A crisis has arisen in Hungary out of the persistent
attacks on the personal honour of M. Polonyi, the Minister of Justice. They began with the charges brought by M. Halmos, ex-Burgomaster of Buda-Pesth, against M. Polonyi, but subsequently retracted, with the result that the Independence Party, of which M. Polonyi is one of the vice-presidents, absolved him of dishonourable conduct. The charges of M. Halmos, however, had not only been repeated in an aggravated form by M. Lengyel, a member of the Independence Party, but they have since been reinforced by a further actusation of compromising negotiations with a Hungarian Booneee In Vienna. This further charge has been amplified in another Buda- Pesth paper, which asserts that early in 1995 If. Polonyi bribed the lady to act as a spy at Court on behalf of the Coalition, and then appropriated the sum agreed on, and provided by two noblemen of the Coalition. M. Polonyi is further charged, when the crisis was terminated in April, 1908,. with having endeavoured by force to recover the lettere lie had addressed to the Baroness, who has now attempted to commit suicide. The upshot of this painful scandal is not yet clear, but, according to the Viennese correspondent of the Times, Count Andrassy will no longer consent to sit in the same Cabinet with M. Polonyi unless the latter can clear his character in public.
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