HUNGARY HOPES TO REGAIN ANCIENT PLACE IN EUROPE.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20283, 18 April 1934, Page 6

HUNGARY HOPES TO REGAIN ANCIENT PLACE IN EUROPE .

Her Fate Dependent Upon Other Powers Beyond Her Control .

By

Sir Philip Gibbs,

K.B.E.

BUDAPEST, March 14. The Hungarian people are still living on hope that somehow and at some time they may regain their ancient place in Europe, and their two million kinsfolk who are now cut off from them, and a King of their own to wear the iron crown of St Stephen. Fifteen years ago these hopes were expressed with passion. Now they are held in patience by a people who have realised at last that a revision of the treaties which cut them to pieces cannot be obtained by any heroic adventure of their own. They know that the price of revision now would be a European war, and they do not want that. They await a turn of fortune’s wheel, some trick of destiny, for the fulfilment of those national hopes which ace still unforgettable in Hungarian hearts.

JHEY want a king of their own. In Budapest I have been talking with people who believe that this part of their hepe may not be far away, though not immediate. But, strange as it may seem to English people who have been excited unduly perhaps by newspaper reports of a Hapsburg revival, the Hungarians are hostile to the return of Otto as Emperor of Austria-Hungary. They remember that Fiancis Joseph ruled them from Vienna and came only once to Budapest. But if Otto would be King of Hungary, elected by the people according to ancient tradition, they would swear allegiance to him. He has been educated by Hungarians. Hungary never confiscated the Royal estates. The Iron Crown is waiting for him now, unless the Powers would declare war if he came. They won’t risk that, knowing their helplessness. They do not even want a union with Austria. So I am told in Budapest. As one of my Hungarian friends put it briefly. “ Two beggars do not make one rich man.” Afraid of a Nazi Austria. Here in Budapest there is, I find, a general belief that Austria is bound to go “ Nazi.” They are convinced that German influence will be too strong for Austria to resist, in spite of Italian support * and money. It is in the instinct of the country • people outside Vienna. Sooner or later, they say, the “ Anschluss,” or union with Germany, is inevitable. They do not like the idea of that. It is not too much to say that many Liberal Hungarians dread it. They are afraid that a united Germanic race reaching to the frontier of Hungary would slam the last door against them westward in Europe, and that Pan-Ger-manism would reach even into Hungary itself, where there are blocks of German folk on the other side of the Danube, a few miles from Budapest. Hungary is very much alone in this game which is being played by the Great Powers, with Austria as King’s pawn on the checkboard. Czechoslovakia, which contains enormous numbers of Hungarian folk, is not friendly. With long-range guns it could fling shells into Budapest. It refuses to extend any commercial reciprocity to Hungarian products unless all claims to Treaty revision are withdrawn, and the present Government in Budapest refuses utterly to surrender these claims. One hears many things in Budapest which are not even whispered in Vienna. One thing I heard from a man most in position to know is a surprising hint of changing policy in this strange and sinister re-grouping of Powers and clash of European policies. Jugoslavia, he said, professes publicly to be hostile to German union with Austria. As a member of the French system for upholding the Peace Treaties, it proclaims its hostility to the Anschluss, which France regards as her fundamental policy. But secretly Jugoslavia is not at all unwilling to see Austria fall into the arms of Germany. It w r ould be a check, almost a checkmate, to Mussolini’s diplomatic game, which is a duel with the Jugoslavs across the body of Austria. I have been hearing other things in Budapest which are, to say the least of it, a further revelation that Europe at this present time is stirring with secret intrigues and diplomacy which bode no good to the ideals of peace and leave out of all account the happiness and chance of prosperity among peasants and people who know

nothing of all this international game of poker for high stakes of power and ambition. It is one of the paradoxes of history that Hungary is inclined to be more liberal, at a time when other nations are in the grip of dictatorships or Fascist discipline, which denies liberty of opinion. Hungary still carries on with a Parliament, and there is even some kind of opposition, although within very mild limits. Most of the members are elected by open voting, which means that the electors have to vote mainly as their great landlords or the Government agent desire. But the present Prime Minister, Mr Gombos, has pledged himself to introduce the secret ballot before the next election two years hence. The dictatorship in Hungary under the Regent Horthy is of a very mild kind, it seems, compared with Hitlerism or Italian Fascism now’ that it has lasted since post-war episodes of revolution and counter-revolu-tion. The people have grown used to it and the Government has relaxed its discipline over ordinar>' life. There is no sense of being watched by secret police or being dragooned by rules and regulations under Nazi intolerance. In Budapest the restaurants and cabarets are open all night with a freedom not allowed in London. People go about their business or their pleasure unrestricted. One has a sense of ease andf there is no need to whisper one’s opinions about life in this city as one has to now in so many capitals. Not that Hungary is exactly the land of liberty. There is no censorship of the Press, but there is suppression of newspapers it they go beyond the limit in permitted criticism. The social structure of the country is still feudal—though my Hungarian friends will hate me to say so. Twelve hundred nobles and gentry own a large part of the land. There are three million agricultural labourers without any land of their own. There is no system of dole for unemployment. There is no great Hungarian middle class, the merchants and bankers being mostly Jews and Germans. The bureaucracy has become a kind of petty nobility. A Sense of Freedom. That is Hungary, but I honestly believe that it is less unhappy and has a greater sense of individual freedom in social and intellectual life than one finds now in Austria or Germany. If only wheat would go up in price, enabling the small farmer to pay his, debts and his mortgages, it would be a reasonable land in which to live without the madness and the fears which have taken possession of other nations; the educated class in Hungary is highly, intelligent and immensely charming as all foreigners, and especially the English perhaps, are bound to admit. A man like Count Teliki, “ Teliki Pasul ” as he is called, with whom I have had a long talk, is one of the best minds in the world to-day, a realist and yet an idealist, not even now ready to admit that human nature is incurable in its stupidities and that there is no prospect of reaching justice without war and some higher level of international order. lie has a plan—a dream by which even Treaty revision could be made with out w’ar if only intelligence were allowed to work. Hungary waits and watches, conscious that all Europe is at the cross roads of destiny and that her own fate is dependent upon other Powers beyond her own control. (Copyright by the “ Star ” and the N.A.N.A. AH rights reserved.)