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Justice.....

It is the Turk who beats you, and it is always he who judges you.

Roumanian proverb.

So far as justice is concerned, the law on nationalities contains the following provisions:

Each inhabitant of the country may employ at the tribunals of his circle, the national language of his commune.[1]

Farther on, the law provides:[2] that the judge should decide the cause, or the petition, carry on the proceedings, listen to the witnesses, draw up his reports and make all his statements of an official character, not only in ordinary trials but also in penal proceedings, in the language of the adverse parties, and in that of the persons whose cause he lias to judge; the verbal process of the trial to be drawn up in the language chosen by common consent by the adverse parties. The testimony of the persons called upon to appear as witnesses, to be taken down in the language spoken by the testifier.

The verdict must be given in the same language as that in which the trial takes place.

In the same law it is ordained that in all civil and criminal trials, in which the assistance of a lawyer is necessary, not only in the tribunals but also throughout the whole course of the trial and for the giving of the verdict, the above shall hold good, at least until the legislative power shall have decided otherwise.[3]

Such are the provisions of the law.

But of what use are they when the law is in nowise respected?

The first blow aimed at these provisions was in Transylvania, when the president of the Royal court of Turgil-Turesului, after having in 1872, inspected as commissary of the ministry, the Transylvanian tribunals recently created, gave an order contrary to this law. Later, in 1875, the minister himself (at that time Perczel) orders that the intervention of lawyers, — whether for pleading or whether for executing deeds, —shall only be accepted on condition that they make use exclusively of the Magyar language.[4]

A ministerial order obliges the communes of all the counties to employ the Magyar tongue only in all their deeds and correspondence with the tribunals.[5]

From that time the Royal court, the tribunals and alt other powers of jurisdiction have refused to accept any act drawn up in any other language, than the Magyar. [6]

The tribunals go even farther and maintain that all documents, though originally written in another language, should be translated into Magyar.[7]

Only a few months ago, and consequently some considerable time after the publication of the Magyar students, the tribunal of Satmar refused to register a new Roumanian Institute of Credit and Economy under pretext that the statutes were drawn up in Roumanian. [8]To invoke the law, to protest, or to appeal against this decision was of no use, for it was not the law, but might which decided.[9]

Lawyers, as representatives of persons, are obliged to use the Magyar language not only in trials before the court of common Pleas, but also in the defence of the accused before the Criminal Court. In this tongue all acts of accusation, demands, inquests, reports, judgments etc. are drawn up; and in all the civil and criminal trials which do not require the intervention of a lawyer, this tongue is also exclusively employed. The following interesting case may serve to show how the provisions of the law are respected.

In the defence of a criminal case, three Roumanian lawyers insisted upon the employment of the tongue of the accused, that is to say the Roumanian, as the law § 8 ordains. The president of the Tribunal refusing and the lawyers maintaining the non-violation of the law, the president ordered a disciplinary trial to be brought against them and they were finally punished, first for having left their clients without defence, and secondly for mixing up politics (!) in judicial matters.

The equality of rights which we enjoy is very apparent especially at the Assize Court, with which the Roumanian editors have made ample acquaintance. There also all judicial proceedings are carried on in Magyar.

Thus in criminal trials, in which the life, honour and liberty of a citizen are at stake, he does not understand a word of what is going on around him, although his fate is being decided, and he is obliged to sign the report of the proceedings of which he understands nothing and which consequently he cannot control. It is the same thing with the defence; the attorney maintains the accusation in Magyar and the defendant is also obliged to reply in the same tongue.

The injustice here is the more flagrant, because the judges not knowing the language of the people, are obliged to employ an interpreter who is usually either a servant or some petty official with scarcely any knowledge of the Roumanian tongue. These are the kind of persons whom the Magyars appoint to render justice to the Roumanians, Slavs and Germans.

Private rights even are not proof against this mad fanaticism.

