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The Exceptional Electoral Law for the Roumanians of Transylvania.

The law of the Middle Ages has a character of cruelty and arbitrariness which exists only in the present time amongst barbarians..... the equality of rights only existed for the members of a same people...

fr. von hellwald.[1]

The authors of the Manifesto of Bucharest say that the Magyars have made a special law for the elections of Transylvania, which law gives to the Magyar nobles the right of voting without having any electoral qualification, whereas enormous qualifications are exacted from the Roumanians.

The Magyar students not knowing how to escape from the necessity of replying to this well grounded accusation, have recourse to ridiculous evasions by affirming that even in Roumania itself the electoral qualifications are greater than in Hungary.

That is possible, but it proves nothing.

The question is not of that, but of the undeniable fact that in Transylvania there exists an inequality in the census, which is enormous for the Roumanians, and does not exist for the Magyars.

If the electoral qualification were even superior in Transylvania to that exacted from the Roumanians, these latter would not complain provided it were exacted equally from all.

But as it stands, this law is an exceptional measure taken by the Magyars against the Roumanians, so that these latter may be excluded from the legislative body of the country.

And in fact, the law which governs the elections of the deputies at the diet, contains different clauses, which are so many special laws created with the intention of favoring particularly the Magyar race to the detriment of the Roumanians of Transylvania.

The unjust tendency of this law, in so far as it concerns the regulating of the right of vote, may be seen especially in the following points:

1. Have the right of election, without any qualification, by virtue of former rights, all those whose names have appeared on the electoral lists of 1848 to 1873.[2] (That is to say the Magyar nobles).

2. In the urban communes, have the right of election all those who possess a house yielding at least a clear net income of 6 florins.[3]

3. In the large and small-rural commune of Hungary have the right of election all those who possess a piece of land at least a quarter of an urban[4] sesie[5] (about 10 acres).

4. In the large and small rural communes of Transylvania have only the right of election, those who pay for their land a tax which proves a clear net income, according to the register of at least 79 florins, 80 kr.; finally, have the right of election those who pay in money, for the land, the house and the income taken in a mass, a sum of taxes proving at least 105 florins of clear net income. From these paragraphs, it is distinctly to be seen that:

a) although this electoral law has the census for basis, it gives to thousands of persons the right of election, without any qualification, under pretext that they are noble Magyars or free Szeklers; [6]

b) in Transylvania the census in the urban communes is from 3 to 6 times smaller than in the rural communes, because in the 3o urban communes existing, the Roumanians form a majority only in 6, whereas in the others they hardly attain 30%[7]; on the other hand, the Roumanians, an agricultural people form the majority in the rural communes; it is therefore as clear as day that, that is the only reason why the census which the law exacts from the electors of the rural communes, is exorbitant in comparison with what is exacted in the urban communes;

c) the census is, in the rural communes of Transylvania 8 or 9 times greater than that imposed on the rural communes of Hungary; in reality a quarter of a sesie is on an average equal to 9 jugera (arpents) whereas in Transylvania, to have a clear net income of 79 florins 80 kreutzers, or 80 florins[8] a man must possess 72 to 75 jugera according to the register.

The rural Roumanian population of Transylvania consists at the present time, of small landed proprietors owning from about 28 to 30 jugera.[9]

It is therefore to be seen that the intention of the law really is that the rural Roumanian population, which forms the great majority of the inhabitants of Transylvania should be for ever deprived of the greatest constitutional right of the citizen, that of exercising the right of vote.

But the regulating of the right of election does not alone constitute an injustice towards the Roumanians, but also the formation of the electoral circles in Transylvania.

The Magyars, in order not to find themselves eventually in a minority towards the Roumanians, have arranged[10] that of 74 deputies sent by Transylvania to the Diet of Pesth, 35 should be elected by 4 Magyar counties and 15 urban communes, and that the remaining 30 deputies should be elected by only eleven counties, which constitutes another injustice.

In fact, if we consider the extent of the territory and the number of the population, these 4 Magyar counties and the 15 urban communes, in comparison with the other 11 counties, in which the great majority of the population is Roumanian, are in the proportion of 28 to 73 %!

This is the reason why in the 4 Magyar counties and the 15 urban communes one deputy to 460 square kilometers and to 17,000 inhabitants is returned, whereas in the eleven Roumanian counties only one deputy to 1000 square kilometers and to 34,000 inhabitants, is returned, so that the Hungarian towns and counties being thus privileged, have double the number of representatives that the Roumanians have.

The formation of the electoral circles has in like manner been specially made against the Roumanian population.

The law ordains[11] that the election be made in specified places (the electors may not vote in their own communes) and that contrary to what is done in all other European stales, they are obliged to come from the different communes of the circle to the place designed for voting.

We see that the right of election is terribly limited for the Roumanians; and in order that a small number only of them may be able to vote, the centres have been chosen in such a manner[12] as to oblige the Roumanian electors to traverse the longest distances, along the worst roads. For the same reason, and in order to create confusion, the electoral circles are formed partly of Roumanian and partly of Magyar communes.

This injustice had been spoken of in the Manifesto of Bucharest, and instead of replying to it, the Magyars make us a conference upon the history of the jurisdictions from the time of Arpad which has no connexion whatever with the question raised in the Manifesto of Bucharest.