Evening star., 1926-05-02
HUNGARY is LAST STAND
OF EUROPEAN ROMANCE
Proud Magyar Nation, Stripped of Land,
Fighting to Overcome Results of
Revolution and War. q

Is toward more reasonable views, the
Magyars, like all other European peo-
pie, are tending to settle down.
On the morning after the war, when
the people first realized the extent Of
the disaster which was to overtake
them in the peace treaties, Il sense Of
despair seized them One lieutenant
and 80 regular soldiers might have
prevented the bolshevist revolution;
no country was inherently less red
But there was no lieutenant, no 80
soldiers, and Bella Kun came and fin
ished the wreck of Hungary. fleeing
to leave the door open to that Ru-
manian army of invasion whose stay
In Budapest was the final humiliation
and the crowning misfortune.
From that day TO the present. By
slow degrees, interrupted by incredi-
BILE folIies, such as the two adventures
Of the late King Charles. such as the
recent French frame scandal. Hun
gary has been zigZagging back 10
normal. Slowly, very slowly. but not
less surely, the fact has been brought
home to the mass of the people that
however terrible the injustices of the
peace treaties. the remedy Is not and
cannot lie in violent explosion. What
seemed intolerable. what seemed be
XOnd human endurance in the hrSt
terrible years, has become d habit.
Men have learned to live with cOndi-
tions which seemed themselves SEN
tence Of death for one of the proudcSt
races which live ON this planet.
Today, perhaps not Yet finally, but
with approximate detiniteness, Hun
garians see that it is not by war, not
by attack upon Czechoslovakia or Ru-
mania that the lost provinces are to
H.
mains that the provinces will come
back, but the truth is now accepted
that the return must come, not by
Magyar intransigeance, but as de
tail in the larger consequences or
some new general European explo-
sion of which there is now no posi-
bility.
Has Faith in Bethleu.
NV own conviction is that Hungary,
too. has settled down. that there is
real sincerity in the program of the
government of Count Bethlen. which
aims at the consolidation and organ
ization of what remains of Hungary,
which seeks to create good and bet
ter relations, commercial and political,
between Hungary and the neighbOr-
ing states, which has had in these
directions many considerable sue
cesses already. Those who lead in
politics, in business. In finance, have
turned their faces away from adven-
ture and toward the task of creating
d new. modern state, of making Of
what is left of Hungary a nation
which may one day serve as the basis
7 for the restoration of something, if
, not all. of the old.
! For of what is gone much is gone
! forever: even Hungar.ans Will con
! cede this. All the Slav-inhabited lands
| of Croatia beyond the Drave and the
Danube have been surrendered. are
surrendered without hope of recovery.
| The same is true of Burgenland. main
! ly peopled by Germans and ceded to
Austria. 1t is only in the regions 10
| the north and east. where Rumania
and CzechoSlovakia have been the
beneficiaries, that hope of recovery re-
mains Yet even here it is realized
by many that the way will be hard.
| What is hoped now is that peacefully.
/ as n result of better political under
/ standings, something like a million
MaSyars, living in compact masses
/ just across the new frontiers, may
/ be reclaimed
Nation EcOnOmicaliy Fortunate.
/ OF the existing state of Hungary
/ what shall one say? If it is politically
unfortunate. without frontiers, dis
armed, helpless in the face of foes who
| fear it's recovery: economically 1t is
! the most fortunate of all the fractions
| Of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy.
| 1t is an agricultural state. self-sup-
| porting. underinduStrialiZed and with
| out unemployment save in the case of
! functiOnarieS of the old regime, who
| have heen Tepatriated from the lost
provinces. 1t has no economic crisis.
| il has a stabilized currency. Its one
/ outstanding difficulty is the familiar
/ shortage of credit. a capital famine.
! 1t needs foreign capital to develop.
/ but it is. nevertheless. in most ways
miles better off than any other Euro
| pean nation which l have visited, be
cause 1t has neither debts nor unem-
ployment nor any other more frequent
forms of postwar disease.
AS far as the internal condition OF
Hungary is concerned, it is as peace
full as my home State, and the popula-
ton of Budapest is less turbulent than
that of Boston. There is not a cir
cumstance to suggest political passion
or bitterness surviving the now re-
mote bolshevist era. There was Il
brief time of anti-Semitic sentiment
surviving. the Bella Kun episode, and
ago vanished and the Jewish popula
ton is retakinS its dominating posi-
ton in all lines of business and bank
ing, and Jewish influence even in poll
tics is again felt strongly. Always the
position of the Jew in Hungary has
been more fortunate than in almost
any other of the Eastern European
states, and the momentary explosion
after the communist period left few
traces.
Power Going to Business Man.
In reality. by slow degrees power
is passing to the business man and
the small farmer. The aristocracy has
great names, but few, pitifully few
men of political ability. Many of
these men still remain in the thrall
of conceptions which are feudal, rO-
mantle, as mad as Alice in Wonder
land, as the story of the franc scandal
diScloses. But their age is passing.
and Hungary, too, is becoming mod
ernized. Yet it is n fact that in all
of the country there exists no repub-
lican sentiment; even the Socialists in
reality would welcome the return of a
king. And one day, beyond much
doubt, little Otto, the son of the un-
happy Karl, will reign in the rather
unattractive but colossal palace in
which Admiral Horthy now sits as
regent.
Looking beyond Hungary. what
shall one say of that region which we
have come to call the newly Balkan
lied Europe? Are new wars in the
making and is there here a permanent
menace to peace? Must there be some
great and immediate revision of the
peace treaties to avoid new convul-
sion? 1 do not think so. On the con
trary, on every side l find fresh evi-
dence to support the belief that things
are settling down. / was told so in
Vienna. / was told so many times in
Budapest. Austria and Hungary are
the losers, the victims of the settle
ment, in the sense that they are left
helpless and at the mercy of their