Pass . v A Book

NATIONAL LIFE AND THOUGHT

J>

NATIONAL LIFE

AND

THOUGHT

OF THE VARIOUS

NATIONS THROUGHOUT THE WORLD

H Series of H?>oresses

EIRIKR MAGNUSSON, M.A. ; Prof. J. E. THOROLD ROGERS

J. THEODORE BENT; F. II. GROOME ;

Mrs. CUNNINGHAME GRAHAM; Prof. PULSZKY;

W. R. MORFILL, M.A. ;

AND OTHERS.

NEW YORK FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY

MDCCCXCI,

ilr. 9 O'GC

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PREFACE.

The Lectures contained in this Volume were delivered on Sunday afternoon, at South Place Institute, during the Session 1889-90, and were designed to give information, in a popular form, with regard to the national development and modes of political action among the different nations throughout the world, by means of sympathetic and trustworthy accounts of their history, national aspiration, and modes of government, it being thought that a general dissemination of such knowledge would not only improve our Institutions, but, by stimulating our interest in foreign countries, tend to promote international amity.

The Committee take this opportunity of expressing their obligations to the different Lecturers for the willingness with which they have made it possible to carry on this work, and trust that the general public, to whom this Volume is now offered, will appreciate the information therein contained as highly as did the audiences to whom the Lectures were originally addressed.

WM. SHEOWRiNG, ) Hon. Secretaries, CONRAD W. THIES j Institute Committee.

South Place Institute.

CONTENTS.

i. The Armenians, Armenia, and the Armenian Question By M. Sevasly . . . . .

II. Austria. By Dr. S. Schidrowitz

in. Hungary. By Professor Augustus Pulszky

iv. Germany — Politics. By Sidney Whitman

v. German Culture. By Sidney Whitman .

vi. Russia. By W. R. Morfill, M.A.

vii. Poland. By Adam Gielgud .

viii. Italy. By J. Stephen Jeans .

ix. Spain. By Mrs. Cunninghame Graham

x. Norway. By II. L. Br.^kstad

xi. Sweden. By Eirikr Magnusson, M.A.

xn. Denmark and Iceland. By Eirikr Magnusson, M.A.

xiii. Lessons from the Dutch Republic. By Professor J. E Thorold Rogers .....

xiv. Belgium. By Alfred Wathelet

xv. Switzerland. By Howard Hodgkin, M.A,

xvi. Modern Life and Thought amongst the Greeks, By J. Theodore Bent

xvii. Ottoman Empire. By H. Anthony Salmone

Appendix — "Why does not the Sick Man die?"

xviii. Egypt. By J. C. M'Coan ....

xix. Servia and Montenegro. By J. C. Cotton Minchin

xx. Jews in their Relation to other Races. By Rev. S Singer ......

xxi. The Gypsies. By F. H. Groome

i 19

33

53

69

§7

"3

135

157

181

201

217

237 251 267

323 343

363 379

THE ARMENIANS, ARMENIA, AND THE ARMENIAN QUESTION.

M. SEVASLY.

WHEN Mr. Wm. Sheowring, the Honorary Secretary of the South Place Institute, requested me to lecture on the Armenians and on the Armenian Question, he invited my attention to a statement that appeared in the Diplomatic Fly Sheet, in which the Armenians are classed by C. D. Collett as a religious community, and not as a nation. To refute the assertion will constitute the subject-matter of the first part of this paper.

The Armenians are a nation, and one of the oldest nations in the world. Descended from the great Aryan race, they are as ancient as the Jews, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, and the Greeks. The antiquity of the Armenian nation is attested by ancient writers. Thus we find that Alexander Poly- histor, a Greek writer (75 B.C.), affirming that the Armenians were known as a nation twenty centuries before Christ ; and in support of this assertion, he says that the Armenians made an expedition against that powerful maritime people, the Phoenicians, whom they defeated, and that among the prisoners captured was the nephew of Abraham the patriarch. Again we find the name of Armenia and Ararat designated in the Bible, in Herodotus, in Strabo, and others. Moreover, cuneiform inscriptions on the celebrated Rock of Van also attest the antiquity of the Armenian people.

According to Armenian chronology, the foundation of the first Armenian kingdom dates so far back as 2540 B.C. As with the history of other ancient countries, that of Armenia begins with legend : " Haig, a local chief, who lived in the country of Ararat, migrated with his sons and daughters to Senaar in Mesopotamia. While they lived in those regions the Tower of Babel was erected, and the Babylonian Empire was ruled by Belus. Haig, unwilling to submit to the authority of Belus, returned with his family of

2 National Life and Thought.

about three hundred persons to the fatherland, where he incor- porated himself with the earliest settlers. Belus marched against him with his warriors all clad in iron armour, and supplied with powerful spears and bows and arrows. Yet destiny was about to found a great nation and a vast empire. The small band of Haig proved victorious, and Belus fell by an arrow from the bow of Haig.

Victory and the spoils of war inflaming their breasts, the Haigs (or Armenians) went on conquering, until a territory stretching from the Caspian Sea to the east of Cilicia on the Mediterranean, on the west ; and from the borders of the Pontus on the north to the confines of Assyria at the south, formed one vast and powerful Haiasdan or Armenia.

The name of Armenia1 was derived from Aram, the sixth successor of Haig, who became so renowned by his exploits that from his time the surrounding nations designated the country as Aramia, after his name, which, in course of time, has been cor- rupted into the modern nomenclature of "Armenia."

The height of glory was only attained during the reign of Tigranes. " It is but a few days' journey from the country of the Cabiri or Sebastia, present Sivas, into Armenia," says Lucullus, "where Tigranes, King of kings, is seated surrounded with that power which has wrested Asia from the Parthians, which carries Grecian Colonies into Media, subdues Syria and Palestine."

Again, Cicero, alluding to the same King Tigranes the Great, tells us that he made the Republic of Rome tremble before the prowess of his arms.

Unfortunately, the country became the prey of neighbouring nations. Persians, Greeks, Romans, Tartars, each and all over- ran the country. All by turns have contended for mastery.

Three dynasties maintained power in Armenia proper.

1 There is a controversy on the origin of the word "Armenia." Some also attribute it to Arameen, which signifies High Land in Armenian. But it is most likely that the country has been called after Aram, one of our greatest kings, and who achieved fame among his neighbours. Semiramis the great Assyrian queen waged war against Ara, the son of Aram, the brave and hand- some Armenian chief, in consequence of his stern determination to resist the offers of the" mighty Assyrian sovereign. (Read Sarchedon, by G. T. Whyte- Melville. Ward, Lock, & Co., Salisbury Square, E.C.)

2 The first dynasty begins with Haig, 2540 B.C., and ends on or about 150 B.C. The second, or Arsacidian dynasty, under which Armenia reached the height of its glory, from 150 B.C. to 428 A.D.. The third, or Pagradounian dynasty, closes in the year 1080 A. n.

