New-York tribune., 1920-06-12

treaty, almost year AFTER austria
capitulated at ST. Germain, completes
the work of destruction in the dual
monarchy and reduces one more of the
great peoples of Europe to condi-
tion which, however merited, is not less
pitiable. Six years ago Hungary, in
many ways the predominating partner
in the Hapsburg monarchy, had an area
greater than Italy and population
in excess of that of Spain. BY virtue
of the new treaty there is left an area
hardly twice that of Switzerland and
a population inferior to that of Bel
GUM.
Looking at the comparative statis-
tics of European nations, Hungary is
now smaller than all of her neighbors
and rivals. Rumania is more than
twice as large, both in area and popu-
lation, and the same is true of Jugo-
Slavia and Czecho Slovakia. Only
canoe, and even Austria has been in
creased at the expense of Hungary by
the annexation of the Odenburg dis
trict. Not only has Hungary sunk
to a low estate, moreover, but where
az before the war Magyars were mas
ters of millions of alien subjects, to-
day many Magyars are under foreign
rule.
An Impossible State
Examined from the standpoint of
the old ideas, no state could be more
impossible than the new Hungary. 1t
has no natural frontiers; no barriers,
natural or artificial, against invasion.
Before the war it was protected by
the Carpathians, the Transylvanian
Alps, the Danube and the Save. Now
it consists of low-lying plains along
the valleys of the Danube and it's trib-
utaries, the hills on all sides having
passed to the tribes which were in
part subject to Hungary less than a
decade ago. Nor is the economic sit
uation better. Gone are all the min
eral districts. Fiume, the single sea-
port of Hungary, has become a bone
Southern Slav, but the claims of Hun
gary are no longer given hearing.
Recalling all the recent and the long
past of the Hungarians, it is plain that
the fate which has overtaken this
brilliant people is in the main deserved.
1t is possible to argue against the
Hungarian treaty, like the Austrian,
because it creates economic chaos and
insures a prolongation of the state
Of misery which now prevails in mid
die Europe because it multiplies arti-
fetal frontiers which have become, like
rocks in river, the barriers to the
stream of commerce necessary to the
people on its shores. But if the eco
nomic aspects are unmistakable, the
photographic and political are not less
clear.
Old Hungary
The old Hungary consisted of CEN
trail core of Magyars, some 5000, 900
at the most, occupying the great fer
tile plains of the Danube and'the Thesis
and extending westward to the Drave
and eastward to the foothills of the
the Carpathians. Around this central
core were some millions of subject
peoples-Slovaks to the north toward
Bohemia, Serbs to the south and west
as far as the Adriatic, Rumanians in
the east and southeast. Scattered
among these tribes were a certain num-
ber of Magyars, most numerous in
Pennsylvania; but they were an island
in an alien sea, since the total pop
ulation of Hungary passed 20,000000,
while the Magyars did not much ex-
ceed 90O0,0O0, despite carefully doc
tored statistics.
From the Magyar point of view Hun
gary was a geographical unit, a terri
torial entity. Those races inhabiting
it other than the Magyar were aliens;
they had no rights save those conferred
upon them by the Magyars. The single
condition on which they could exist