Contrary to articles n and 12 of the law on nationalities, relating to the deeds of landed properties and to the Court of Appeal, the judgments are rendered drawn up only in Magyar.

The Lord Chief Justice makes no scruple of ordering that all documents which are to serve as registers of the title-deeds of landed property be drawn up in Magyar and the original documents translated into that language by some legal translator or public notary.[10]

This is most despotic and gives evident proof of the manner in which the law on nationalities is enforced.

To prove the fatal consequences of this manner of acting, we will call to mind that the Roumanian people no longer dare to register their purchases of landed property on account of the great expenses entailed thereby.

Besides the tax to be paid to the treasury which for him is increased three fold, he must also pay the translator, who demands what he thinks fit. The translations which serve as basis for the inscriptions of the deeds are very often defective and give rise in consequence to frequent law suits, to sustain which the poor peasant loses all that he has gained for years by the sweat of his brow.

And even with regard to the share allotted to each in the public expenses the Roumanian is unjustly treated. The committees for the valuation of the income tax are generally composed of Hungarians, even there where the population is purely Roumanian. It is easily understood that this being the case, the freeholder, the merchant, the manufacturer, the artisan is favoured if he be a Magyar, and if a Roumanian he is ground down without mercy.

Facts prove that in this matter as in others all protestation is useless. Whilst our masters take into extraordinary consideration the religious susceptibilities of the Jew, the Roumanians are subpoenaed in numbers on Sundays and holidays before the judge who settles the questions of misdemeanour and infraction of the law; Sunday being the day expressly chosen for these kind of affairs. To recall one of the most recent cases, it happened that the priest, the schoolmaster and the bell-ringer of Bucium-Sasa,[11] were summoned to appear before the judge of Abrud. January 13^th a day above all others held especially sacred by the Roumanians. [12]

From time immemorial it has been the custom to strip the peasant of his possessions, but it has never been done with so much impunity as under the Magyar constitutionalism.

Since the people have been delivered from feudal servitude the agrarian question has been the most difficult to solve. The prosperity and progress of the state depended greatly on its happy solution.

To settle this question, H. M. the emperor Francois-Joseph himself intervened, giving several orders upon this subject.[13]

After the fall of the Revolution of 1848, a proportional indemnity was given to the feudal lords, and the ex-iobagi[14] became land-holders through the Austrian government; as to the forests and pasture lands, they were to be divided in a more equitable manner. The letters patent of the emperor comprised legal dispositions so arranged as to satisfy the pretentions and rights of the ex-iobagi and also of the ex-lords.

Taking these letters patent for a ground work, this question could be solved in a manner so just and impartial, that every one might be satisfied.

The political struggles whigh then took place throughout the whole empire, and more especially in Hungary, caused this important matter to be put on one side, so that in 1866 no conclusive step had been taken. Later, the Magyars, taking the reins of government into their own hands, settled this important question in favour of the Magyar element.

By orders and new laws, by repeated renewal of patents, the cause of the Magyar land-holders has been favoured to the detriment of the interests and rights of the Roumanian people. [15]

And npw 40 years after the abolition of serfdom, the agrarian question still remains an open one.

As to the way in which justice is rendered in such cases, we may quote as examples a number of law-suits that the Roumanians have lost against persons foreign to their race or against the State. We may mention amongst others the action brought against the commune of Lasul-Negru,[16] by count Zichy, in which lawsuit 39 families have been stripped of their possessions.[17]

In the same manner Baron Szelder, Carol Apor, brought an action against the commune of Tafolcu, near Mures-Osorheiu; and as the baron was at the same time president of the tribunal, he gained his suit and the consequence was that 300 Roumanians found themselves without shelter. The noble count hastened to take possession of the land, employing to that end the most tyrannical means.

The pandours (Hungarian soldiers) were employed to drive the inhabitants out of their dwellings, their possessions were sequestered and then sold by auction. Those who refused to give up their cattle were ill-treated and cast into prison.