The Armenians, Armenia, and the Armenian Question. 3

In the early part of the eleventh century, after the fall of the Pagradounian Dynasty, flying before the Mongolian invader, thousands of Armenians left the seat, of their sires to take refuge in the inaccessible fastnesses of the Taurus, and transformed Cilicia into an Armenian Kingdom under the Rupenian Dynasty, whose last King, Leo VI.,1 after a heroic struggle with Egyptian invaders, was captured in 1375, from which dates the extinction of the Armenians as an independent nation.

The Cilician Kingdom lasted three centuries ; and this really is marvellous, for the Armenians had to contend not only with Moslem foes, but with the Byzantine Greeks, whom they defeated and worsted on more than one occasion. While in Cilicia the Armenians rendered eminent service to the cause of Christendom and civilisation by helping the Crusaders in their wars against the Saracens. The claim of the Armenian people as a Christian people upon the support of Christian Europe may be said to date from the time of the Crusades.

The Armenians have been the first people who have abandoned their former religion, which was that of the Magi, to embrace Christianity. In fact, the introduction of Christianity among them was coeval with Jesus Christ, or soon after. " Thaddeus, one of the seventy, was sent to Edessa, then the capital of Armenia (for the capital of Armenia has often changed), to instruct the King Abkar in the new faith, which he did. He baptized him and the citizens of that metropolis.

The seeds of Christianity were consequently sown ; but it was not until some three centuries later, when appeared Gregory of Caesarea, that a revival of the faith Avas created by him. Hence the appellation given to him by the Armenians of " Gregory the Illuminator."

It is, in truth, this form of national Christian Church that has so far kept the Armenians together.1

There are about 200,000 Armenians belonging to the Romish Church, and 60,000 to the Protestant, out of 6,000,000 of Armenians.2 But the spirit of nationality is deeply rooted in them all.3

1 Leo died at Paris on the 29th November 1393. His remains are interred at St. Denis, which has become a place of pilgrimage for the Armenians. There the Armenians of Paris resort every Easter, and appropriate speeches are delivered on the tomb of the last Armenian king.

2 V Armenie, by J. Broussali {Revue Francaise, June 1886).

3 The Spiritual Supreme Head of the Gregorian Armenians is the

4 National Life and Thought.

The Armenians have all the good qualities to make them the champions of civilisation and progress in Asia Minor. There is, indeed, no other Asiatic race so capable of appreciating the civilisation of Europe, or so worthy of European support and sympathy.

And as to their qualities and virtues, they can appeal to an areopagus of historians, poets, statesmen, travellers.

Gibbon's Roman Empire bears testimony to the mercantile genius, religious fervency, and valour and prowess of the Armenians in the third and fourth centuries.

" It is difficult," says Byron, " to trace in the annals of a nation less crime than in the Armenian, whose virtues are those of peace, and whose vices the outcome of oppression."

An exampled oppression — " The helpless nation," says Gibbon, "has seldom been permitted to enjoy the tranquillity of servitude. From the earliest period to the present hour Armenia has been the theatre of war. Under the rod of oppression the zeal of the Armenians is fervent and intrepid ; they have often preferred the crown of martyrdom to the white turban of Mahomet."

Lamartine styles the Armenians the Swiss, while Dulaurier gives them the appellation of the Dutch of the East. Lord Carnarvon, in a speech in the House of Lords, equalled them to the Greeks in intellectual power. Mr. James Bryce, in his Transcaucasia and Ararat, tells that "when there meets you a keener or more restless glance, you may be sure that it comes from an Armenian eye."

They have given statesmen and men of action to famous nations. Nubar Pacha, the brilliant Egyptian Minister ; Melikoff, the Russian General who captured Kars, are there to bear one out. Some 30,000 Armenians at Zeythoun, in Cilicia, the repre- sentatives of those who formed the Cilician Kingdom, have, to a score of years ago, maintained their independence.

Catholicos of Echtmiadzin, whose seat is in Russian Armenia, near Erivan. The patriarch of Constantinople exercises spiritual and some sort of temporal power over the Gregorian Armenians of Turkey. He is assisted by a civil and ecclesiastical council, and is responsible to an "assembly of representatives," in virtue of a Charter granted by the Porte in 1862, in amplification of the privileges and rights conferred by Sultan Mahommed II., on the first Armenian Patriarchate he instituted in Constantinople after the capture of that capital. The powers of the said body end where those of the state begin. It has a voice in the management and control of the educational and ecclesiastical affairs of the community ; but it cannot remedy any of the evils under which the Armenians are now groaning.

The Armenians, Armenia, and the Armenian Question. 5

Armenian literature is rich and varied, and history, philosophy, and poetry are amply represented.

Armenia is now partitioned among three Powers : Russia, Turkey, and Persia. Her limits cannot be easily defined, and have undergone many a change in the course of her historical vicissitudes. Armenia in older days extended from the Caucasus to Mesopotamia, and to Western Asia Minor, and occupied an area of about 150,000 square miles. The country is of a moun- tainous character. Its plains are high, but fertile, yielding corn of the finest quality, and in abundance ; as also tobacco, flax, rice, and cotton ; its pasture lands sustain breeds of horses ; its valleys produce the grape, the apple, and other fruits ; trees such as the poplar, oak, olive, carob, and fig thrive.

Armenia is the source of several important rivers, such as the Euphrates, which springs from the mountains of Erzeroum (Garin), and flows into the Persian Gulf, after joining the Tigris below Bagdad; the Tigris, the second river of Armenia, falls into the Persian Gulf; the Araxes, after the Armenian King Aramays (the Gihon of the ancients), which runs into the Caspian Sea ; and the Tchorouk, or the Phison of the Scriptures, which takes its source near the B-aibourt mountains, and flows into the Black Sea. Where the territories of Persia, Turkey, and Russia meet in North-east Armenia, Ararat (the Massis of the Armenians, after Amassia, the grand-nephew of Hai'g, and upon which tradition says that the Ark of Noah rested), with its summit covered in perpetual snow, rises above the plain at its base, to the height of 14,320 feet.

Again, the Taurus and Ante-Taurus chain cover an extensive area, from Armenia proper to the South-western Armenia (Cilicia).

These mountain chains contain mines of rock-salt, nitre, naphtha, sulphur, iron, and copper, as also lead, silver, and even gold, zinc, and other metals. The traces, however, of the gold- mines have now been lost, although these were known to exist in olden times.

