exile from his native country, and has become one of the foremost advocates of a federalized Austria-Hungary. His book on "The United States of Great Austria," though marred by a very natural prejudice against the Magyars, shows wide reading and considerable political judgment, and the sensation which its publication caused in the spring of 1906, led to the foundation of that mysterious Viennese weekly Gross-Oesterreich, which preaches the unadulterated Pan-Austrian doctrine. But for the tyranny of the Magyar authorities, it is safe to say that Mr. Popovici's book would never have been written.

In the course of the year 1894 the editors of the Tribuna were sentenced to repeated fines and terms of imprisonment for publishing congratulatory addresses to the victims of the "Replik" trial.

On March 26, 1892, the Committee of the Roumanian Na­tional Party, in its official capacity, addressed a petition to the Emperor-King, complaining of the many illegalities to which their nationality had been subjected. On June i a deputa­tion of 300 Roumanians appeared in the Hofburg of Vienna to deliver this so-called " Memorandum " to His Majesty in person, but they were not admitted to an audience, and on July 26 the Hungarian Premier returned the document to the party president, Dr. Ratiu, with the remark that it could not be submitted to the monarch, since its framers had no legal right to speak in the name of the Roumanians of Hungary ! After six months' delay, legal proceedings were instituted against its authors, and on May 7, 1894 — or twenty-six months after the date of the petition — the president of the  Roumanian National Committee, John Ratiu ; the vice-president, George Popp de Basesti and Eugene Brote ; the secretaries, Father Basil Lucaciu, Demetrius Comsia and Septimius Albini, sixteen other members of the committee and four other Roumanians who had helped to distribute copies of the Memorandum, were brought to trial before the Press Jury Court of Kolozsvár, on the usual charge of incitement.[12] After a trial lasting eighteen days, Father Lucaciu (who had already been thrice convicted for political offences) was sentenced to five years' imprisonment, Comsia to three years, Coroianu to two years eight months, Dr. Ratiu and one other to two years each, four other accused to two and a half years each, two others to eight months each, and three others to eighteen, twelve and two months respec­tively.[13] In October, Albini, against whom the charge had been postponed owing to illness, was condemned to two and a half years. Thus a total of thirty-one years two months' imprison­ment was imposed upon the leaders of a political party for exercising their natural right of petitioning their sovereign. To crown this infamy, the Roumanian political organization was dissolved by ministerial decree, and an arbitrary limit was thus placed upon the programme on which a parliamentary candidate may seek election.[14] The reader must form his own opinion of this incident ; I for my part refuse to describe a country where such a decision is possible, as either Western or liberal.

Consideration of space forced me to relegate to an appendix the long series of political trials which followed the suppression of the Roumanian Party.[15] But lest the reader should suppose that the storm of persecution shows signs of abatement, I pro­pose to cite a number of instances which have occurred during the past eighteen months.

In September, 1906, a Roumanian journalist, Avram Indreica, was sentenced by the Court of Nagyvárad to seven months' im­prisonment for reproducing an anti-Magyar article from a Viennese newspaper.

In June, 1907, an action was announced against a Rou­manian editor for reproducing a speech delivered by the Greek Oriental Metropolitan of Hermannstadt, severely criticizing the new Education Acts of Count Apponyi. Let us imagine for a moment the prosecution of the Daily Mail for printing the Archbishop of Canterbury's criticisms of Mr. Birrell ! The fact that nothing further has been heard of this action would seem to suggest that the charge was regarded as too flimsy even for a Hungarian Press Jury.

In November, 1907, Basil Macrea, one of the responsible editors of the Roumanian paper Lupta, was sentenced to six months' imprisonment and a fine of 1,200 crowns, for an article attacking the Apponyi Education Bills in February, 1907[16]  — in other words, two months before they received the sanction of Parliament, and at a moment when they were being discussed on all sides. Of course the offence was the usual " incitement against the Magyar nationality " ; but in effect such actions deprive the nationalities of the right to criticize freely legislation which affects them even more nearly than the Magyars. For a non-Magyar to say " nihil de nobis sine nobis " is still regarded as little short of treason in Hungary.

