MAGYAR ABSOLUTISM IN CROATIA.
[To TIDO EDITOR Or TEM esezersees."] Srn,—For the past five years the so-called Southern Slav Question has occupied a prominent place among the many internal problems of the Dual Monarchy, and has reacted upon that country's foreign policy and international position. With the events of last week this question has entered upon a now phase, which deserves the close attention of all political observers. For in the present state of tension in South-East Europe, when the Turco-Italian War may at any moment lead to Balkan complications, the establishment of absolutism in a constitutional country such as Croatia must be regarded as a peculiarly dangerous experiment; and the danger becomes the more apparent when we bear in mind tho advanced years of the Emperor Francis Joseph, the grave illness of Count Aebrenthal, and the precarious situation of the Khuen- HedervIlry Cabinet.
The elections which took place last December in Croatia under the auspices of the late Ban, Dr. Tomagile, ended in a com- plete fiasco for the Government. In spite of corruption, in- timidation, and the use of troops on an almost unprecedented scale, in spite of wholesale confiscation of the Opposition Press, the Opposition parties succeeded in retaining sixty- three out of the eighty-eight seats of which the Croatian Diet is composed. The position of Dr. Tomasi6 had thus become impossible, and on January 19th he was succeeded by Mr. Cuvaj, a retired official who had acted as right-hand man to Baron Bauch during the last six months of his illegal regime (at the time of the Agram Treason Trial and the Friedjung Trial). The appointment came as a complete surprise to public opinion in Croatia, in Hungary, and in Austria, and has bad a highly dramatic sequel. Unlike his predecessors, on assuming office Mr. Cuvaj gave no indication of his political programme, and three days after his arrival in Agram, without even making an attempt to negotiate with any of the Croatian parties, dis- solved the newly elected Diet before it had oven been allowed to meet. The rescript of dissolution seeks to justify this high-handed act on the ground that the Diet's " party group- ings offer no prospect of successful activity." The first out- burst of indignation was conveniently suppressed by the confiscation of all the Croatian Opposition papers, and the same evening Mr. Stephen Rabe, the leader of the Peasant Party, was thrown into prison, and Mr. PribiZeviC, the Serb Independent leader, cited on a charge of political libel. (Dr. Lorkovi& the Croat Progressive leader, and Dr. Hinkovi6, the brilliant advocate of the treason trial, had already been removed by Tornagie from the field of active politics by means of trumped- up political charges.) The official organ of the new Ban threatens the parties with ruin unless they alter their poli- tical programmes—in other words, unless they capitulate to Budapest and commit suicide in the eyes of their electors. Not since the suppression of all political liberties after the revolution of 1848 has Austria-Hungary witnessed so flagrant an instance of despotic government. According to the strict letter of the law, a dissolution is no doubt at all times possible; but dissolution according to Mr. Cuvaj's method—within a month of general elections, and such elections—strikes at the root of all constitutional government and reduces the representative system to a mere farce. An appeal to the electorate is only to hold good if it produces a docile majority. The ultra,-Magyar contention, that Croatia is not a parliamentary country at all, of course runs directly counter to the Hungaro-Croatian Compromise of 1898 (e.g., §§ 47, 50, 54) and the organic laws of Croatia (e.g., II. 1869 and II. 1870). None the less, Buda- pest, which first evoked the conflict with Croatia in 1907 by an open violation of the Compromise (§ 57), still declines to comply with the law, and having thrice in less than four years, by fair means and foul, tried to create a majority at the polls now intends to defy Croatian opinion for the fourth time. Count Khuen-Hedervilry finds that his reputation is at stake. As Ban of Croatia he held that unhappy country for twenty years in the bands of the notorious "Khuen System " ; and if to-day, as Hungarian Premier, with all the backing of the Magyar State, he cannot achieve the same result, his prestige must inevitably suffer in Hungary itself. A desperate effort is being made to reduce refractory Croatia to " order " ; and by an irony of fate the Emperor-King's very devotion to the constitutional idea is being misused by his constitutional advisors. The reactionary clique which controls Hungarian affairs places the subjection of Croatia in the forefront of its programme, and extracts the consent of the venerable Sovereign by the argument that genuine con- cessions to Croatia would involve an internal crisis in Hungary. As Count Aebrenthal is far too seriously ill to raise a warning voice, and is in any case an open enemy of Croat aspirations, Budapest has for the present a free band, though it is scarcely credible that Mr. Cuvaj, who enjoys less prestige than any of his predecessors, and for whose mission no Croat noble would offer himself, will succeed where a Dr. Tomaid has failed.
In the Dual Monarchy to-day everything is at a standstill; uncertainty dominates the situation, alike in foreign polities and in the internal affairs of Austria and of Hungary. We are on the eve of great changes, and the growing influence of the Heir Apparent throws its shadow across the scene, though as yet the ideas of the old regime are able to hold the political field. In Hungary a new crisis may break out at any moment; for the Government is determined to force the new Army Bill through the House, while the Opposition, knowing the reactionary sentiments of the majority, insists upon electoral reform preceding military concessions. If obstruction and the ensuing deadlock drive the Government to new elms. tions, Count Khuen-Hedervary will doubtless attempt the same boundless corruption which characterized the elections of June 1910. But " to make a desert and to call it peace " is becoming, as a political operation, increasingly difficult, and the movement for electoral reform in Hungary can be delayed, but not extinguished. For the present the advanced age of the Sovereign and that lack of initiative and aversion to change which are the natural accompaniments of ago are favourable to the status quo ; but the longer an untenable situation is allowed to drag on the more drastic is its final solution likely to be. The misrule from which the Southern Slays have Buffered during the past five years and the virtual suspension of the Croatian Constitution, which that misrule has involved, must destroy the last remnants of sympathy with Magyar national aspirations in their present form ; for a race which can only thrive on the oppression of others is a mere vam- pire, not a healthy organism. If the proverbial trouble follows the melting of the Balkan snows, the long neglect of the Southern Slav Question may involve very serious inter. national consequences.—I am, Sir, &o.,
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