Thus stripped of all their possessions and deprived of all shelter, these unfortunate people were obliged to pass 8 days in the open air. The old men, women and children were crying with hunger and cold, whilst all their belongings were being sold for the profit of their merciless tyrant. The same thing took place in the commune of Cuesdi and in many others, especially in the counties of Alba-de-Jos and Cetatea-de-Peatra.

But it is not only in the past or even recently that these acts have been committed; they take place daily. The very same thing happened in the commune of Risculita.[18] The inhabitants are exclusively Roumanian. They gain their living in the preparation of rovets (bark of the oak) to sell which they walk immense distances from one part of the county to the other.

So as to be able to follow their calling unmolested, they had bought with their own money several lots of forest ground. One fine morning in the month of September 1890, they see the Pretor arrive accompanied by three dragoons and he declares to them without any preamble,that he is going to take away their forest land from them and annex it to the State, and that if they raise any opposition he will have recourse to force in the execution of his project. No sooner said than done. All those who protested against this injustice were put in chains by the police, and the Pretor, seeing that all the commune rose as a single man to defend its rights, hastened to inform the viscount that the commune had revolted. The-latter, without enquiring further into the the matter and believing what his inferior has reported to him, sends a troop of soldiers against these poor people. Numbers are arrested. When the soldiers had remained three long months in the commune, the captain seeing what injustice was being done to the inhabitants intervened in their behalf and obtained the retreat of the soldiers. After four months of detention the 30 Roumanians who had been arrested were set free as nothing could be brought against them. The action brought by the commune against the Pretor for the reimbursement of the expenses occasioned by the occupying of the village by the soldiers and for the loss of time caused by their imprisonment, was decided, — as the reader will expect — against the Roumanians.

In the aggregation of lands, by means of false title deeds, hundreds. of arpents of land are taken away from the ex-iobagi and allotted to the Magyar land-holders. In virtue of the law of aggregation the lots of ground of the peasants may be formed into a whole if the majority of the land-owners demand it.

The Hungarian and Jewish landed proprietors, who hold the greater part of the possessions of the ruined nobles turn this law to their advantage and impose the aggregation of the land, the former by the privilege of their race and the latter by their patriotism, so that at the next distribution of the lands, they shall seize upon the most fertile, leaving the most sterile to the Roumanians, which though worth nothing they are obliged to pay thousands and tens of thousands of francs.

The division of forest lands is made in the same way. The treasury and the Hungarian barons have taken all the best and left to the communes and private individuals all that has been already cut or newly planted.

Should any one dare to raise his voice against this injustice, he runs the danger of being ill-treated. In the commune of Sard[19] in December 1891, an inhabitant protested against the despotic manner in which the aggregation of the lands took place, telling the committee that they had acted unjustly and thereby had ruined the people. Such words, though just, could not but irritate the Magyars and one of the counts posted his servants one night to watch for the unfortunate Roumanian and beat him. And in reality he was cruelly beaten, his head being wounded in several places; in all probability he would have been killed had not some persons passing by providentially rescued him from then-hands. And to complete the story, the Roumanian was accused of having lain in wait for these three rascals that he might beat them!

When the division of the forest lands took place, the treasury took for itself the pasture lands in the mountains as well as the meadows which exist in the forest lands belonging to the treasury. And as in most of the countries inhabited by the Roumanians their only sources of gain are the forest and the breeding of cattle, they have been attacked in their most vital interests.

No less revolting is the manner in which the fines for offences are collected. On account of the extreme poverty of this people, they are not always able to pay the fine at the time: A bailiff is therefore sent by the administration, who for a distance of from three to four hours, is assigned a5 or 3o fl., so that for a fine of 1 or 2 florins, the peasant must pay from 60 to 75 florins. Where can he get them from?

