BARON KALLA.Y. T HE death of Baron KitIlay is a heavy
blow to the Austrian Empire. He was, in the eyes of the Emperor and the people, a reserve force which could be entrusted in time of pressing emergency with a kind of dictatorship. There are not too many such men in the Empire, for the higher bureaucracy there, on which so much depends, is not rich in great personalities. It is not the fault of the Emperor, who is not jealous of being out- shone, and who supported Beust and. Schmerling, both plebeians, against the prejudices of his Court ; but he has not quite the insight into men possessed by his great rival, the first German Emperor, and he is fettered by the racial difficulty, by the clerical difficulty, and by the inveterate prejudices of the aristocracy, who cannot get over the in- bred idea that in obeying a low-born man they are dero- gating from their personal honour. There is some weak point, too, in the method of promotion, with the total result that unless the Imperial house itself throws up a competent man, as in the case of the Archduke Albrecht, the Emperor is compelled to do the best he can with second-rate, or even third-rate, agents. Baron Kallay was an exception. He was not only a first-rate administrator, but he was one of those rare men who can be trusted with autocratic powers without any danger of their losing their heads. When in 1882 he was chosen to govern Bosnia- Herzegovina, the two Turkish provinces with which Russia repaid the neutrality of Austria during the Turkish War— the legend is that they were really handed over by Alexander II. to Francis Joseph in an autograph note of six lines—his task must have seemed nearly hope- less. The tenure of the provinces was bad, for there remained a doubt whether they might not be handed back to the Sultan. The Magyars dreaded the new acquisition, which would increase the weight of the Slays within the Monarchy ; and Herr Kallay himself, though he had in various capacities made a great impres- sion on his superiors, was nearly unknown to the Empire, had no party in either of the Monarchies, and was disliked both by the Magyars of Hungary and the Clericals of Austria. The provinces themselves were really wild. lands ruled by Mahommedan nobles, under whom Servian Slays struggled and foamed in vain, with no "civilisation," little revenue, no police, no passable roads, and an average of a thousand murders a year. The " Agas," or nobles, were said to be intent on emigrating in a body as they had done from Servia, and afterwards did from Bulgaria ; and the tillers of the soil, mainly belonging to the Greek Church, were by no means sure that the Roman Catholic Emperor would be any better ruler than the Turk. From the moment, how- ever, that Herr Kallay took up the reins the storm began to subside. He made no pretence of Liberalism, and from first to last settled everything by decree ; but he made it known that religious differences were nothing to him, he confirmed every man in his proprietary rights, he insisted that rapid justice should be done, especially against murderers, and he opened roads for a police which he organised very much on the plan of the Irish Constabulary: All classes gradually recognised that a strong man without prejudices of race or creed was ruling them, backed in the last resort by irresistible force, and, though doubtless in many cases with angry sighs, they submitted to the inevitable. The nobles remained on their estates, the tenantry appealed instead of murdering when they were oppressed, justice was recognised as attainable, trade became possible, and revenue began to flow in. The Emperor, recognising what sort of an agent he had found, backed him loyally, every effort to remove or shake Herr Kallay—who was incidentally made " von " and Baron— failed, and he remained for twenty-one years the uncrowned King in Bosnia. He is said in that capacity to have done some "despotic "—that is, extra-legal—acts ; but no one on the spot accuses him of injustice, and when he quitted Bosnia that wild province, more beautiful than Switzerland and nearly as mountainous, was as safe as Scotland. The habit of murder had died out till the average was lower per thousand than in London ; the tenure had been corrected till the peasantry, though not fully contented, for they hold the land to be theirs, had ceased to rebel ; and the small cities had begun to exult, Balkan fashion, in all "the appurtenances of civilisation." The finances were all straight, the provinces paying their own expenses ; and the regiments of native Bosnians are believed to be as faithful as any of tlioss which take the military oath to the house of Hapsburg. • This seems to us a magnificent piece of work, deserving honour from all Europe, and also a most instructive one, especially for those who are trained to believe that the only trustworthy instrument of government is a represen- tative body. That it is the best under certain conditions of civilisation we have no doubt whatever, though the degree of its success is modified by the temperament of the race which enjoys it, to an extent not yet quite fully recognised by political philosophy ; but to lay its bases in- dividual authority is often required. Those who manage representative government have rarely the necessary originality, they rely too much on argument, and they are apt to transfer their own approval of the executive persons to the policy pursued by those persons. The representatives had been absolute in Great Britain for a century and a half before they thought of making good roads or an organised. police, and they have not yet constructed the kind of Army which is suited to the national requirements. Lord Kitchener would make an Army if you let him far more easily than Parliament will. If this is true even of a high civilisation like our own, it is far more true of a lower one, in which the first object of the representatives is apt.to be executive power with its emoluments, without reference to the uses to which executive power should be put. The Balkan States, for example, will probably in the end be as fit for representative institutions as Great Britain, or Germany, or America, but at present they need Governors who can- govern more even than " freedom " or education in political debate. A Baron Kallay would do more for Macedonia, for instance, not to say Servia or Bulgaria, than any possible Parliament. He would put an end to the conflict of races and creeds, he would render the country safe, and he would lay the foundations of that "public fortune," namely, general prosperity, without which pro-. gressive government is in our age so increasingly difficult.
It is said, of course, that Baron Kallay is an accident, and that no Power or Powers are capable of finding the right man ; but we believe that if there were an honest desire to find. him this opinion would be rejected as an exaggeration. This country has found. a succession of such men in India, and has sent Lord Cromer to Egypt. The Austrian Empire found Baron Kallay. The first German Emperor found, in Turkey of all places, Count von Moltke, who was in the Army exactly what Baron Kallay was in Bosnia. The American Republic found him in General Wood, who succeeded so completely in Cuba. There must be scores of such men. What is wanting is the willingness to find them, to give them quasi- independent powers, and when they succeed to leave them alone until their work, which is to prepare the soil for freedom, is evidently done. The assumption of the free just now is that no such preparation is needed ; but it is an assumption only, disproved by history, and with no justification even in philosophic theory. Just think for a moment what Bosnia-Herzegovina would have been like had the State been set free to govern itself through repre- sentatives,—that is, to maintain for a generation an open or veiled civil war. Surely the lack of self-government for a generation or two, which would have meant government by intrigue and plotting, is well compensated by a solid social order which, if it is maintained for another thirty years, will allow the construction of a representative government as free as that of a Swiss canton, and, like that, able to last in peace, dignity, and prosperity for five hundred years. It is not the least of the great services which Baron Kallay rendered to his master and to Europe that he enabled us to see once more what manner of work can be accomplished. by a wise Dictator who is left un- trammelled. for a lifetime, and who does not hope or wish to be a King.
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