In November, 1907, John Jovan, one of the staff of the Tribuna, was sentenced to six months and 500 crowns for pub­lishing a telegram of greeting sent by the Roumanian students of Vienna to Dr. Vaida on the occasion of his forcible expulsion from Parliament, and for commenting favourably on this tele­gram.[17]

In the same month Demetrius Lascu was sentenced by the Nagyvárad Press Court to six months and 500 crowns, for an article entitled " Furor Asiaticus," containing severe criticisms of the behaviour of the administrative authorities towards the nationalities. Needless to say, no steps have been taken to verify the accuracy of Lascu's charges. Lascu stood for Par­liament at the last election in Ugra (Bihar county), but failed to obtain a majority. A number of Roumanian voters were tried and punished for electoral excesses, the voters on the Magyar side going unpunished. The town theatre of Jassy in Roumania arranged a special benefit performance for the victims of this trial; and the Tribuna of Arad published an account of this performance, and in its editorial comments praised the condemned Roumanians as sufferers in the national cause. For this remark an action is pending against the editor of the Tribuna, for the offence of laudatio criminis.[18]

During a sitting of the Hungarian Delegation in February, 1908, Mr. Holló, the well-known Independent deputy, so far forgot himself as to boast of Hungary's tolerance towards its non-Magyar races, and to compare that " tolerance " with the oppressive policy of Germany and Russia towards the Poles. On three consecutive days of the very week in which he made this speech, three Roumanian editors were sentenced in three different courts for newspaper articles, to ten months and 400 crowns, eighteen months and 1,500 crowns, and eighteen months and 2,000 crowns respectively.[19]

A very common method of intimidation, which has been specially adopted against the Roumanians, is to sentence them not to state prison, according to the regular legal practice for political offences, but to ordinary jail confinement, which, it is hardly necessary to add, is far more trying to clergymen and journalists than to vagabonds or burglars. For instance Andrew Baltes, editor-in-chief of the Tribuna, was sentenced in 1894 to four months jail for publishing a poem in honour of Michael the Brave.[20] Father Lucaciu, the famous Roumanian priest (now member of the Hungarian Parliament) was in 1889 detained five weeks in a common jail previous to trial, for hold­ing an electoral speech : the court acquitted him, but of course did not compensate him for this treatment. In 1892 he was sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment for another elec­toral address, and in June, 1893, to four months for " libelling the Government." On the latter occasion, the court lumped the two sentences together, and commuted them into thirteen months of common jail. In the same way Pollakovič, the American citizen whose case I have discussed in another part of the book, though sentenced to seven months' state prison, was actually confined throughout this period in an unhealthy county jail, where he eventually fell ill with bronchitis.[21]

In this connexion I cannot do better than cite a conversation which I had with a prominent public prosecutor in Hungary during the spring of 1907, on the subjects of the Juriga and Hlinka trials. The impression left upon me is one which I am not likely soon to forget. With unveiled ferocity this gentleman declared that it was monstrous to treat these rascally Pansláv agitators as gentlemen, and to allow them decent quarters in a state prison. The proper place for them, he said, was in a common jail, among thieves and other criminals.

A similar device is that by which the trials of non-Magyars are often intentionally delayed or protracted. Meanwhile the victims sometimes have to languish for weeks or months in preliminary arrest ; and even when they are allowed to remain at large, the continual summonses and inquiries to which they are subjected, act as an intimidation. Father Hlinka was kept for five months untried in prison for a political offence,[22] and Dr. Srobár was only released at the end of six weeks because he threatened to refuse all food. Such instances of preliminary confinement for political offences are now of more frequent occurrence in Hungary.

In the last three years there has been an outburst of prosecution against the Slovaks, whom the Government seeks to crush by every means in its power. If till then the Slovak press has fewer press actions to show than the Roumanian, the ex­planation of this is very simple. On the one hand, the Magyars always affected to despise the Slovaks,[23] and left their repression in the hands of the local administrative demigods ; on the other hand, a Slovak Press can hardly be said to have existed before the twentieth century, and the newspapers which kept the torch of Slovak nationalism alight in the dark days of Tisza and Bánffy could be numbered on the fingers of one hand. These, however, were treated with a severity which left nothing to be desired. A whole series of press actions were directed against the staff of the Národnie Noviny in Turócz St. Márton, which at that time still represented the political views of most educated Slovaks.[24] It was hoped to intimidate the little band of journalists by repeated imprisonment and the prospect of financial ruin ; and but for the stubborn and indomitable spirit of Mr. Húrban Vajanskŷ (now the chief editor of the little paper), there is little doubt that this end would have been at­tained.