The zoological kingdom of the country is also extremely rich. On the Erzeroum plateau more than 170 kinds of wild birds are known to exist. The crane and stork are the favourite birds of the Armenians, and frequently form the subject of their folk- poesy. Wild animals abound, and the bear, lynx, wolf, hyena, leopard, tiger, buffalo, bull, wild ass and wild sheep, and others cover that immense country. The domestic animals, the sheep, of which more than a million are exported ; the horses and camel,

6 Natio7ial Life and Thought.

while the rivers and the lakes Van, Ourmiah, and Sevan (three principal lakes of Armenia, situate in Turkish, Persian, and Russian Armenia respectively) abound in multifarious fishes of various colours.

The climate of Armenia is essentially cold. Though in the same parallel of latitude as Greece, Italy, and Spain, and parts of Asia-Minor, nevertheless the severity of her winter is even greater than that of the north of France and that of Germany.

The country was rich in the distant past in large and important cities, such as Ani, the ruins of which attest its ancient splendour and magnificence, Armavir on the Araxes, Vagharshabad, and Digranakuerd. Van, Erzeroum, were then, as they now are, important centres.

The Armenian Question. — Armenia is, as above stated, divided among Russia, Persia, and Turkey. In the beginning of the seventeenth century she was partitioned between Persia and Turkey.

Towards the end of the eighteenth century the province of Karabag, a fertile and mountainous country, peopled by 200,000 Armenians and 100,000 Tartars and Persians, and governed by Armenian chiefs, under the nominal domination of Persia, was conquered by Russia, and thus ever since the beginning of this century Armenia is ruled by three Powers. Russia subsequently, in 1828 and in 1829, extended her conquests in Persian and Turkish Armenia. The Treaty of Turkmen-Tcha'i of 5th March 1828 delimitated the Russo-Persian frontiers, while the Berlin Treaty of 1878 fixed those of Turkey and Russia in Asia Minor.

The Armenian grievances, or the Armenian Question, became one of immediate international concern ever since the insertion of a special Clause in the Berlin Treaty of 1878 in favour of the Armenians occupying the provinces of Van, Erzeroum, Diarbekir, Kharpoot, and Dersim, in Turkish Armenia, and numbering about two millions. The Clause referred to, which is but a modified form of Article 16 of the Treaty of San Stefano, runs thus : "The Sublime Pcrte undertakes to carry out, without further delay, the improvements and reforms demanded by local require- ments in the provinces inhabited by the Armenians, and to guarantee their security against the Circassians and Kurds. It will periodically make known the steps taken to this effect to the Powers, who will superintend their application." This Clause, coupled with Article 62 of the same instrument, place the civil and religious liberties of the Armenian people under the express

The Armenians, Armenia, and the Armenian Question. 7

guarantee of the International Law, and under the supervision and control of the Powers, parties to the Treaty. Article 62 enacts that "The Sublime Porte having expressed its intention of main- taining the principle of religious liberty, and giving it the widest scope, the contracting parties take note of this spontaneous declaration. In no part of the Ottoman Empire shall difference of religion be alleged against any person as a ground for exclusion from or incapacity for the discharge of civil and political rights, and admission to public functions. All persons shall be admitted without distinction to give evidence before the tribunals. The freedom and exercise of all forms of worship are assured to all."

The raison d'etre of Article 61 of the Berlin Treaty may be explained in a few matter-of-fact sentences thus classified : — -

I. The absence of Civil and Political Equality.

II. The non-admission or non-appreciation of Armenian evi- dence in the Turkish Courts of Justice (in cases where the Armenian is the wronged party and the Moslem the delinquent).

III. The systematic pillage and destruction of Armenian villages ; the sacking of convents ; the perpetration of all kinds of crimes and oppressive acts by new-imported Circassians, and especially by the Kurds — not unfrequently also by the police and by the local officials.

IV. The venality of justice.

V. The systematic efforts to crush and ruin the peasant classes (1) by heavy and arbitrary taxes, and (2) by dispossessing them of their holdings.

These grievances exist down to the present day as they did when the Berlin Treaty was signed. It would occupy too much space to explain in detail the evils complained of, and bring out minutely the consequences resulting therefrom. I shall prin- cipally deal with Grievance II.

The positive prescriptions of Imperial Hatts and Imperial Firmans issued from time to time by reigning sovereigns of Turkey, ever since the reign of Sultan Abdul-Medjid, to their Christian subjects promising them liberty of conscience, and equality before the law, equality of taxation, and assurances of reform, are mere idle words, Whatever the letter of the law may say, the testimony of the Christian is not received, or if received, not appreciated, with what result it will be easy to understand. The attention of the civilised world has been lately absorbed by the prevalence of slave trade in the Dark Continent, and international conferences and a congress held to devise the

8 National Life and Thought.

most efficacious means for the suppression of that immoral traffic. Now in Armenia — and, I may add, in Turkey in general — slavery exists and is rampant in one of its worst forms, and is connived at and supported by the Moslem judges. The polygamous Kurdish or Turkish Beys and Aghas, whose hitherto regular supply of Circassian girls from the Caucasus has been cut off from them since the annexation of the province by Russia, have recourse now to a bold system of rape. They swoop down upon an Armenian village, with their armed acolytes, and carry off to their harems, by main force, as many good-looking girls and women as they can lay hands on. This is permitted to them; and the modus operandi by which the abduction of Armenian girls is rendered legal by the Moslem judges may be summed up as follows : — When the relatives present themselves in court to claim the abducted victim, the ravishers are ready with a brace of Moslem witnesses (a hundred could be produced if wanted), who declare on oath that the kidnapped woman pronounced in their presence the regular formula of the Moslem faith : " There is no God but God, and Mahomed is His Prophet," Christian evidence to the contrary being invariably rejected.

The judge thereupon dismisses the case, on the ground that the stolen and ravished girl has by that profession abjured her former faith and embraced Mohammedanism. And the verdict of these upright judges is not to be set aside. The victims protest ; but their protestations avail them nothing. They invoke in vain the positive prescriptions of the Imperial Hatts, and the distinct stipulations of solemn treaties, promising liberty of conscience and equality before the law. The Turkish Solon is not to be moved. His invariable reply is, that the Koran — source of all human and Divine legislation — is the supreme law of the land, and it would be blasphemy to admit or suppose that any subsequent enact- ments could in any way have modified its sacred teachings.

Hundreds of Armenian girls are thus lost to their homes and imprisoned in Turkish harems ; they are never set free, and if one ever succeeds in escaping, the chances are ten to one that sooner or later she will be murdered.1

Again, in consequence of the non-appreciation of Christian

1 A custom prevails in Turkey whereby a Moslem is exempted from mili- tary service if he elopes with a Christian girl and keeps her in his harem for a time long enough to warrant the presumption that she embraced Moham- medanism.

