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In Self-Defence

SEVERAL reasons compel me to resort to that somewhat questionable form of introduction, a personal explana­tion. Foremost among these are the attacks which have been made upon me in the foreign press and elsewhere, and the ludicrous guesses as to my identity. So far as the latter are concerned, I may as well state at once that I am neither ”an emissary of British Finance,"[1] nor "an agent of the press bureau of the Ballplatz in Vienna,"[2] nor "to be found in the neighbourhood of the Roumanian Court."[3] I am simply what my name denotes — a travelling Scotsman, bent on the study of history and politics. When I first devoted myself to the Austro-Hungarian question, I was imbued with the conventional admiration felt by most people in this country for Louis Kossuth and the ideals which he represented. A stay of seven months in Vienna served to increase my Kossuthist leanings, since I had ample opportunity of observing the prejudices with which so many Austrians regard Hungary, and their absolute disinclination even to try to appreciate the Hungarian standpoint. The crisis grew more and more acute, and my desire to see Hungary for my­self at last became irresistible. My first visit was during the elections of 1906, when the Coalition had at length attained to power and the tulip[4] was in every buttonhole. My experiences in Budapest and elsewhere soon convinced me that the prejudices of the Magyars against Austria far exceeded those of the Viennese against Hungary — a fact which I could hardly have credited before. Many weeks' subsequent travel in Hungary, during which I conversed with men of all shades of opinion, revealed to me the depths of Chauvinism into which Hungary had fallen, and incidentally undermined my enthusiasm for the Independent cause. I returned home disillusioned and less certain than before of the political talent and foresight of the Magyars. If, as Walter Pater held, " the way to perfection is through'a series of disgusts," I had — reluctantly, it must be owned — at length ceased to wander on false paths. For ten months I studied the question at home, equally removed from Austrian and Hungarian influ­ences, and thus by the time I next visited Hungary the romance had worn off and I was no longer inclined to believe all the political fairy tales with which that country is so liberally endowed. The result was doubtless reflected in occasional contributions to the press, and these earned for me the attacks against which I take this opportunity of defending myself.

(1) Last October there appeared a penny pamphlet entitled "The Constitutional Struggle of the Magyars," by Dr. A. B. Yolland. This pamphlet bears the subtitle" an Answer to Scotus Viator & Co."; and yet from cover to cover its author does not again refer to me or any of my views, still less attempt to refute them. Indeed he wastes several pages in refuting views of which I entirely disapprove and of which I defy him to find a trace in anything that I have ever written. His reference to me seems to have had a double object: — first, to discredit me by saddling me with opinions which I do not hold; second, to insult two distinguished Austrian professors by dragging them as "& Co." in the train of an anonymous foreign writer. He actually has the bad taste to talk of "Tezner & Co.," just as if an Austrian or a Magyar were to come to London and write slighting pamphlets about "Dicey & Co. !" He speaks of Professor Tezner's writings as "effusions of the Yellow Press," and alludes to his "intentional misinterpretations." I neither know nor agree with Professor Tezner, but I feel bound to protest against Dr. Yolland's insolent treatment of that distinguished Austrian publicist. For a lecturer on English, Dr. Yolland writes his mother tongue surprisingly badly, and what he is pleased to describe as his "authenticity" on constitutional questions is even more doubtful. But for his gratuitous attack on me, I should never have alluded to him; and further comments are, I hope, unnecessary.

(2) Early this year a pamphlet appeared in the Hammer­Verlag at Leipzig, entitled " Die oesterreichische Frage: eine Antwort auf die Scotus-Viator Broschüre. Von einem Deutsch­Oesteneicher. The writer's arguments are based on the sus­picion that Scotus Viator is in reality not a Scotsman but a Viennese official, or at least that "The Future of Austria­Hungary” was "ordered" by the Austrian Government. Scotus Viator, he argues, with charming courtesy, might equally well be "an Austrian press-reptile" or "an English states­man!” When he charges me with hostility towards Ger­many, I fear that he has fallen into the error of confusing the German Empire with the Pan-German League. For Germany, the Germans, and most things German, I have the very strongest sympathy and admiration, and have more than once tried to prove this in a practical way. And in spite of the "German-Austrian's" arguments, I still, maintain that the annexation of Austria by the German Empire would be disastrous to the latter; and if I were really her enemy, I should preach, in season and out of season, the dismemberment of the Habsburg domin­ions.

