HUNGARY AND IRELAND.
[To THE EDITOR OF T'RE "SPECTATOR."]
SIR,—Although the untenablenesa of the comparison between. the projected Home-rule and the Dual Government of Austria- Hungary has been fully proved by the late Count Benet himself through the columns of the Times, it may still be interesting for your readers to be made acquainted with the following remark, quoted by the Count in his "Memoirs," from an elec- tion speech delivered in 1885 by the late distinguished poli- tician, Dr. Herbst, in Bohemia :—" The principle of the unity of the State has been interfered with apparently only by the Dual Government. Hungary never belonged to Austria in the same way as Bohemia and Lower Austria. The Hungarian Constitution has proved its vitality during many years ; and when it was revised and reintro- duced in 1867, there had merely been resuscitated what had lived and actually existed before. The 'dualism' was- therefore not an imported innovation' by an imported states- man' [i.e., Count Benet]."
The moral to be derived from Dr. Herbst's historical observa- tion is so obvious that it requires no farther comment.—I am,.
Previous page
