20 SEPTEMBER 1902, Page 1

It has often been argued that an alliance between the

Germans of Austria and the Magyars, both of whom are ruling castes, would create a party in the Empire too strong to be resisted by the. Slays. The Germans, however, seem to have decided against the alliance. The Pan-Germans are ex- citing the " Saxons " of Hungary against the Magyars, with such success that the Government of Buda-Perth is irritated, and the Magyars themselves are proposing a universal boycott of their opponents. The Hirlap, a Magyar organ of the Hungarian capital, even threatens that if the Pan-Germans do not cease from their mischievous activity, Hungary will reconsider her adhesion to the Triple Alliance. The matter is not of pressing importance, but the quarrel indicates, like the Polish agitation in Posen, the extreme difficulty which Germans find in conciliating their neighbours. They are probably not plotting in Hungary, but they see a certain number of Germans there, and cannot understand that an incitement to them to be Germans politically, and not Hun- garians, gives deadly offence. Fortunately, the Germans of Hungary are quiet folk, who have learned in the centuries of their residence to understand the people among whom they live.