The Continental papers eagerly discuss a very curious inci- dent.
Baron de Kallay, the Austrian Lord Tenterden, is said to have informed the Hungarian" Delegation," or Committee of Foreign Affairs, that the Italian visit had ended in nothing, and that Austria had nothing to hope from Italy, as well as nothing to fear from her. In its precise form the remark was almost contemptuous, implying that Italy was a presuming busybody. The account created such feeling in Rome, that Baron de Kallay at once explained it away, alleging that he had said that, in spite of the Irredenta agitation, Italy was friendly. Nobody on the Continent ever believes an official denial without corroborative evidence, and the revelation is supposed to mean, in spite of the friendliness of the two monarchs, that the Emperor is displeased ; but there is another and better explanation. The Hungarians do not want to go southward, and suspect an arrangement with Italy for that purpose, and the Court, in its anxiety to soothe them, is pro- testing that it would as soon go to Siberia as Salonica. The Italian visit would necessarily, under those circumstances, be described to the Hungarians as meaning nothing at all. Note, as an explanation of Hungarian sensitiveness, that the Austrian conscription has just been thrown over Bosnia, which at Pesth is held not to be Hapsburg property at all.
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