(3) A brief article of mine on the situation in Hungary wich appeared in the "Correspondence" columns of the Spectator last June, involved me in a controversy with Count M. J. Eszterházy, a member of the Hungarian Parliament; and when the massacre of Csernova (see page 339) on October 27, led me to contribute a further appeal on behalf of the Slovaks, he returned to the charge and repeated the stale old accusation made against every foreign critic of Hungary — namely that of using a Viennese make of spectacles. That Count Eszterházy should have lost his temper during the controversy which he himself evoked, is regrettable, but not unnatural under the circumstances; for he belongs to a class and party whose future is threatened by the democratic and non-Magyar movements in Hungary, with which I had expressed sympathy. But his last letter was so entirely misleading and inaccurate, that, my astonishment knew no bounds, when I learnt that the ex-Premier, Mr. Coloman Széll, at a political dinner of the Constitutional Party, had publicly thanked Count Eszter­házy for his answer in the Spectator, which he described as ”a calm, courageous, enlightening and instructive article." My letter, on the other hand, was "untrue, tendancieux, .utterly blind, and saturated with fanatical rage" (az ellenünk koholt tendencziósus, egézen vak, fanatikus dühvel szaturált támadás).[5] Now, a perusal of Count Eszterhazy's letter suggests that its comparative "calmness" is due to an extensive application of the pruning knife: that its author is "courageous," I should never dream of denying; but that his writings are "enlightening and instructive " is more than I can admit. In fact, his last letter is full of evasions and misstatements, supported by the use of old statistics to prove what new statistics disprove; so that the Temesvárer Zeitung unintentionally hit the nail on the head when it printed a translation of his letter under the heading " Falsche Informationen." The lamentable feature of the incident is that few persons in Hungary are so conversant with the real facts as Mr. Széll, who must therefore have known the extreme weakness of the arguments upon which he lavished his praise. I am thus forced to conclude that that distinguished statesman — the only Hungarian Premier of recent times who tried to apply tact and humanity to the question of the nationalities — has abandoned his former mod­erate attitude and surrendered to the crude reaction now rampant among his colleagues of the Coalition.

(4) The storm in a teacup raised by this incident forces me to draw attention to the unfair controversial methods of the Magyar Press. While whole columns of their space have sometimes been devoted to reproducing and commenting upon Count Eszterházy's letters to the Spectator, my replies were invariably passed over in silence, and their readers must have supposed that on each occasion I was reduced to silence. The instances which I am about to quote, throw a very curious light upon the methods of Hungarian journalism; and lest I should seem unduly prejudiced, I have limited myself to a single illustration from the Coalition Press and have drawn the other from one of their bitterest opponents, which has at the same time expressed general approval of rny opinions.

(A) On December 21, 1907, Magyarország (the organ of Mr. Holló, one of the most influential members of the Independent Party) published an article entitled: —

SCOTUS VIATOR — IN BUDAPEST.

the abuser of magyardom humiliated.

In it the writer describes an English conversation overheard in the Cafe New York on the previous Monday, between Peter Barré (sic), a colporteur of the British and Foreign Bible Society, and a certain Joseph Szebenyey, the Budapest corre­spondent of the Daily Express and the first translator of Kipling into Magyar. After many protests and talk of the dangers of instant dismissal if his action became known, "Barré" was persuaded to accept two articles from Szebenyey's hand, and undertook to deliver them to the Editor of the Spectator. After all, "harm could scarcely come of it, since not even the Devil would think that Scotus Viator was a Magyar." "To this step," continues the gifted writer in Magyarország, "only desperation and the hungry desire for a few florins, drives the author of such articles, whom foreign papers always gladly pay for articles tending to destroy the prestige of Hungary." Four days later, Magyarország, not satisfied with its righteous triumph, published the further details that my real name was not Szebenyey, but Szekulecz; that my father held some post in the Jewish congregation of Kecz, but coming into conflict with the law, absconded to America: that I there learnt English and returned to fetch and carry for the Fejérváry Government (which is, of course, merely another way of charg­ing me with venality and espionage). The publication of such an article in a leading Budapest journal affords startling proof of the low standards which now prevail in Hungarian journa­lism. It is really superfluous to comment on the incident, but there are certain special points to which I should like to call the attention of my readers, (a) The idea that a journal like the Spectator would accept articles on Hungary from an unknown person, through the medium of a Bible colporteur, would seem to be based on a comparison with Hungarian practice, (b) The idea that such action on the part of a colporteur might involve dismissal, could only have arisen in a country where boys are expelled from school for speaking their mother tongue on the streets, where railway servants are deprived of the vote, and where clergy who agitate in favour of their own language are suspended, transferred, fined, imprisoned, (c) Szebenyey's motive for handing the articles to "Barré" instead of posting them direct to London, can only be explained by the notorious fact that Hungarian Postal secrecy is violated for political purposes.[6]

