HUNGARY'S FLIGHT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 791, 22 August 1923, Page 11

HUNGARY'S FLIGHT.

POMP DISGUISES POVERTY. A VIVID PEN-PICTURE. A vivid pen-picturo of Hungary struggling to keep up appearances in her tragically reduced position was recently contributed to the Londoii Daily Mail by Mr G. Ward Price. "In the midst of her financial struggle against following. Austria into tho abyss. Hungary reminds one of the ruined aristocrat in a stage play," wrote Mr Price. "Poverty stricken, and at the mercv of States which she regards as a Balkan mob that has despoiled her, she takes a melancholy pride in preserving what she can of her former pomp. The shirt collar that I noticed on a high official was characteristic—well starched and glazed, but frayed. At Buda Pest this keeping-up of appearances is helped by the setting of the most magnificently staged capital in Europe, whose splendid palaces of more spacious days crown a steep hill above the Danube that looks like the painted back-cloth of a theatre. Up there on the official Acropolis officers of Hungary's little army of 30,000 men wear more gold braid and showier sword-knots than are left anywhere else in Europe. Ceremonious sentries pace their beats like automatic figures, pausing long and stiffly at each stride, and archdukes still drive out behind cockedhatted coachmen.

"Outside the room of the Regent, Admiral Horthy, stood the most bril-liantly-dressed guard I ever saw except at the Vatican. He had had a ■ht-fitting, crimson-braided uniform with a jacket of white fur. His helmet was of hammered silver with a white plume, and the tall halberd he carried was intricately and beautifully damascened. 'There are forty of them,' said someone to whom 1 described him. 'I suppose they will last until their uniforms wear out.'

"The outward aspect of Hungary is true to the facts of her financial position. Regarded from the economic standpoint, she is a formerly rich, ruling, and cultured nation ruined by the Treaty of Trianon. Politically, doubtless, Hungary brought her ruin upon herself, having abused the power she used to exercise over other races. For this Hungarians now pav the penalty that 3,000,000 of their own people have been transferred to the rule of Jugo-Slavs, Czecho-Slovaks,' or Roumanians, and that in some cases —especially by ltoumania—these involuntary exiles are being oppressively used. LOAN OP £24,000,000 SOUGHT. "Putting political considerations aside, however, the present trade stagnation of Hungary and her apparently approaching ruin are traceable to the Peace Treaty, which in a large fringe lopped off two-thirds of the country, leaving the centre an economically isolated fragment, deprived of mineral and other resources it had hitherto possessed. Compelled thus to import raw materials and manufactured articles which she used to produce for herself, and overshadowed meanwhile by a demand for reparations, the amount of which has never yet been fixed, Hungary's financial position has steadily declined, despite efforts by her Government to prevent the national currency from collapsing outright as the Austrian crown has done. These measures closely restrict the purchase of foreign money, making it difficult for Hungarians to pay for the goods they import. "Such artificial conservation of the country's currency can, however, be only temporary, and unless Count Bethlen's recent attempts in London, Paris and Rome to realise a loan of £24,000,000 meet with success, the Hungarian crown is expected to sink much below its present level of 24,000 to the £1 (as against a pre-war 24), with tho result that yet another possible foreign market will cease to exist for British trade. To raise the needed loan, however, the Allies must first be persuadel to repeat what they did for Austria, and release the national revenues from tho pledge they are under for reparations. It is just here that the standing disadvantage of Hungary's international position conies in. The Little Entente, consisting of Jugo-Slavia, Czecho-Slovokia and Roumania, whose influence is strong with France, will agree to this only on condition that the loan is used, in great part, to ensure the payment of reparations—a stipulation that will discourage leaders and prevent tho money from being applied to restoring the country's economic position.

RINGED BY FEAR AND SUSPICION,

"Hungary's national life is at present, indeed, spent in the Valley of the Shadow of the Little Entente. These three States, to which her lost lands went, have leagued themselves to prevent her from trying to recover them—a hope which they maintain she cherishes. 'lt is flattering that they think us so formidable,' said Admiral Horthy, sardonically, 'but what can three much larger States, with powerful modern armies, have to fear from a Hungary of 8,000,000 inhabitants and a military force reduced to 30,000 men?'" i "It is the main political question of Central Europe, however, whether Hungary has accepted her fate or still hopes for revenge. In her heart it would be too much to expect that she has accepted it, for the Hungarians aro a proud race. But isolated, reduced and impoverished as she is, with her territory lying open to inspection, it is difficult to see what else she can do, in reality. There can be no doubt that if Hungary, found herself alone with one of the nations who hold former territory of hers she would try to recover it, especially were it the Roumanians, for whom tho Hungarians profess both hatred and contempt. Tho Jugoslavs they respect as being brave fighters. 'I would always shake hands with a Serb," said Admiral Horthy. "The difference between Hungarian and Czech ho defined as being that while both were originally on the samo side in the war, the Czechs went over to the Allies and the Hungarians remained true to their allegiance. He sead, however, that he was prepared to enter into such commercial treaties as Dr Benes, the Czecho-Slovakian Foreign Minister, had told me a few days previously it was his hope to conclude. . "On the question of a loan tho British Government has shown a friendly attitude towards Hungary. British interests would be served by helping this small, compact and intelligent nation to regain its feet. It has Eng-' lish sympathies, and treated British residents in Hungary during the war very well,' allowing them full liberty of movement. A quite unusual number of people to whom I talked in Buda Pest spoke English. Before the war we had valuable trade interests there, and of these "so many in other parts of tho Continent have disappeared that what are left are well worth saving."