Our masters can alone answer that question. They sell the house, the scanty furniture and turn the poor Roumanian out on the high way. That is why during the last few years, hundreds of Roumanian families and especially those from the western mountains of Transylvania have abandoned the village of their forefathers and have emigrated to the neighbouring Roumanian kingdom, cursing those who have obliged them to desert the tombs of their fathers.

One of the conditions of the politic of Magyarization is the destruction of all national feeling in the non-Magyar people.

For instance a Roumanian in his own country is not allowed to wear the national costume that he has inherited from his fathers. — The fact which we are about to relate will give a striking proof to all those who doubt the meaning of the word liberty in Hungary.

In 1886, the young men of Brasov, according to an old immemorial custom, had planned a series of national amusements at Easter. On these occasions the national costume is worn with the Roumanian tricoloured ribbons in their hats and on their breasts. Probably the Hungarian state thought itself endangered by this act, for a summons was taken out against these 48 young men who were punished with from 8 to 10 days imprisonment, and a line of from 50 to 80 florins!

Twenty-two other young men were punished in like manner at Halmage for presenting themselves in their national costume at the popular festival held in 1885 at the feast of Rusalii (May).

They were tried, imprisoned and sentenced to pay heavy fines.[20] And on their appealing to a higher Court, instead of the judge diminishing, he increased the fines! [21]

In the family of a Roumanian priest of the Roumanian village of Iclandul-Mic, on the occasion of a family rejoicing a young girl of i5, wishing to make her parents a surprise, made a paper flag of the national colours, and hung it outside of a window which looked on to the priest's yard. This was sufficient cause for the child and the priest to be brought before the court and punished, the former with a fine of 3o florins and the latter with two days inprisonment and a fine of 20 florins. [22]

In 1885 a young Roumanian of Rodna-Veche was punished with six weeks imprisonment and 200 florins fine for hoisting at a « carrousel » several small tricoloured flags, red, yellow and blue.

And all these liberal acts are done by virtue of the ministerial orders which forbid the use of national flags and colours.[23]

Quite a persecution is carried on against the Roumanian costume in consequence of these orders, The peasant who wears his traditional tri-coloured sash is insulted, punished and thrown into prison. In many places they use as flags women's veils, the colours of which are more or less the national ones; these are always seized and burnt. The students of the High School of Brasov are forbidden to wear a tri-coloured cap, etc.

We must here remark that the national colours form an integral part of our secular life, that is of our life as a people. These national colours in the course of time have become a part of the national Roumanian costume. Centuries ago our people wore them on holidays, just as they do to-day. And there is no law forbidding the colours themselves to be worn; only flags and banners hoisted on official holidays are forbidden, and those only when they are the colours of a hostile state. On the contrary, the law expressly grants the nationalities the right of having their own colours.[24] Our colours are not exclusively those of the neighbouring Roumanian kingdom nor those of a state with which the monarchy is at enmity: they are the colours of Transylvania, of the Roumanian race, and are represented in the arms of the country and at the same time they happen to be those of the capital, of Buda Pesth!

In the same way that we are forbidden to wear the costume we choose, so we are forbidden to celebrate the memory of our heroes who have fought for their liberty against tyranny.

The 28^th February 1885 was the centenary of the revolution of the peasantry under Horia, Closca and Crisan, who exposed their lives for the general good. They perished on the scaffold, but the Roumanians obtained the justice that these martyrs sought for; the Transylvanian iobagi had the right of moving from one place to another and from that date they began to play in the world the part of men.

The memory of these national martyrs is dear to us Roumanians, and we bless their names every day. But the Hungarian government takes draconian measures that these national rejoicings shall not take place.