(B) On the other hand, the friendly-disposed Social Democrat organ Népszava, seems to imagine that Count Eszterházy paid the Editor of the Spectator for the insertion of his letters !!! This comic accusation reminds me of the view expressed to me by a member of the Népszava staff last summer. We were talking of the letters and articles published in the British Press by Mr. Kossuth and Count Apponyi during the crisis of 1905-6. "Yes," said my companion calmly, "the Daily News must have been bribed by Kossuth." "Bribed!"! I exclaimed, "what on earth makes you think that ? "It duly transpired that when Mr. Kossuth wrote his appeal to the Daily News, my informant sent a rejoinder to the Editor, on a postcard, dated in Berlin, and signed with a German name. The rejoinder was not unnaturally never printed, and its author drew the conclusion so often drawn in Hungary. Argument was useless; for him, as for his opponents, the words "Audi alteram partem " did not exist. Such instances unhappily tend to show that the Magyar Press with a few rare exceptions has not the faintest inkling of what is meant by fair play. The Magyars are fond of British sports; it is a pity that they can­not learn to "play the game."

If I were a philosopher instead of a mere student of history, the Magyar psychology would supply me with an unique and fascinating theme. As it is, I must be content with recounting to my readers a few personal anecdotes which illustrate the extent to which the Magyars are dominated by racial prejudices, and also their extreme disinclination to introduce a foreigner to the real facts. During my first tour in Hungary I was predisposed to accept every word that fell from the lips of a Kossuthist as gospel, and it was only very slowly that the truth began to penetrate through the armour of suspicion which I donned whenever I met a non-Magyar. Indeed I look back now with amusement at the feelings of intense dislike and incredulity with which I first listened to a Slovak nationalist. I only mention this to show that I first visited Hungary as a strong partisan of the Magyars, and that it was only their repeated recourse to evasion and sophistry that shook my faith in the justice of their cause.

The, first case to which I would refer is that of a mayor of a larger town in the south, to whom I mentioned somewhat apologetically the assertion of these rascally non-Magyars, that the Law of Nationalities was not always put into execution. ”Not carried out ! That is a lie," cried the mayor in sten­torian tones that warned me not to pursue the conversation. Subsequent inquiries have shown me that I had touched a tender spot in the municipal armour, since his own city and the surrounding county supply many examples of the infringe­ment of that very law.

My second instance is that of a prominent ex-deputy and priest, who spent the best part of a day in trying to disprove to me the very existence of a racial question in Hungary. The fact that it was as acute in his own county as anywhere in the country suggests that his powers of casuistry were greatly superior to his belief in his visitor's sanity. Clearly he, like finest other Magyars, had never heard the brilliant phrase of Blowitz, "La moitié de l'intelligence est de se rendre compte de l'intelligence des autres." Indeed, they are far too fond of assuming their critics to be born fools.

The third case is that of an able Public Prosecutor, who acted for the Crown in one of the most notorious political trials, of recent years, and who was good enough to discuss with me the policy pursued by the Magyar authorities since 1867 towards the nationalities. "You must not imagine," he, said, "that we are all so severe towards the non-Magyars as the statistics of political trials would lead you to suppose. For instance, a very distinguished politician and true-blood Magyar, Mr. Mocsáry, of whose writings you may perhaps have heard, has for years advocated the cause of the nationalities." "Yes," I could not help retorting, "and for doing so he was ejected from his party and has for the past twenty years been ostra­cized from political life." "Na ja, das ist eine ganz andere Sache" ("that is quite another matter"), replied the lawyer, and conversation drifted into other channels. But so flagrant an attempt to befool the foreign inquirer is apt to leave an unpleasant taste in the mouth.