The Armenians, Armenia, and the Armenian Question, g

evidence, Mahometans commit all sorts of crimes and misdeeds on the Christian population, who cannot obtain justice, through their evidence being ignored and contemned, and Mahometans seldom coming forward to give evidence against a coreligionist. Moreover, through the non-admission of Christian testimony, Mahometans, Turks or Kurds, or Circassians, find the most efficacious means to dispossess the Armenians from the lands they inherited ab antiquo. Kurds or Circassians settle or encamp in the vicinity of Armenian villages, and cultivate the lands belong- ing to Armenians. Should a dispute arise, a number of Moslem witnesses are produced in Court, who testify to the lands having been owned by the Kurds from time immemorial. Armenian evidence to the contrary is seldom accepted. And thus, under the segis of the law, the Armenians are gradually dispossessed of lands they inherited from their forefathers for the benefit of predatory and wild tribes. The Kurds were known in the time of Xenophon, who pelted his army with stones in the famous retreat. They have not crystallised into a " nation " ever since. They possess no literature and no learning, and most have no fixed abode. They usually have recourse to Armenian or Persian alphabets whenever they wish to express their thoughts in writing. In olden times they inhabited the country south of the province of Van, in the Hekkeari district, in close proximity to the present Nestorians. The policy of the Sublime Porte, especially since the Crimean War, has been to gradually replace the historic, peaceful, and laborious Armenian by the predatory Kurdish element, with a view, on the one hand, to radically stamping out the "Armenian Question ; " and, on the other, in the event of a war with Russia, to utilise the Kurds in arresting the Muscovite legions from a fur- ther advance in Asia Minor. As soldiers the Kurds are useless, and they amply proved it during the last Turko-Russian War. They are not a brave people, nor have they any high or manly qualities. Their robberies, their crimes, and their misdeeds are dastardly affairs. They seldom attack armed travellers, except in very superior numbers. They assault more commonly peaceful caravans, or defenceless villages. Feuds and quarrels are frequent among them. Mutual confidence is almost unknown. All the villages from Erzeroum to Bitlis, and from Van to Salmaste, in Persia, are more or less exposed to Kurdish raids and plunder. Thus it will be seen that the Kurds a are, on the one hand, the

1 Through the continual usurpation of the lands the Kurds have elevated

io National Life and Thought.

usurpers of the lands of the Armenians, with the connivance of the Turkish Government ; and, on the other, they are brigands, and high-robbers and raiders, well armed and equipped with modern rifles, and left unrestrained to commit all sorts of excesses on defenceless populations.

" The Kurds," says Mr. C. Wilkinson, who visited Armenia and Asia Minor about a hundred years ago, and whose evidence testifies that Armenia is to-day what she then was ; " the Kurds," 1 says the traveller, "are constantly on the watch for an opportunity of plundering the caravans. If a good guard is not kept in the tents, they come privately and pull out bales of goods with hooks, without being perceived; and if the bales are fastened together with cords, they are seldom without a good razor to cut them. As caravans generally set out before daybreak, the rogues mix with the drivers, and turn out of the way a few miles laden with goods, which they easily carry off in the dark ; and they seldom choose the worst, for they know the bales of silks as well as the owners. These people own no masters, and the Turks never punish them, even when they are taken up for murder and robbery."

And Mr. Wilkinson's assertions are true to the present day. The case of the notorious Kurdish chief, Moussa Bey, is an illus- tration of what has been said above as to the futility of Turkish promises to mete out justice to Christians where they are wronged by a Mahometan ; it shows that, notwithstanding all the pompous Imperial enactments, Christian evidence is still either not admitted or not appreciated. It shows, moreover, the tacit, if not overt, encouragement given by the " Authorities " in Turkey to the Kurds to pillage, burn, and slaughter the Armenians. Who is Moussa Bey, whose name has now become almost a " household " word in Europe ? This is what an impartial writer, during the troubled times of the Turko-Russian war, said of Moussa Bey, on whom the Turks have bestowed the palm of martyrdom:—" Mr. C. B. Norman, Correspondent of The Times at the seat of war in Armenia in 1877, in his Avork entitled ' Armenia and the Campaign of 1877,' says : .' In the neighbourhood of Moosh, one Moussa Bey, a son of Mirza Bey, a Kurd from Wear

themselves, in some districts, in Bitlis in particular, to the position of feudal chiefs, and make the Armenians pay them tribute. Should the Armenian refuse to pay, the Kurd ravages and pillages his village.— Dr. Grigor, Artzruni, editor of the Mschag (Tiflis).

1 " A Tour through Asia Minor and the Greek Islands." By C. Wilkinson. London: Printed by Darton & Harvey, Gracechurch Street. 1806.

The Armenians, Armenia, and the Armenian Question, n

Van, has been ravaging the country at the head of a small body of cavalry. The villages of Moolah Akjam, Hadogan, and Kharkin, having been first pillaged, were set on fire. At Ardork he extracted ^60, and at Ingrakam ^40 from the head men of the village, under pretence of sparing them from destruction, and straightway set the places on fire. He then proceeded to a Mussulman village called Norashen, and, hearing that an Armenian merchant of Bitlis was passing through, robbed him of all his goods, to the value of 30,000 piastres, and then ordered his men to murder him. At Khartz this monster entered the house of the Armenian priest, who had lately brought his bride to his father's home. Binding the old man and his son together with cords, this inhuman scoundrel ravished the poor girl before their eyes, and then gave orders for the murder of the three. I can write no more. A bare recital of the horrors committed by these demons is sufficient to call for their condign punishment. The subject is too painful to need any colouring, were my feeble pen enabled to give it.' "

Moussa Bey was, these crimes notwithstanding, appointed a Mudir, or a petty governor, in one of the districts of Moosh. He subsequently, three years ago, perpetrated other crimes of an equally atrocious nature, setting fire to and destroying barns, extracting money from inoffensive peasants, killing some and wounding others, not sparing American missionaries. While, in the spring of 1889, he committed a series of outrages, which the readers will find recorded in the Blue Book, No. i, of 1889 (Turkey). They may be summed up thus : He carried off women, massacred villagers, seized a notable, and flung him on faggots, and burned him alive in presence of his followers. An outcry was raised. The cry of the suffering Armenians, of outraged women, of desperate humanity, the cry of desolation and ruin reached the ears of Europe. Public opinion was agitated, and the Turks saw that something had to be done. Moussa was " invited " to proceed to Constantinople, not as a criminal, but as an honoured guest. He is first conducted to Bitlis in triumph, escorted by the head of the Moslem religious com- munity, and a train of functionaries, soldiers, zaptielers, softas, and cavaliers. On leaving Erzeroum, Moussa is escorted for some miles by the governor of the province and a strong body of cavalry. At Constantinople the ceremony is still more formal ; and as soon as the steamer conveying the truculent brigand is signalled, two generals proceed on board to receive him. In the