The western mountains of Transylvania, the focus where this revolution began, are covered with soldiers. Campeni, a small locality in these mountains is put into an actual state of siege. The Roumanian professors are threatened with being shot like dogs if they stir from their houses on this anniversary, and the priests who went as usual to perform mass that day, were thrust out ot the church by the soldiers; all this under cover of the ministerial order.[25]

We are forbidden to commemorate the 15^th May 1848, day upon which the Roumanian people were freed from the yoke of iobagie; we are also forbidden to sing the songs of our country, and dance our national dances. At Caransebes in in 1884 many Roumanians were fined for having danced their national dance, the Hora, which the ignorant Magyar officials called the dance of Horia!!

The safety and inviolability of the people is left to the discretion of the police agents. In 1886, two Roumanians of Brad are denounced as disturbers for having exclaimed, it is said, that they would rather be Tziganes than Magyars. A warrant was issued against them, a crowd of witnesses were heard, they were kept in prison four weeks, and finally, post tot discriminai rerum, nothing was proved against them.

A Roumanian lawyer of Alba-Julia is condemned to six weeks' imprisonment, which sentence was commuted on appeal to a fine of 150 florins, for having had the audacity to read a novel written in the kingdom of Roumanian, which novel had not even been forbidden postal circulation.[26]

The royal judge of Hida, — without any plausible motive, — orders the gendarmes to seize the priest, the curator, the mayor and three jurors of Sainte Marie,[27] they are brought before him and then conducted 60 or 70 kilometres under escort to the tribunal of Cluj, where being brought to trial, their innocence was acknowledged, but only after they had been horribly ill-treated.[28]

This barbarous act had no other motive than the desire of the judge to stand well with his masters, by denouncing as criminals (which they were not) the leading men of a Roumanian commune.

In the commune of Drag, the viscount of the county of Cojocna forced the inhabitants of this Roumanian commune to defray the expenses for nearly a year of from 3 to 7 gendarmes aided by 18 to 48 agents, whose duty it was to guard day and night the property of the Magyar count, upon whose lands fires had broken out, without any one knowing whom to accuse of it. Although the care of guarding property be at the expense of the landlord and police agents, this commune was obliged to pay more than 6000 florins, upon the pretext of public safety, although no one threatened this safety. The aim of this infamous proceeding was to impoverish the commune and to show up the Roumanians in the light of criminals and incendiaries.

In 1805 a proclamation was issued amongst the Romanian people signed by a a Comité Irridentiste Roumain » of Bucharest. The tone of this proclamation was certainly very strong and vehement. It was written by men who well knew the sufferings of the Roumanians and it exhorted them to cast aside all legal bounds. We, and all our press disapproved at the time of this proclamation: Not because we considered our life supportable, but because even today we think it is possible lawfully to regain our usurped rights. The authors of this proclamation moreover have been punished, for they have been banished.

The Hungarian government not content with that, has begun a systematic persecution against the Roumanians. All the countries inhabited by the Roumanians are placed under formidable control. The soldiers and police search, frighten, ill-treat and imprison the citizens. The priests and professors are the first victims of their mad rage. A priest and three of his parishioners, of St-Mihail-Desertu, are accused, by I know not what renegades, of belonging to the « Irredenta Roumaine». Without any enquiry as to whether the accusation were well-grounded or not, the soldiers seize, bind and escort them to the Judge of the circle, and from there to Cluj, where, after remaining a month in prison they are set free, as nothing can be proved against them. The priest was obliged to make the whole journey on foot walking before the soldiers, through other communes, like a common malefactor. The same year and on the same pretext, three Roumanian professors were kept in prison from 4 to 6 months, without any one being able to prove anything against them.

At Naseud, the edifice of the Concordia library is surrounded by soldiers, the place carefully searched, but nothing found. The Roumanians of the Western mountains are thrown into prison « en masse »,[29] and kept there for whole months together.

All joyous manifestations are forbidden us; for motives without foundation, we are tried and condemned. Twelve notaries of Selage were punished, some with a fine of 25 florins each, others with loss of office[30] for having signed a confidential address to an editor who had been deprived of his employment by Bishop Miron Romanul, always ready to serve the interests of the Magyars.

