REVOLUTION AND COUNTER-REVOLUTION IN HUNGARY.
'[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Three weeks ago I published in your columns " The Rest of the Picture," an article on the politics of Central Europe with special reference to Hungary, which evoked an immediate protest from Mr. Torday, who openly accused me of mis-statement. This letter of Mr. Torday's is an admirable example of the efficiency of that white Hungarian propaganda to which I referred. As I said, they miss no peg on which to hang an exposition of their case. I did not reply immediately, for two reasons. In the first place, I hold no brief for any political party—not even in my own country, far less abroad ; and it hardly seemed the part of one of your reviewers to be tempted into partizanship. Secondly, I wanted, as a matter of interest, to see whether the Kiirolyi Party had their own system of propagandists (as Mr. Torday alleges), who would take up the cudgels, for Mr. Torday's letter is easy game, and it seemed more their business than mine. But as no reply was forth- coming, and as the letter was, after all, an attack on my personal veracity, perhaps you will allow me to answer it. Mr. Torday himself makes several mis-statements ; says things which would be laughed out of court if he advanced them in Budapest, but which might perhaps pass current here owing to the usual English ignorance of foreign affairs, and English dislike of revealing that ignorance.
He quotes from " Count Kiirolyi's Manifesto of Resignation " two clauses, equivalent to a declaration in favour of Bolshevism. Everyone in Hungary, at any rate, knows that that manifesto was neither composed nor authorized by Kiirolyi. The Count at that time had a Coalition Cabinet containing the Social Democrats, and they revolted and joined the Commun- ists, and issued the proclamation (to which they forged his signature) entirely without his knowledge. This question of the proclamation is not a mere matter of opinion, it is of common knowledge that Kitrolyi had nothing whatever to do with it, and I am astonished at Mr. Torday quoting it. Your reviewers are not so ignorant of their subject as that.
With regard to the Fabian lecture, I was not present myself, but I have been unable to get any confirmation of the attribu- tion of the statement about Bela Kun to Count Karolyi. Bela Kun, moreover, was imprisoned by Karolyi, and released not by him but by the revolting Social Democrats who forged the manifesto. Why, if Karolyi " handed over " the people to the Bolsheviks, were the latter at their subsequent trial condemned to death for " seizing the supreme power by
force ".? One cannot have it both ways.!
And—the last point in Mr. Torday's letter—he says that Kftrolyi is not the only Hungarian advocate of Free Trade :
that Count Albert Apponyi " clamoured. for .it." Perhaps : there are very few things which Count Apponyi has not at some time clamoured for. His political views are not famous for their stability. As for the statement that " there are no Serbian districts in Hungary," this is a mere quibble ,: surely no one would deny that there are whole villages and small districts almost exclusively Slav ; but I: suppose Mr. Torday means really large tracts Of country.
Pardon me, Sir, for taking sides in this way, but it is naturally distressing to see what faint interest the general public take in foreign affairs exploited by propagandists of whatever party, and so notaVe an example as this letter of Mr. Torday's could hardly be allowed to pass uncorrected.—
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