¹ Le Temps, February 5, 1927, p. 2, c. 3.

² Cf. Graham, M. W., “The Reconstruction of the Hungarian Parliament,” in this Review, Vol. XX, pp. 384–392 (May, 1926).Google Scholar

³ Cf. Bulletin Périodique de la Presse Hongroise, No. 100, November 16, 1926.

⁴ Budapesti Hirlap, November 17, 1926.

⁵ For a detailed analysis of party issues and programs, cf. Bulletin Périodique de la Presse Hongroise, No. 101, December 30, 1926.

⁶ An observing foreign correspondent reported that “in the contested districts the gendarmes discovered a remarkable number of voters or signers of opposition candidates' petitions whose straw stacks were a few inches less than the legal ten feet from the dwelling, who have a pig which has not been inoculated, and whose cows had defied etiquette on the public highways.” New York Times, December 9, 1926.

⁷ Charges of wholesale bribery and corruption were made against the government, and complaints became so notorious that M. Szitovszky, the minister of the interior, sent a circular to all prefects, enjoining them to place no obstacles in the way of the propaganda of the opposition candidates—without much effect, if one may judge by subsequent reports and election results. Cf. Magyarsag (legitimist), November20, 1926, and Pesti Naplo (radical), November 21, 1926.

⁸ Bulletin Périodique de la Presse Hongroise, No. 101, December 30, 1926.

⁹ Magyarsag, November 28, 1926.

¹⁰ Ibid., November 30, 1926.

¹¹ Thus the Pesti Naplo declared on December 8, 1926, that the innumerable administrative regulations imposed by the government had rendered all electoral campaigning impossible, the electors being lost in the labyrinth of electoral procedure. “There are no longer any parties contesting; there is no chance for processions, for enthusiasm, for clashes‥‥. There are only administrative regulations. A multitude of ordinances set the conditions to be fulfilled to be able to establish one's candidacy, to obtain presentation to the voters of a certain district, to get permission to convoke a meeting, to be able to address oneself to one's electors, to learn where to send petitions. Other measures without number prescribe the manner of proceeding in order to get lists of candidates, get them vised and distributed, etc. This procedure has obscured and encumbered everything.”

¹² Cf. Central European Observer, Vol. IV, No. 50 (December 10, 1926), pp. 853–854.

¹³ Even this, it may be noted, did not reveal what the secret franchise, if properly safeguarded, would do, because it was necessary for over a tenth of the total registered electorate to reveal itself to the public and the government, in order to establish the legal candidacy of those whom it supported. In the presence of rival tickets and parties nearly equally balanced, this involved the revelation of approximately twenty per cent of the fighting strength of each.

¹⁴ Cf. Bulletin Périodique de la Presse Hongroise, No. 101, December 30, 1926, and Prager Presse, December 21, 1926, p. 1, c. 3.

¹⁵ “The election passed so quietly,” declared a foreign correspondent, “that it was difficult to realize that an epoch-making event was taking place‥‥ The the first time in Hungary's thousand years of history, its feudal aristocracy bowed passively to the fundamental principle of representative government‥‥ The vote of each of these nobles was a formal renunciation of his ancient title to a seat in the Chamber of Magnates himself.” New York Times, January 9, 1927.

¹⁶ Curiously enough, only one of the nobles chosen refused election, Baron Pronay (a descendant of Kossuth), who declared that he did not consider the establishment of the new house legal, because the old Chamber of Magnates had never been dissolved.

¹⁷ Despite his strictures against the reform of the upper house, Count Apponyi does not regard the new chambers as unconstitutional, from the legitimist point of view, the best proof of this being, according to his statement, his acceptance of the position of deputy. Cf. Le Temps, February 5, 1927, p. 2, c. 6.

¹⁸ Cf. Central European Observer, Vol. V, No. 5 (January 28, 1927), p. 65.

¹⁹ Budapesti Hirlap, December 12, 1926.

²⁰ For the opinion of Czech critics, cf. Central European Observer, Vol. IV, No. 52 (December 24, 1926, p. 886, and Prager Presse, December 21, 1926, p. 1.

²¹ Central European Observer, Vol. V, No. 5 (January 28, 1927), p. 65.

²² An illuminating revelation of the internal situation is afforded by the premier's advice to the caucus of the government parties on the eve of the assembling of the new parliament: “We are faced by an Opposition of 30. Still, we ought to treat them as if they numbered 120.” (London Times, January 28, 1927, p. 11, c. 4). Whether by this statement Count Bethlen merely revealed the internal weakness of his party or intimated the proportion of opponents which a different type of franchise would give, may be left to the judgment of the reader.