The Hungarian Government appears to believe in internal migration as
a cure for Socialism among agricultural labourers. It intends to utilise all municipal and State land in this way, and, if necessary, to make some large purchases. Recently, in two counties, " congested" by the cessation of the embankment works on the River Theiss, it moved two hundred families ; but it finds that the labourers do not thankfully accept the land thus offered them. They are clearly indus- trious, for they were doing hard work while it remained to do ; but they probably dislike the extreme privation,—privation as of colonists on a desert island,—which must be endured for the first year. The Times' correspondent at Vienna, who forwards this information, should have told his readers what method the Government adopts to meet the housing difficulty. Are the people lodged in tents, or have they learned to but themselves, or do they lie, children and all, on the open plain? It should be observed that both in Austria and Hungary, except on the vast "entailed estates," or latifundia, in the latter country, the agriculturists, if they have any money at all, have no difficulty in obtaining good land. There is more than is wanted, and the trouble is to live on it when it is obtained.
Previous page