In the previous chapter I have related the manner in which the authorities prevented the unveiling of a tombstone to the memory of Joseph M. Húrban. Mr. Svetozár Húrban Vaj anský, the son of the dead leader, in passionate indignation at this insult to his father's memory, published a violent article in the Národnie Noviny, entitled " Hyænism in Hungary." "Such an event," he wrote, "as took place in Hluboká on the 8th of this month, has not been known — to quote the words of an old peasant woman — since the days when Roman soldiers kept watch by the Saviour's grave." After describing the behaviour of the gendarmes in the churchyard, he continued :

The instruments of the Government acted with animal brutality and proved that in this state, depraved by Magyarization, the last traces of humanity and justice have disappeared ; it has forfeited the title of a legal state, and we are now, as in prehistoric times, depend­ent upon self-help, and can only pray to God that the day of deliver­ance may come at last and may bring with it the ruin of those diabolical forces which now rule unrestrained.

And this is freedom ! With bayonets they expel gratitude from the hearts of the people, they pollute a quiet village with hordes of gendarmes, in order to demoralize the people and rob them of the last vestige of human feeling. Thus they vitiate filial piety, and every nobler thought; thus they show that power is theirs, that the gen­darme's rifle can shoot, that they are gods and our unhappy people but a worm which can be crushed at any moment.

What heroism ! — to send armed columns against the handful of educated Slovaks, silently mourning their dead, against the assembled women of Hluboká and Brezová. That is a heroism and a victory which must bring its revenge. God is not so unjust, fate is not so cruel, that an open deed of violence should remain unavenged. Ven­geance will surely come, in answer to our cry, as once it fell upon the Ammonites in answer to the cry of the prophets.

They have wreaked their vengeance on the dead and on the living : they would not allow us to celebrate the memory of a man who is already dead. "They are afraid that we shall waken him," cried an old peasant woman, as she saw the thirty bayonets encircling the grave of Húrban. . . . But they cannot hinder the awakening with their bayonets ! Yes, we shall waken him in spirit : his spirit shall dwell among us and shall encourage us to the desperate struggle against this Babylonian corruption, against this Sodom.

MR. SVETOZAR HURBAN VAJANSKÝ.

On the ground of this article, whose exaggerated phrases were but the natural outburst of outraged filial affection, Svetozár Húrban was charged with "incitement against the Magyar nationality," and "against an institution of the constitution," and was sentenced at Pressburg to a year's imprisonment and a fine of 600 crowns !

In the course of less than three years,[25] Isidore Žiak Somolicky was four times sentenced to terms of imprisonment amounting to sixteen months and fines of 1,300 crowns, for articles attack­ing the prevailing Chauvinism in Magyar circles. In October, 1899, he was once more brought to trial for an article entitled "Megalomania." After recounting for the benefit of the Magyars a number of unpleasant home truths, the writer in­dulged in somewhat cheap jests at their love of magnifying every­thing in the public life of Hungary and describing as "great" what was really very small indeed. For instance, he said, over 700 small villages in Hungary have the prefix "Nagy" (great). For this article the jury convicted Somolicky of " incitement to class hatred," though this had not formed the charge on which he was indicted. As a result, the case had to be reheard, when the jury found a similar verdict on the proper count, and Somolicky was sentenced to three months and 800 crowns.[26]

On June 23, 1898, Ambrose Pietor was sentenced to eight months' imprisonment and a fine of 1,200 crowns, for instigation to class hatred and incitement against the Magyar nationality, incurred in two articles published in the Národnie Noviny, In the first, entitled "Slavery Above and Below" and written eleven whole months previously, he had discussed a strike of Slovak bricklayers in Budapest, and had declared that they were treated worse than dogs. In the second, entitled "Para­lysis Progressiva," he entered a strong protest against the vio­lent Magyarization of the ancient placenames of the country, and the substitution of a barbarous jargon invented for the purpose.[27]

On December 5, 1906, the Národní Hlásnik in Turócz St. Márton published an article entitled " The Political Persecution of the Slovaks," in which the Magyar boast of freedom and racial equality was described as mere lies and humbug. An action was brought before the Budapest Jury Court against Milosch Pietor, the responsible editor of the paper, who stated that he first took charge of the paper on the very day on which this article appeared, and that the responsibility lay with his late father, who had ordered its publication. The court de­clined to allow Pietor to bring forward witnesses to prove his contention, held him personally responsible for the article, and sentenced him to four months' imprisonment.[28]

On May 13, 1907, John Greguska published an article in Slovensky Týždenník, passing in review the cruel treatment of the nationalities in the forty years following the coronation. A nationality, he argued, can be oppressed, humiliated, ill-used, but its annihilation is a physical impossibility. For this article he was sentenced for incitement against the Magyar nationality to three months' imprisonment and 600 crowns.[29]