Several of the leading Roumanians of Brasov were arraigned last year, because at a supper they drank to the health of several Roumanian editors who a short time before had had an action brought against them, but whose condemnation was not yet definitive.[31]

In government, in law, and in public life, the official communications are all written in Magyar; the Roumanian people understand nothing of them, any more than of the different publications, etc. made also in Magyar; they are therefore continually exposed to punishment for transgressions, etc. of the law.[32]

For the guidance of the people, the publications should be made in a language they can understand.

Is it possible to see a greater absurdity than notices and publications which, without being of the slightest use to the citizens for their guidance, show them clearly how much they are under the yoke of the Magyars?

The Magyar society has but one ideal, that of augmenting the Magyar element by the destruction of all that is non-Magyar.

Those who are the most active in the realization of this n ideal » are the public officials.

And it is these same men who are called upon to judge us Roumanians.

It is evident that each time a Magyar official has to decide between a Roumanian and a Magyar, he cannot be impartial.

Besides Monsieur Mocsary, the only Magyar who honestly judges the question of nationalities says, I quote his own words: « We are dismayed at hearing the expression of opinions each more singular than the preceding one, in which it is maintained that the end justifies all means which are of a nature to extend Magyarization; we hear this opinion expressed, we see in fact that equality of rights is imposed aliquando valet, aliquando non valet; more than one zealous patriot would be ready in the interest of Magyarization to demand the suspension of certain laws in the administration, the creation of exceptional laws, etc.[33]

As soon as the Roumanian peasant comes into contact with the Magyar officials, strangers to his customs and language, he is treated by them with revolting rudeness.

In the eyes of these hussards Kossuthistes, he is fit only to be despoiled, scorned and insulted.

In all civilized countries the family names are and should be written as those who bear them sign them, and these latter can only sign their names as they are written in the registry of births and baptisms.

Every one knows that the alteration of a single letter in a surname may cause great annoyance.

But the Magyar officials, from the village notary to the minister, in the desire to see us magyarized an hour sooner consider they have a right to a ter the names of Roumanian families ad libitum, provided the alteration gives them a Hungarian sound!!

One can now imagine to what enemies the Roumanians find themselves opposed, on account of this despotism, in all questions of property, title deeds, etc. [34]

In the whole of Transylvania and Hungary, the proud officials of the law, with scarcely any exceptions address the Roumanian peasants as « toï » and « moï »,[35] as if they (the peasants) were their servants.

And in truth how could the members of the dominant Magyar nations shew any sign of respect to a nation of Helots!

When the Magyar official, ignorant of our language, cannot, even with the help of one of his clerks, understand the complaints of a peasant, without further delay, he quietly shows him the door.

It happens every day at the railway station that the Roumanians cannot obtain tickets, because either they cannot or will not ask for them in Hungarian, and the man who delivers the tickets either cannot or will not understand Roumanian!

Where and to whom can the Roumanian appeal, public life being so utterly incompatible with arid insufficient to his needs?

The unheard of manner in which these foreign officials insult and rail at the people whose toil feeds them is unpardonable.

Even the lowest clerk in the public offices, if he be a Magyar puts on a lordly air and speaks in a tone of sovereign contempt when he has anything to do with our people.

In a word, all these officials from the minister to the servants, demand that for love of them the people learn the Magyar language.

That is to say that 3 millions of Roumanians, or better still 10 millions of non-Magyar citizens, find themselves face to face with this dilemma: Either they must learn the Magyar language, or they must give up all rights in their country!

Whole populations are exposed to tyrannical acts with the aim of forcing them to learn a rude, difficult and foreign tongue, so that they may satisfy the exigencies of their own subordinates!

But are a people placed in the world for the benefit of the officials? are not rather the officials placed there for a people?

But these considerations are of little importance to the Magyars.

Do they not emanate from the «School of Constitutionalism » as the Magyar students assure us?!!