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APPENDIX I

REPORT OF THE PARLIAMENTARY COMMITTEE ON THE QUESTION OF THE NATIONALITIES (1861).

the Committee appointed to consider the question of the Nation­alities considered it above all necessary to lay down the main prin­ciples which should serve for guidance towards the solution of this task.

Two courses lay open to it, as a basis of its procedure: the wishes formulated by the nationalities of the country, as, for in­stance, in the Memorandum of the Turócz assembly and also by the Serb Congress and on behalf of the Transylvanian Roumanians, or a characterization of those limits within which the individual nationalities can freely realize their demands in this direction.

The Committee chose this second point of departure, for it con­sidered it incompatible with the principle of legal equality laid down in 1848, that a question which is so closely related to personal freedom, should be solved in the way of concessions ; because owing to the circumstance that the individual nationalities in the country are scattered and mixed, the satisfaction of their concrete wishes would either involve such territorial changes and alteration of boundaries as would endanger the political unity of the country, or would lead to the complete suppression of the lesser racial frag­ments which are to be found in the territory of the larger nation­alities ; because finally the way of concessions would most surely serve to perpetuate the friction between the individual nationalities and to drive into the background the free and beneficial competition between individuals and corporations within the bounds of legal equality, by the unfruitful endeavour to win rights.

Hungary seems, by reason of its peculiar geographical conditions, called upon to endeavour once and for all to solve the question of the nationalities by legal provisions under the shelter of which the just demands of the individual citizen, in whatever part of the fatherland, should be protected in such a measure as to guarantee in free union the possible development of the individual nationalities as corporations.

The elements of such legal provisions are offered in our country by (1) the communal autonomy which has existed for centuries; (2) the autonomy of the individual denominations, which extends not only to church affairs but also to the internal organization and management of their schools ; and above all the Municipal System, whose rational basis is formed by the preservation of individual freedom against the extension of the power of the State, and by the free movement of physical and moral units within the most necessary limits of the unity of the State.

Starting from this view, and while respecting the legal limits imposed by the old municipal rights of Croatia and by § 5 Article vii. of 1847-8 regarding Transylvania, we thought it our duty above all to lay down two main principles : —

(a)  that the citizens of Hungary of every tongue, form politically only one nation — the unitary and indivisible Hungarian nation, corresponding to the historic conceptions of the Hungarian state.

(b)  that all peoples dwelling in this country — Magyars, Slovaks, Roumanians, Germans, Serbs, Ruthenes, etc. — are to be regarded as nationalities possessing equal rights, who are free to make valid their special national claims within the limits of the political unity of the country, on a basis of freedom of the person and of association, without any further restriction.

A. Of the National Rights of Individuals and of Corporations.

§ 1. Every citizen has the right, in his memorials to his own communal or municipal[1] authorities, as also to the state authori­ties, to employ his mother tongue.

§ 2. But other communal or municipal authorities are only bound to accept such memorials as are written in one of the lan­guages usual in the commune or district in question.

§ 3. In the communal debates every one can speak in his mother tongue.

§ 4. The business language of the commune is determined by the communal assembly ; but in such a way that at the request of the minority its language also be employed in the conduct of business.

§ 5. The communal magistrates are bound in their official deal­ings with the individual inhabitants, to employ the language of the latter.

§ 6. The Church congregations (község : Gemeinde) have free control of the administration of all their internal affairs, and especi­ally of the choice of the language to be employed in keeping the registers and in instruction in their elementary schools.

§ 7. Every denomination and every nationality is equally en­titled to claim the help of the state for such communes [or parishes] as are unable to bear their own church expenses or educational expenses.

§ 8. Every denomination and nationality is free to erect second­ary and higher schools; the choice of the educational system and of the language of instruction in such schools, as also in similar schools already erected by the various denominations and nation­alities, rests — subject to the Government's right of supervision — with the individuals or bodies who are founding them.

§ 9. In the state schools the decision as to the language of in­struction belongs to the Ministry of Education, which in its decrees on this point is bound to take into account the languages in use in the district of the school in question.

§ 10. At the National University chairs of language and litera­ture are to be erected for all the nationalities inhabiting the country.

B. Of the Jurisdictions.

§ 11. In the assemblies of the Jurisdictions all those who have the right to speak, can use their mother tongue.

§ 12. The language of the minutes of debate and the business language of the officials of the Jurisdiction are determined by the General Assembly; but at the same time all nationalities in the territory of the Jurisdiction retain the right to demand that the minutes be kept in their own language.

§ 13. In case the Magyar should not be adopted as the Juris­diction's language of the minutes, these minutes are, with a view to facilitating governmental control, to be drawn up in the Magyar language also.

§ 14. The officials of the Jurisdiction are bound in their inter­course with the communes and individuals under them to use the language of the latter — especially in oral deliberations which affect either individuals or the State.

§ 15. The Jurisdictions communicate with one another in the Magyar language; but those Jurisdictions of mixed nationality, which have one and the same business language, are allowed to communicate with one another in this language.

§ 16. In the case of Jurisdictions in whose territory the business language adopted by a single Jurisdiction or the language employed in the territory of such a Jurisdiction by individuals and corpora­tions is not in use, all memorials must be submitted to them in the Magyar language also.

§ 17. The Jurisdictions communicate with the state authorities in the Magyar language.

C. Of the State Authorities.

§ 18. The business language of the state authorities is the Magyar.

§ 19. The offices and dignities of the State are, according to Act V. of 1844, to be filled in virtue of capacity and merit, without regard to nationality.

§ 20. The competent Ministers are bound to ensure that the offices of the various state authorities shall draw from the midst of the different nationalities a sufficient number of individuals who are equipped with the necessary knowledge for dealing with the docu­ments submitted by municipalities of mixed language and by the individuals and corporations under them. This consideration is also to be taken into account in filling the posts of High Sheriffs.

D. Of Parliament.

§ 21. The language of deliberation and business in Parliament is the Magyar.

§ 22. The laws are also to be promulgated in the languages of all the nationalities inhabiting the country, in authentic translations to be prepared by Parliament.

§ 23. All laws running counter to the above provisions, especi­ally the limitations contained in § 3 of Act V. of 1847-8, in § 2e of Act XVI. of the same year, and in § 7 of Act VI. of 1840, as also those decrees which occur in the Transylvanian Approbatis et Compilatis and which insult the Roumanian nationality, are once more repealed.

§ 24. The rights thus assured to all nationalities inhabiting the country, are proclaimed as a fundamental law and placed under the protection of the national honour.

That close link which exists in this country between racial and denominational conditions, make it impossible to separate alto­gether the commerging claims; and we therefore wish it to be expressly declared, that all those points which relate to church congregations and schools, are to be regarded as emanating from those laws of our country which regulate the autonomous rights of the various denominations, and whose maintenance in their full substance — especially the maintenance of the fundamental laws XXVI. and XXVII. of 1790-1, guaranteeing the rights of the Protestants of both confessions and of the Greek Oriental Church — we should like to emphasize in this place.

In the addenda to this our report we have the honour to submit to the honourable House of Representatives the documents which were consigned to the Committee, and the separate proposal brought forward by Messrs. Alois Vlad and Sigismund Popovics, members of Committee.

pest, August 1, 1861.

(Translated from Appendix XIII. of vol. iii. of Der ungarische Reichstag — 1861, pp. 334-8.)