The same Greguska published a similar article in the same paper on September 13,1907, entitled " Awake, ye Sleepers," in which the Slovaks were urged to shake off the old lethargy and prepare for action. Here again on the usual charge he was sentenced to five months and 1,000 crowns.[30]

In the same paper John Bagyula published an article con­taining the phrase, " The Magyars hurl themselves like a wild horde upon the nationalities, in order to rob them of their land, their language and their religion." For this he was charged with incitement against the Magyar nationality (as usual, this was deliberately confused with the radically different concep­tion, "the Hungarian nation") and condemned to one year's imprisonment and a fine of 1,200 crowns.

Father Hlinka, before entering upon his term of two years' imprisonment imposed upon him for speeches delivered on an electoral platf orm,[31] published in the Ludové Noviny, a farewell article to his parishioners. He went to prison, he declared, with a clear conscience, knowing that he must suffer for the rights of the Slovak people. On his return he will contend for Slovak liberty with redoubled energy; persecution and im­prisonment will not intimidate him. For this article a fresh action was brought against the unfortunate priest; and on May 4, 1908, he was sentenced to eighteen months' additional imprisonment and a fine of 400 crowns. The deliberate aim of the authorities is to break him in health and spirit by prolonged imprisonment; nothing else can explain their vin­dictive and cowardly action.

If we summarize these trials, we find that between the years 1886 and 1896 no fewer than 363 Roumanians were committed for political offences, and that sentences amounting to ninety­three years one month and twenty-three days were imposed upon them.[32] Excluding those cases which were tried before the ordinary courts, we find that from 1884 to 1894, thirty-six trials of Roumanians took place before Hungarian Press Juries, and that in these sixty-six persons were condemned to terms of imprisonment amounting in all to fifty-three years and to fines whose total exceeded 18,000 crowns. Between 1897 and 1908, 214Roumanians were sentenced to thirty-five years nine months' imprisonment and to fines amounting to 51,937 crowns. Be­tween 1906 and 1908, no fewer than 560 Slovaks were sentenced to a total of ninety-one years seven months and 42,121 crowns. The fierceness of the persecution under the Coalition Government becomes apparent from the fact that between June, 1906, and June, 1907, 245 Slovaks were condemned to nineteen years and four months ; in the last three months of 1907, twenty-six more to a total of three years, and in the first three months of 1908, 48 more to a'total of 39 years and 6 months, in addition to fines and heavy costs. Drawing the balance, we reach the following remarkable total: Between the years 1886 and 1908 (end of August) 890 non-Magyars were condemned, for purely political offences, to a total of 232 years 6 months and 2 days, in addition to heavy costs and 148,232 crowns in fines.

In this connexion it would be unjust if I were to pass over in silence the persecutions to which the Socialist Press of Hun­gary has been subjected. A great deal might be written of the manner in which the Liberals under Bánffy repressed the agrarian movement of 1898. The outside world has for forty years past accepted the Liberals of Hungary at their own value, and rarely troubled itself to put their principles to the hard test of fact. The so-called Liberals have been replaced by a party which is professedly Radical and democratic; and yet the Coalition Government has outbid all its predecessors in its se­verity towards the representatives of Labour and of Socialism. Half a dozen instances of its true attitude will therefore not be out of place in the present volume.

Mr. Polónyi, for many years the most loud-mouthed exponent of Kossuthist views of liberty and independence, became Minis­ter of Justice in the new Coalition Cabinet, and ere three months had elapsed, the weapons of "nocturnal censorship" and con­fiscation were once more being employed against the Opposition Press. In July, 1906, in answer to an interpellation to Mr. Brody, on the confiscation of the Világszabadság, the organ of the Agricultural Labour party, Mr. Polónyi — who a few months before had preached the annihilation of the Fejérváry Ministry for its action against openly disloyal newspapers — now resorted to the same hackneyed phrases which every muzzier of Press liberty had employed from the days of Június onwards.[33] The movement among the agricultural population for higher wages and more humane treatment is naturally most distasteful to the reactionary landowners who form a majority in the present Parliament. They were interested in the suppression of any agitation among the harvesters, and therefore used their in­fluence to secure the confiscation of articles such as those pub­lished by the Világszabadság. While the local authorities raged against strikers and agitators (the szólgabiró of Orosháza alone is said to have imposed sentences amounting to 30,000 days' arrest in the course of the year 1906-7),[34] action after action has been brought against the Népszava and other Social Democratic newspapers, and quite a number of Socialist pamphlets and leaflets have been confiscated.

