HUNGARY TO-DAY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23435, 25 February 1938, Page 8

HUNGARY TO-DAY

The report from the Budapest correspondent of a London daily that Hungary intends to denounce the military provisions of the Treaty of Trianon appears entirely credible. Since the war Hungary has pursued a course marked by great vicissitudes. The Treaty of Trianon, which was concluded in 1920 —the delay being caused by the internal disorders which encouraged the Rumanian invasion—is the instrument by which Hungary lost nearly threeqOarters of her earlier territory and two-fifths of her population to Rumania, Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia. By the treaty her military strength was limited, and an air force forbidden to the country. It might be remarked that these latter provisions, while they may have proved galling to the Hungarian people, were not without their financial benefit. For many years Hungary’s budget has been balanced, and in a continent which has expended huge sums in armaments, the Hungarian appropriation for this purpose has never exceeded oneiwelfth of revenues. The State has, however, been forced to endure for long the political unrest and constant apprehension inevitable upon its situation in proximity to two Fascist dictatorships. First Italy, next Nazi Germany, has wooed Hungary, using methods at once persuasive and disturbing. Nazi-ism had a strong hold until quite recently rumours of an impending putsch provoked the Government into taking steps to combat the spreading of brown-shirt propaganda in its more assertive forms. The Hungarian Prime Minister at that time expressed the determination of his Government to resist Nazi attempts to “co-ordinate” the country. During recent months, under the first liberalising administration it has experienced in postwar years, Hungary has given evidence that the joys of totalitarianism —with absorption implied—have not an overwhelming allure. The electoral law is being broadened, to introduce a more democratic system of Government, and it is suggested by an informed observer in Current History that Hungary is turning her eyes towards alliance with the Little Entente. But while so much cannot be regarded as certain, it may help to explain the reported intention of the nation to discard the military limitation provisions of Trianon. No small State in Europe to-day can live in comfort which feels itself practically defenceless. And it is not necessary to assume that a policy of rearmament in Hungary need have any sinister connotations.