12 National Life and Thought.

Turkish metropolis he is comfortably quartered, surrounded with servants and attendants, and frequently entertained and feasted by friends in authority. More than forty witnesses and complainants travelled all the way from Armenia to Constantinople to give evidence, and to substantiate the charges preferred against him. The trial of three of the principal counts was concluded on 2nd December last, and the hearing of the other adjourned sine die. Moussa was acquitted by a majority of Mussulmen judges, notwithstanding most direct and conclusive evidence. Those who saw the trial described it as a virtual farce all through. The Public Prosecutor, who represents the State and the Law, and whose duty it is to protect the suffering people, bullied the witnesses, and overtly acted as a counsel for Moussa Bey. "Suffice it to say," writes Sir William White, Her Britannic Majesty's Ambassador at Constantinople to the Marquis of Salisbury {vide Blue Book, Turkey No. i, 1890, page 100), " that the position taken up by the Public Prosecutor savoured rather of that of a lawyer for the defence than of a prosecutor on behalf of the Government, and it is generally considered unprecedented in the judicial annals of this country." Thus ended one of the most scandalous trials on record. The case of Moussa Bey is but an instance, a specimen, and serves to illustrate how justice is prostituted in Turkey, even in her very metropolis, at the very gates of Europe.

After the scandalous proceedings in connection with this now celebrated trial, the following report from Van, which gives a graphic description of the present condition of the country, explains itself: " Every Armenian village is compelled, notwith- standing its extreme poverty, to provide food almost daily for the army of tax-gathering officials, who on their part treat the in- habitants with absolute inhumanity. The peasant, reduced now to the last extremity, must either sell his oxen and plough, his house and fields, and clear out ; or go to distant provinces in quest of work, with no prospect of returning ; or emigrate : or start out and beg from door to door. Thanks to this policy, many of the southern and eastern districts of Vasbouragan (Province of Van) are nearly depopulated of their Christian element, whose place has been taken by Kurds, Turks, Yezidis, &c. Even the educational expenses of the Turks are provided out of the taxes paid by the Armenians. As for the Kurd, he is under no restraint of law, under no burden of taxes, and has no regular military service to undergo. A chartered outlaw, he devastates, plunders,

The Armenians, Armenia, and the Armenian Question. 13

burns, and kills ; and no man calls him to account. Robberies and outrages are committed without number; but the Govern- ment neither sees nor hears, for its own officials are too often the perpetrators. Forced marriages, forced conversions to Moham- medanism are common, always and everywhere. In a word, civil rights, justice, order, and tranquillity have, as it were, bidden their last farewell, and departed from the land of the Armenian subjects of Turkey.

" Corruption reigns supreme among the officials without dis- tinction, from the highest to the lowest. It has become a law. Every official, even the Governor himself, obtains his office from the Central Government by bribery, and by this alone; and throughout all the official world plunder is the great business of life. In all the courts of law, cases are kept pending until the litigants have been sucked dry; and as often as not an unjust judgment is given in favour of the suitor who has lumped down the biggest bribe. But woe to the non-suited should he venture to question the judge's decision ! Imprisonment for life, or, at the least, perpetual exile, is apt to be his answer. It is absolutely forbidden to draw up public memorials. The Press is gagged, till there is nothing left for it to print but flatteries of the persons by whom the gags have been applied. Numerous houses are every- where searched on the flimsiest and most impudent pretences. Private detractors and calumniators are rewarded with honours and offices. Young men are exiled for indefinite periods ; and their defenceless and helpless families are left to shift as they may. The prisons are filled with Armenians (many of whom clergymen) who have been flung there without rhyme or reason."

No account of the present condition of Armenia would be complete without a comprehensive statement on the numerous irregularities committed and the vexatious measures adopted by the fiscal officials in connection with the collection and assess- ment of taxes. The Armenian Christian subjects of the Sultan are exempted from military service in consideration of a poll-tax, named bedelaskerie (military exemption tax), the amount of which is not properly and equitably assessed. Thus the aforesaid tax, which applies only to persons fit for service, is demanded from the relatives of people who are dead, who have emigrated, or who are infirm. In many cases the tax is levied on newly-born persons and on old men. Again, with respect to the fixed taxes levied upon property (emlak) and upon professions (temettu), the local officials carry on unjust assessments, without regard to the value

14 National Life and Thought.

of the property, to its resources, or to the capabilities and earnings of the person assessed for the " professions " tax. Moreover, the assessing officials, contrary to imperial orders, undervalue the properties owned by Mahometans. Thus the property tax fails more heavily upon Christians than upon Mahometans. Cases can be quoted where lands belonging to Armenians have been registered for taxation at ten times their real actual value. The temettu tax (tax on professions), which should by law be levied on artisans and shopkeepers, is arbitrarily extended to farmers, and even to women who exercise no such profession. The tax- gatherers in collecting taxes infringe the existing laws of the empire by seizing and selling the most necessary household goods, trade implements, wearing apparel, and bedding of the debtor. They invariably, when the taxpayer is not able to satisfy the State, seize objects indispensable for the proper working of any immov- able property, such as animals attached to cultivation, agricultural implements, seed corn, etc. The proprietor, entirely stripped of all movable capital, has nothing remaining but the bare land, denuded of those accessories without which it can yield nothing. Tithe farming, which does not exist in theory since the promulga- tion of the Hatts Houmayoun of 1856, is still in full force in the Armenian provinces. It may be remembered that one of the principal causes which led to the Herzegovinian insurrection was due to the excesses of the tithe farmers in the Nevesinje district. The tithe farmers in the Armenian provinces are generally the beys or local functionaries, who, in order to avoid an overt breach of the law, rent the tithes through their sons, relatives, or servants. The tithes of a given province are farmed out to the highest bidder. The farmers, in collusion with the governor of the province, never hesitate to bid an elevated price. They calculate the price they are willing to pay on the basis of more than forty per cent, minimum profit for themselves. They have nothing to fear in the way of incurring losses; for where the value of tithe is affected by a sudden fall in the produce markets, the farmers (multezims) are allowed carte blanche to recoup themselves by vexatious exactions, or by over-estimating the quantity of the produce. The tithe farmers compel the peasants to pay in specie, although the tithe is due in kind. Should the cultivator display reluctance to pay the tithe in money in lieu of in kind, the multezim refuses to assess his crops, thus exposing the agricul- turist to severe losses, for until the tithe is assessed he is not allowed to remove his produce, which stands out in the open air,