In June, 1907, the Világszabadság (Freedom of the World), the organ of the Agrarian Socialists, published two articles which preached upon the text of Proudhon, " La propriété est le vol," and urged the labourers to strike. For this, Stephen Kovács was sentenced to eight months and 800 crowns, Julius Franczia to one year and 1,000 crowns, on a charge of incite­ment to class hatred.[35]

Early in 1907, when the Agricultural Labourers Bill was laid before Parliament, Rudolf Ladányi published a pamphlet entitled "The Flogging-bench Act" (A derestörvény),[36] in which he argued that its provisions would place the labourers at the mercy of their employers, and exhorted them to oppose the measure by every means in their power. The Bill did not become law till some months after the publication of his pam­phlet , and then in a somewhat altered form, so that it might have been presumed that free criticism of so controversial a measure would be allowed. Ladányi, however, was prosecuted for incitement to class hatred, and after a spirited defence, in which the judge treated his counsel with marked severity, was sen­tenced to six months' imprisonment and a fine of 600 crowns.[37]

In 1907 an article appeared in the organ of the "Socialist Count" Erwin Batthyány, Társadalmi Forradalom (Social Revolution) three articles under his own name, expounding Marxian, doctrines and violently attacking the army and the propertied classes. An action was brought against the paper by the public prosecutor in Szombathely, and as Count Batthyány had meanwhile moved to London, the responsible editor, John Horváth, was charged in his place with incitement and agitation, and sentenced to three months and 100 crowns.[38]

On October 29, 1907, the Népszava published an article on the massacre of Csernova under the title " Who are the mur­derers?"[39] The author maintained that the gendarmes had no excuse for firing on the crowd, and openly criticized the brutal attitude of the Government and the bishop towards the Slovak nation. Stephen Hegedűs, a shoemaker's apprentice, gave himself out as the author of the article, and was sentenced to two months and 1,000 crowns for incitement to class hatred and instigation against the Hungarian nation.[40]

In the summer of 1906, Trajan Novák, the secretary of the Social Democratic party in Temesvár, visited the commune of Sagh in order to discuss with the natives the formation of a local Socialist branch. The village notary and the landlord's agent ordered him to leave the place, on the ground that he was urging the workmen to break their harvesting contracts ; and on his refusal, he was arrested and sentenced by the szólgabiró to one month's imprisonment and a fine of 200 crowns. On leaving prison Novák described the incident in a Socialist news­paper of Temesvár, and spoke of the szólgabiró Vácz as a man who trod the laws under foot. For this remark an action was brought against Novák, and when he fled abroad to escape punishment, John Tóth, the responsible editor of the paper, was sentenced to three months and 200 crowns.[41]

At the end of August, 1907, a leading workman was ejected by the police from the town of Székesfehérvár for his political activity. In an article entitled "And you are to love this father­land!" the Népszava commented on the incident as follows : "The proletariat have no fatherland, for the patriots have robbed them of it. And yet they are expected to love this country. Here no law exists to protect the weak ; and yet we are to love the fatherland of our oppressors. They possess the right of association ; we do not. They are protected by the law in their economic efforts ; we are persecuted, sabred or shot ! They are served by troops and gendarmerie, we are murdered by them. Theirs are all property and all rights ; ours are all burdens and misery. Theirs are the special train, the saloon­car, the free ticket; ours are the police cell and the prison van. But for all this we too are to love this fatherland of theirs!" In short, a hackneyed sermon on the text "ubi bene, ibi patria!" On March 14, 1908, Joseph Varró, a carpenter's apprentice, was tried as the author of this article, for the usual incitement to class hatred, and was condemned to a year's imprisonment and a fine of 1,200 crowns.[42]

At the monster demonstration organized by the Socialists in October, 1907, a flyleaf entitled "To the vagabonds who have no fatherland" (A hazátlan bitangokhoz) was distributed among the crowd. Its author, Maurice Fleischmann, described the Coalition Government as a police regime, whose aim was plunder and whose sole success was the ruin of the people. In April, 1908, Fleischmann was sentenced to nine months and 1,000 crowns, for incitement to class hatred.[43]

At the risk of wearying the reader, I have endeavoured to prove my original contention that Press freedom is virtually non-exist­ent in Hungary ; and I cannot close this chapter without express­ing my astonishment that it should have been left to me to publish the first English account of a state of affairs at once so lamentable and so outrageous.