Correspondence
A LETTER FROM BUDAPEST. [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—Budapest, city of sun-flooded streets and open-air pleasures, has at last bowed her head, not willingly yet not
ungracefully, to the yoke of winter. The pavement cafés and
out-of-doors restaurants have vanished, roast chestnut and baked pumpkin vendors make fragrant the street corners, and the mornings are wrapped in milky mists against which the russet leaves of the plane trees stand out with the sketchy vividness of things seen in dreams. Recently an added pic-
turesqueness was lent to the streets by the flags which wave from all the bridges and public buildings in honour of the visit of the town of Nfirnberg. It is a return visit, following on one paid by Budapest to Niirnberg last February—an inter- change of amenities the origin of which reaches back to no less a person than Albrecht Diirer, whose father, as every schoolboy and even a few grown-ups know, was born in Hungary, in a village named Ajtos. (Ajto is Hungarian for door. Translated into German as Titre, or Diire, it gave the great painter the name which the world was to know him by in the centuries to come.) It is in keeping with the nature of this link that the rapprochement should be chiefly cultural and artistic. The 550 guests who arrived last Friday, under the leadership of the Mayor of Niirnberg and of the Bavarian Minister of Education, include the members of the Ntirnberg Opera House and Dramatic Theatre, and the outstanding events of the week were performances of the Meistersinger and Richard Strauss' Intermezzo by the former, and of The Taming of the Shrew and Hoffmannsthal's Jedermann by the latter. The Hungarian hosts have entertained their guests with gala performances of Ernst von Dohnanyi's newest opera, The Tenor; and of Lessing's Minna von Barnhelm, and have thrown open the doors of two of their galleries to most interesting exhibitions, one illustrating the history and development of Bavarian Public Instruction, and one of Nurnberg Arts and ('rafts.
The quickening of the political atmosphere incident to the reopening of Parliament has revived the vexed question of the democratization of Hungary. A Bishop of the Reformed Church has laid before the Prime Minister his suggestions concerning a more liberal regime. But Count Bethlen, with the suave obduracy of which he is a master, has stuck to his -opinion that such forcing of the pace would not be for the country's good. A certain valued friend of Hungary abroad has also thrown out hints that too rigid an adherence to th6 Government's present policy might impair the prospects of that revision of the Peace Treaty which every Hungarian has at heart. This is one point of view which deserves respect and attention. It is not, however, that of Signor Mussolini, who, in an interview recently given to one of the Editors of the Budapest paper Pester Lloyd, has declared it his opinion that theie is no connexion whatever between the revision of the Peace Treaty and Hungary's internal policy. In the meantime, Parliament is discussing the Bill on military criminal procedure, which maintains duelling in the Army as well as the right of officers to use their swords in case of grave insult. Another provision of the draft Bill, which substituted flogging for the death penalty for certain offences in war-time, met with such unanimous opposition in all camps, as being degrading to human dignity, that it had to be abandoned in Committee, although its manifestly humane tendency was acknowledged by everyone.
The Paris Committee which has been discussing the financial liabilities of the States of South-Eastern Europe has—so far as has transpired in spite of the officially maintained secrecy —proposed to lay upon Hungary reparation burdens exceeding those fixed in 1923. In addition to this, Rumania; with the concurrence of the two other States of the Little Entente, has demanded that the question of the claims of the Hungarian optants- compensation for their confiscated properties should e included in the discussion. Hungary's definite refusal to accept either of these proposals has caused her to be saddled with the responsibility for the breaking off of the negotiations—although if responsibility there is, it must be shared by Bulgaria—and more or less covert blame has been meted out to her for her want of pliability. Yet English people at least, still savouring the triumph gained for a just cause by the brilliant intransigeance of their Chancellor of the Exchequer, will, perhaps, not refuse all understanding of and sympathy with the attitude of the Hungarian Govern- ment. The manifest injustice of proposing to increase the reparation burdens of a State which has lost—according to the calculations of Professor Fenner, of Budapest University— about two-thirds of its territory and 38,000 milliards pengiis of its wealth, and to impose on it the additional obligation of compensating its own nationals for properties whose value has been pocketed.by Rumania, is felt very keenly throughout the land. Nor is the feeling confined to nationalist circles alone. The appalling economic depression which seems, if
not a result at least a concomitant of the surprisingly quick reconstruction-of the State finances and which finds eloquent expression in the closing down of-every other shop and the bankruptcy of many of the oldest and most firmly established firms, makes it a question of life and death, very far indeed removed from that of mere national prestige, that no such further burdens should be imposed on the State as might react unfavourably on the individual citizen.—I am, Sir, &c.,
YOUR BUDAPEST CORRESPONDENT.
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