The Armenians, Armenia, and the Armenian Question. 15

exposed to rain, hail, etc. The unfortunate peasant in despair appeals to the tithe farmer, who assesses the crops after payment of double the amount he demanded before. Even the produce of gardens attached to dwellings, and used for home consumption, is subjected to taxation, contrary to the existing laws of the Empire. Where the tithe is paid in kind, the producer is bound to. deliver it. The peasants wait day after day at the doors of the Government stores, in order that their crops may be measured and stored. It is, moreover, a subject of complaint that the multezims do not assess the crops at harvest time, often on account of the farming out of the tithes being delayed until that season, although the law prescribes that they should be farmed out in spring. The crops are consequently left out in the fields and threshing-floors, where they not unfrequently decay and perish. But the multezims compel the peasants to pay for the damaged produce as if it were sound. Should the peasants refuse to pay, they are subjected to all kinds of vexation. They are dragged into the law courts, ill-treated, and imprisoned. The officials, in secret league with the tithe farmers, only serve the interests of the latter, and the poor agriculturist has to sacrifice all he possesses. The villager is bound to provide the multezim and his agents food and lodgings without remuneration for such time as they may choose to remain in the village. Not un- frequently the multezim beats the villager and sullies the honour of his wife and daughter. The tithe farmers commit multifarious other abuses, in the way of levying fresh taxes, assessing produce exempt from taxation, etc. The complaints are more grievous in districts where there are beys, agas, or Kurdish chiefs who have friends in authority to cover their systematic misdeeds. Under the aforesaid circumstances the peasant, unable to satisfy the State, has recourse to usurious loans, and he thus becomes the bondsman or serf of the usurer, who in time dispossesses him of all his goods, movable and immovable. He finally has to emigrate and seek a mode of living in distant climes.

Such are the unredressed Armenian grievances twelve years after the passing of Article 61 of the Berlin Treaty. To remedy existing evils, it is not necessary to create an independent or autonomous Armenia, nor do the Armenians aim either at inde- pendence or at a distinct political existence. All they ask for are civil liberties and the establishment of institutions calculated to guarantee their personal safety, the security of their property, the honour of their wives and daughters, their rights, in fact, as men and

1 6 National Life and Thought.

civilised beings. The fulfilment of Article 61 of the Berlin Treaty, as explained by the Collective Note addressed to the Porte in 1880 by the great Powers, will afford satisfaction, and will avert a crisis which is assuming menacing proportions. To check the incessant plunder and raids of the Kurds and Circassians, a gendarmerie recruited among the natives and commanded by native officers should be instituted. To eradicate corruption and venality, the present administration of Armenia, which is essentially Turkish, should be entrusted to the aborigines of the land, who constitute the vital forces of the country. The provinces of Van, Erzeroum, Diarbekir, Bitlis, Karpout, and Dersim, to be grouped in one province, with an Armenian governor at its head, sitting at Erzeroum, whose duties it will be to enforce the laws of the empire, and under whose command the established gendarmerie is to be placed for the maintenance of security and order. The desiderata of the Armenians may be therefore defined thus : An Armenian administration in Armenia.

Cast a glance on the map and see where Armenia lies, and what a commanding position she holds, and what grave conse- quences would result through a Russian occupation of that country through its being allowed to seethe with discontent and disaffection. Indeed, a Russian occupation of Turkish Armenia means the practical supremacy of the whole of Western Asia. In the words of the author of Greater Britain, " Russia could reach Constantinople through Asia Minor, not so directly, but more surely and more safely than through Europe."1 Military authorities testify to the Armenia plateau of Erzeroum being the key of Western Asia. Erzeroum, moreover, the capital of Turkish Armenia, is the point where converge the roads from the Caucasus and of those leading into Syria, Anatolia, and the Persian Gulf. If the Muscovite legions were allowed to become masters of such a commanding position, they would intercept the whole overland trade to India and Persia ; they may become a Mediterranean Power — with Alexandretta as their commercial port — and menace England in Cyprus and Egypt. The commercial interests of England in those regions would be placed in jeopardy by a further Russian advance ; for, to quote Lord Salisbury's own words, "the existing European trade which now passes from Trebizonde to Persia would be liable to be arrested at the pleasure of the Russian Government, by the arbitrary barriers of

1 Present Position of European Politics (p. 161), by Sir Charles Dilke.

The Armenians, Armenia, and the Armenian Question. \j

their commercial system." Lord Salisbury's views are shared by Sir Charles Dilke, who adds: "There is one loss by a Russian occupation of the remainder of the Turkish dominions which no British Government would willingly face. It is the loss of trade. In Asiatic provinces acquired by Russia at the end of the last war, where there was formerly a considerable British trade, there is now none ; it- has been killed by protection duties."

I have alluded to the natural wealth of the country, to its valuable mineral resources, which remain unexplored and dormant through want of security and safety. What an immense opening for the industrial and enterprising classes of England if they would devote their attention to my unhappy country instead of spending millions for the exploration of the Dark Continent, under guise of suppressing slave trade !

I have endeavoured to bring out the past, the brilliant past, of the Armenians, their services to civilisation and Christendom, their rights, and how these rights are trampled under foot, and how the distinct stipulations of treaties have remained a dead letter. I have endeavoured, moreover, to show of what interest it is to England — an interest commercial, strategical, and political — to bring about the solution of the long-pending Armenian Question. I now make a solemn appeal, on behalf of outraged humanity, to the people of this country, and ask them to use their legitimate influence for the amelioration of the condition of a suffering nation, groaning under a most odious tyranny. I may here remind England's responsibilities. Subsequent to the last Turko-Russian War, Russia reserved to herself, in the 16th Article of the Treaty of San Stefano, the sole Protectorate of the Armenians. England refused to admit such a stipulation ; and a Convention was signed between England and Russia, on May 30, 1878, wherein it was agreed that the Protectorate should be jointly shared by the two contracting states. On the 4th June of the same year England signed with Turkey the so-called Cyprus Convention, which increased her responsibilities, for under that instrument she actually guaranteed the introduction of reforms in Armenia. In fact, by the Cyprus Convention, England is co- responsible with Turkey for the effective amelioration of Armenia, and she shares with that country the right of exercising a consti- tutional prerogative in Asia Minor.

It is now high time that something should be done by this nation, which has been rightly styled the protector of the weak and oppressed, in the interests of humanity and justice, to say

1 8 National Life and Thought.

nothing of interests already dwelt upon other than of pure senti- ment ; and it would thereby be echoing and confirming the words of a great orator, John Bright, who, in a speech delivered' in Birmingham prior to the Turko-Russian hostilities, said of the people of Great Britain that the lover of freedom always looks to them; the oppressed everywhere turn their eyes to ask for sympathy, and wish for help from them ; they feel that they make this upon them — a free people. They do not deny that claim, but they freely acknowledge it.

Armenians have a claim upon England, Scotland, and Ireland, and they are confident of the result.

II.

A USTRIA.

DR. S. SCHIDROWITZ.

