HUNGARY TO-DAY

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LIX, Issue 17957, 8 December 1932, Page 2

HUNGARY TO-DAY

V FEIENDSHIP FOR ENGLAND A K?NG For the past week Dr. G. Winkler, a •young Hungarian, has been in Wellington. According to the visitor the Hungarians have a large respect for England and the British, and they have a political alliance with Italy. Germany and the Germans airo not very popular with Hungarians; they are indifferent to tho French ; and they most of their immediate neighbors, with whom, however, the bulk of their trade is inevitably done. . - The English are regarded as friends, and in Hungarian newspapers*-very full accounts are printed of English events. The interest which Hungary! takes m England springs, Dr. Winkler- thinks, from tlie fact that parts of their respective cultures are related. HUNGARY AND THE WAR In order to get the present position ol Hungary into true perspective it was necessary to go back 20 years or so, Dr. Winkler said. The Great War took Hungary unawares, and as Herr Emil Ludwi ' had pointed out in his book, “1914, r ’ the Hungarian Premier was ono of those who tried to resist it. Being tloselv connected, however, with Austria, Hungary had to enter the lists and “fight it out.” At its conclusion tho Hungarians lost two-thirds of their country bv treaty, and under present conditions neither Hungary’s neighbors nor Hungary itself could use the terntoiy with' so much success as previously. Hungary had been a. country, whereas Austria had not, Dr. Winkler said. Natural boundaries had existed for Hungary but the boundaries were now artificial and 6,0:0,000 Hungarians were livincr under foreign-rule. These still regarded Budapest as the centre of their nation: Tho gold mines and water power had all been completely lost to Hungarv. and four-fifths: of the coal minfe had gone the same way. It had resulted in the country, which possessed tfie richest land in Europe, becoming almost entirely agricultural. Primary products were now the main exports, and with present price levels Hungary was extremely poor. In a political sense the position was a little unusual. “Hungary, for the moment/* said Dr. Winkler, is a kingdom without a king. Different Hapsburgs have claimed Hungary, but the country doesn’t like them very much. We couldn’t agree on the person oi the kino-, so we left it pending- in 1918 and it has been pending ever since. The man at the head of affairs was the Governor. Admiral Horthy, a member of the lower noble classes, who was a most capable man and very much liked throughout the country. “There are no Communists, said Dr. Winkler, “for the simple reason that it is regarded as high treason to be a Communist. For three months after the war we had a -Communistic regime under Bela Kun. but we happily got rid of it And anyone sympathetic to Communist aims gets short shrift.”