Yet another instance. On one occasion some Magyar acquaint­ances, realizing that I was not convinced by their arguments, arranged for me a meeting with a professor, who, they assured me, had made a special study of the questions in which I was interested, and who above all could say the last word on the important Law of the Nationalities. I called next day full of expectation, and was received with habitual Magyar courtesy. Unfortunately the professor restricted himself to generalities on the well-worn subjects of Liberty and Nationality, and it was only possible to bring the conversation gradually round to the real question at issue. He expressed great astonish­ment at the very idea that the Law of Nationalities had re­mained a dead letter, admitted the possibility of occasional abuses such as were bound to occur even in the most civilized state, but assured me that with these trifling exceptions the law was loyally respected. (Unfortunately our mutual ac­quaintance had taken the line of admitting its non-execution and arguing the incompatibility of such a law with the Magyar hegemony.) "But," I suggested, "the Law of Nationalities pledges the state to provide instruction in the mother-tongue, and yet, to take only one instance, there is not a single Slovak or Ruthene gymnasium in Hungary." "Oh, my dear sir," he protested, "I assure you you are mistaken; there is no such provision as that in the law of 1868." Then I saw that it was useless to beat about the bush any longer, and boldly producing a pocket edition of the law in question I turned to paragraph 17,[7] which contains the provision to which I had referred. The professor took the book and read the paragraph carefully through: he adjusted his glasses and skimmed it through again; then he turned to me and said, "Yes, I beg your pardon. Yes, you are perfectly right. I had forgotten."

Finally I may instance a still more distinguished Magyar, who has filled more than one position of great importance in Hungary and has always been conspicuous for his moderation and integrity. After expatiating at some length on the extreme and impossible demands of the non-Magyar leaders and emphasizing with great ability the importance of the Magyar hegemony to the balance of power in Europe, he closed by sketching the remarkable achievements of Magyar culture during the past forty years, its conquest of the towns and the irresistible attraction which it is bound to exercise on a race so lacking in culture and historic tradition as the Slovaks. Impressed by his persuasive eloquence, I could only meet him for the moment with the somewhat fatuous question, "And what will all this movement end in?" "Oh," he said, "we shall just go on till there are no Slovaks left."

This was perhaps the most instructive of the many unwary utterances to which I was treated; but it was by no means: the most startling, though for various reasons it is the last which I intend to quote. The indiscretions of the non-Magyars were of quite another type. They sometimes betrayed hatred or extravagant claims, though quite as often singular modera­tion and statesmanship; but they always displayed a perfect passion for facts, sometimes even talking with the laws and the official statistics in their hands. Nothing struck me more than the eagerness with which a leading non-Magyar deputy urged me to make the acquaintance of his most Chauvinistic opponents — so convinced was he that this would be the most effective way of bringing me to his side. I am not blind to the exaggerations of which the non-Magyars, like every one else, are guilty. But they are still weak and on the defensive, and under present circumstances it is as much to their interest to tell the truth as it is to the Magyar interest to conceal it.

Of course no Magyar Chauvinist will believe so "calumnious and fanatical" a writer as myself, when I say that this book has been written entirely without any feeling of hatred towards Hungary. Perhaps in ten years' time, when universal suffrage has let in a healthy stream of democracy and the present orgy of racial intolerance and class legislation has spent itself, it will be possible for a Magyar to make such an admission. That is however a matter of comparative indifference to me, since I write for the British, not the Hungarian public, whose tendency to ascribe all unfavourable comments on Hungary by foreign writers either to bribery or to "Viennese spectacles," tempts me to ignore their criticism altogether. My object has been, not so much to expose the present regime in Hungary (whose reactionary and oligarchic nature is now well known abroad) as to convince those of my countrymen who Seem disposed to commit Britain to sympathy with the Magyar clique and thereby to promote the ruin of the Habsburg Monarchy and an European conflagration — to prove to them that Hungarian freedom is a myth for all save the Magyars, and even for the Magyars if they espouse the cause of Socialism or Labour, and that her ruling classes stand for everything that is anathema to all enlightened politicians in this country, whether they call themselves Conservative, Liberal, Labour or Nationalist. The Magyars may deny all attempt at Magyarization: that is only an argument (if argument it can be called) with which to fool ignorant foreigners. For a year it took me in completely; now it has lost its effect, and I wish to make it impossible to repeat the process with any of my countrymen who do me the honour of reading this book.

R. W. seton-watson.