A FEW weeks ago I was reading in the newspapers a notice to the effect that the ballet girls of Vienna are the handsomest and the best performers in any theatre in Europe. This is almost the only favourable notice about Austria which I have seen in an English newspaper for many a year ; and I certainly would not have ventured to mention it, if it had not struck me as a very peculiar thing that such a small matter should be almost the only one mentioned in a great London paper. But it is so. Austria, though a very great country in Europe, is very little known in England, much less known than many countries in Africa and Asia, and perhaps the cause of it is this. One of the greatest and most illustrious British statesmen said publicly a few years ago, " Show me a spot on earth where Austria has done any good." Of course, such a statement from the lips of one of the greatest Englishmen does perhaps prejudice peoples' minds ; and editors, who know how to take their cue, do not occupy themselves or their readers very much with a country of which such a great statesman made such a disparaging remark. Another very great Englishman, an historian, in all his writings has hardly a good word to say about Austria, but always to the contrary ; in fact, he does not acknowledge Austria at all. He says there is an archduchy of Austria, and there is a house of Hapsburg, but he really does not" know Austria. Therefore the people who read his books cannot know anything about Austria either.

It is a very remarkable circumstance that with some people history only commences very recently. With some, let us say, only in 1830 with the Reform Bill; with others perhaps only in 1867, or at some other period. If politics alone constituted the life, the principal mainsprings of the life of a people, then perhaps that great illustrious statesman and the historian might in some degree be right in saying that Austria, in comparison with a great many

20 National Life and Thought.

other nations of the world, would play a very small, perhaps a very poor, role amongst them ; but the political life, the political phases of a people, do not constitute the main interest of ninety-nine out of a hundred of the people of a nation. Election for Parliament only occurs on an average about once in every four or five years. Then, of course, the free citizen can vote, can do as he wishes in political matters, and so forth. But the ordinary pleasures and enjoyments of life, these are shared alike by every one, by the poorest as well as the richest, not once during five years, but every day, in the morning, at noon, and in the evening ; and in these enjoyments of life, in the civil enjoyments of life, in the enjoyments of all liberties, the people of Austria are certainly not behind any other people, and indeed in many respects perhaps they enjoy the pleasures of life much more than other nations.

The rich in Austria are not so rich as the English rich, as " Milor," for instance, who is supposed on the Continent to be a kind of angelic being who discovers gold ; but, on the other hand, the poor in Austria are not so poor, not so destitute, not so badly off as they are here. I have never in my life seen in an Austrian newspaper a notice headed " Died of Starvation." The Austrian papers have no occasion to mention, as is unfortunately too often the case in other countries, that such and such a man or woman had been found dead of starvation. Furthermore, I have never seen or read in an Austrian paper (and more particularly as regards Vienna) of drunken women fighting in the streets. I have never seen in Austria drunkenness to the extent that one sees in other countries. I have never seen the disgraceful scenes that are to be witnessed daily in countries where, according to the newspapers, a much higher degree of civilisation exists than in poor benighted Austria. The Austrians, and especially the Viennese, have always had the reputation of being an easy-going, pleasure-loving people, so much so, that Schiller, one of the greatest of German poets, spoke of Vienna as the "lotus-eating town." The common belief in Germany and other countries was, that the people of Vienna did not care about anything but pleasure and enjoying life as much as they could. But this is a very great error. I have remarked before how it was stated of Austria, " Show me a place on earth where she has done any good."

It may be true, that in the history of Austria, during, say, the last fifty or sixty years, nothing very great, or stirring, or interesting as compared with other nations has happened, but history does not commence either in 1830 or in 1848. But Vienna and Austria were

Austria. 21

for hundreds and hundreds of years the bulwark, the shield of Chris- tian Europe, of Christianity, against the inroads of the Mussulmans ; and to say that Austria has never done any good to the world, can certainly not be quite correct, when we consider that for many hun- dred years the people of Austria have had to shield and to protect, I may say, Europe from the attacks and inroads of the most savage enemies of civilisation which Europe and Christianity ever knew. The very name of Austria should show you the origin and scope of the history of that country. Austria means the Eastern country or Eastern Marches, a country which was specially created for the very purpose of protecting Germany and Western Europe against the inroads of the people who at the time of the exodus from Asia in the sixth century commenced to overrun that part of Europe. The Eastern Marches, which were created by the Emperor Charlemagne, were meant to be a barrier against Vandal- ism. And as at that time Christianity had only commenced to be propagated, and had no very deep hold in the country, the work which Charlemagne had laid for this people was certainly a very important and a very difficult one.

And now let us see how this people who, according to the present common saying, did nothing but enjoy themselves in going to the theatre. Let us see how they proceeded. On the Danube there had been erected for a great many years a fortified castle ; but, as had happened in other countries, as had happened in England, the Roman legions, valorous though they were, could not stand against the native element, and they had to leave. On the very spot where Vienna to-day stands Celtic tribes were living. Therefore a thousand years ago Great Britain and Austria had a common nation — the Celts. Celtic tribes were living where Vienna now stands, in the same way that Celtic people inhabit the North of Scotland and Ireland. These tribes were also subject to the attacks of the nations which advanced from the south in the fifth and sixth centuries. But Vienna always managed to keep her own. We have authenticated statements how at that time, and especially later on in the eleventh century, the people of Vienna always defended themselves most valiantly against the inroads and the attacks of these people, but the real object and the real purpose for which Austria had been created commenced only in the twelfth century.

Well, the people of Hungary came up, and at that time the German Emperor made the family of the Babenbergers Dukes of Austria, and . with the Babenbergers commenced the real origin of Austria and of

22 National Life and Thought.

Vienna. You will see at once what spirit these Babenbergers were of, when I tell you the very first thing the greatest of the Baben- bergers did — his name was Heinrich — was to lay the foundation of the noblest church in Europe — the Stephen's Kirche. He knew that if he wished to make Vienna a town of the future, one which would last and not be ruined by barbarous invaders, he would have to invoke the help of the Church, and he did that by laying the foundation stone of the Stephen's Kirche. It is certainly one of the finest domes in Europe, if not in the world. It took over two hundred years to finish this most wonderful church dome, and now this very dome is considered by all Austria, and especi- ally by the Viennese, as the very centre of their life.

Seven hundred years had passed, when a very great danger threatened the whole of Europe. It was at the time when the Turks under Sultan " Solyman the Magnificent " were in the height of their fame. Sultan Solyman had the idea that the Turkish Empire and the Mohammedan religion should become not only the principal, but the only power and the only religion in the world. He marshalled a very great army. At that time two hundred and fifty thousand men meant a much larger army than is to-day represented by two millions. He advanced right up to the walls of Vienna, and there again the inhabitants of that " pleasure-loving " capital for months and months were besieged, and eventually succeeded by their own efforts in beating back the greatest warrior of the time, and drove him back to Turkey, thus saving not only Austria, but Germany, and perhaps the whole of Europe, from the domination of the Turks, a domination which had lasted many centuries in Asia. This was in 1529.

In 1683 tne same thing happened again. Again a Turkish Emperor, advised, I must say, by the Most Christian King of France, Louis XIV., sent his Generals with an army still larger than the previous one, and again laid siege to Vienna. Not one finger was raised for several months to succour the besieged Viennese. Once more the citizens of that pleasure-loving town succeeded almost alone to hold the Turks at bay, until afterwards the Duke of Lothringen and the King of Poland came to their rescue. Thus, again, it was Vienna which saved the whole country from the domination of the Turks, and who is it who does not know what the domination of the Turks in a Christian country means ? I have mentioned these few examples only to show that the great reproach " that there is not a spot on earth where Austria has done good " is not quite correct.

Austria. 23

In early times, at all events, in 1529 and 1683, Austria and the capital of Austria had certainly done Europe and the world a service which hardly any other town or any other nation has done for the continent of Europe. And' yet it is unfortunately true that in some respects, especially as far as politics are concerned, Austria (I may not say is) has been very much backward in comparison with other nations. But other countries, other nations, have also had such periods — I will not say which countries. I will merely say that the development of political liberty, of all political rights, general suffrage and so forth, have also in other countries not always been the same, only that in Austria unfortunately the period of darkness has been much longer, and for the following reasons.

The House of Hapsburg had, in the sixteenth century particularly, a great many enemies, who not only fought against certain princes, but against the house, against the dynasty itself. Now, unfortun- ately, the reigning family at that time called in the help of a power which five hundred years ago had done very much to keep the people in spiritual bondage. They called in the help of the Jesuits, and to that order to the greatest extent is due the dark- ness which reigned during two hundred years and more in Austria.

The University of Vienna, which was founded in 1365, was at one time the greatest, or one of the greatest, of Universities, and quite on a level with the great Universities of Paris and Bologna. But since the sixteenth century, and especially since the Thirty Years' War, which did so much misfortune and harm to the centre of Europe, the University of Vienna, as well as all the lower educa- tional establishments in Vienna and Austria, came under the sway of this order, and with them there was only one principle — blind obedience and no progress. The Vienna University at that time,, instead of cultivating science ^nd art, as it has done for more than two hundred years, became nothing else than a mere machine for turning out employes of the State, and this course it was which brought Austria so low, and which induced everybody else in Europe to speak of Austria as the China of Europe, the most backward State in Europe. This state of affairs lasted very long. Politics were entirely unknown. There was nothing but blind obedience to the commands of superiors. Freethought, investi- gation, all that was ruthlessly repressed by those who conducted the education of the country from the highest university to the lowest school in the Empire. But this state of affairs does not

24 National Life and Thought.

exist now, and that is the great error which people at the present time appear to be labouring under.

The history of old Austria closed entirely and completely so far as politics, culture, education, etc., is concerned, with the year 1848. There is no more comparison between Austria, prior to 1848 and the Austria of to-day, than there could be a comparison say between England under one of the Tudors, or even to come nearer to the present time, say during the reign of one of the Georges and the England of to-day. Indeed, I may say that the difference is even greater, because in England, after all, it was more a question of degree. In England certain liberties always did exist, but in Austria it was not so. Everything there had to commence. The history of Austria since 1848 is therefore the history of Modern Austria, and this history is certainly much more cheering and much more pleasant to speak about.

You doubtless all know that Austria, unlike most of the other European nations, cannot be considered a nation in itself, i.e. there is no Austrian, as you can say there is the Frenchman, the Italian, the Englishman. Austria is a political idea, and consists of a number of different peoples, a number of smaller or larger nations, which are collected together under the sceptre of the Imperial Family of the Hapsburgs, and they form the Austrian Empire. But it is a very great error, on the other hand, to suppose that because there is no such thing as an Austria in itself, that therefore the Austrian Monarchy as such cannot form a political union just as firm as, let us say, France or Great Britain. You all know that in this kingdom of Great Britain the people are not all of the same nation ; they are not all of the same sect. We here have different component parts, but not to such a great degree as in Austria. There the foundation was formed on the creation of the archduchy of Austria, and they were Germans. Germans still form to a great degree the majority of the population of Austria, that is, when comparing each of its other nations separately. Austria and Germany have therefore always been in close accord, not only because the Hapsburgs were Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, of German Nation, as it was called, but because the majority of the people in Austria are Germans, and because German culture, German science, were the same in both countries.

You are doubtless aware that in consequence of political events the Austrian Empire, which was created in 1806, was divided in 1867 into two parts — Austria Proper and Hungary. Of Hungary

A ustria. 2 5

I will not speak, only of Austria Proper, of the Austrian part of the Empire which is called Cis-Leithanian part of the Empire. Vienna, as you all know, is the capital of Austria, and a very pleasant and agreeable town Vienna is. As I said before, the reproach always was that the Viennese cared for nothing but their pleasures. But the inhabitants of Vienna showed in 1848 that they have within themselves the same fire, the same power to gain their liberties, as have been shown by other nations, say in 1688 in England, or in 1789 in France. One might say the whole system of Absolutism in Austria was overthrown by the Viennese them- selves. In imitation of the Revolution in Paris, the citizens of Vienna rose in their wrath and said, " We will not longer be slaves." The saying itself would have helped very little, but they added the act to their word. Prince Metternich, the leading minister, and the mainspring of Absolutism, had to run away, and all owing solely to the deeds of a few thousand Viennese citizens, aided by the students of the University,

Vienna has not been much written about by Englishmen ; but when they do write about Vienna, one finds the most marvellous errors stated. I have read this very day, for instance, a statement that nobody who has been in Vienna has ever been invited to dinner by a Viennese. Further, that the Viennese are the most immoral people. Indeed, it would be impossible for me to go into the details of the statements which the writer makes. But I can assure you that the people of Vienna are no more immoral than the people of most other towns. For one thing, they are not hypocrites, nor are they hypercritical. They show themselves just as they are, and do not say, "We are the most virtuous people, all the rest are immoral, etc." As an example, I will tell you what happened to myself the other evening. I had a gentleman friend visiting me from Vienna. We went to one of the leading theatres of London. We sat in the stalls, and just in front of us also in the stalls were seated a gentleman and two ladies. I do not know that I could, if I attempted, describe the dress, or rather the undress, worn by those ladies. My friend from Vienna, however, remarked to me, "What, are we really sitting in a theatre in virtuous London where they do not even permit a song or dancing in the Music Halls?" Well, my friend was actually ashamed. Yes, he really blushed. He, the hardened sinner from "immoral " Vienna, actually got red in the face. Now, the English writer says the Viennese are immoral people, and here I have given you an example how the most "immoral" people may be shocked

26 National Life and Thought.

when they come to London. It is, I will not say all, nonsense, but it is exaggeration to say that the people of Vienna are immoral. They have to work hard to make a living, and they do work hard ; but when their work is done, they enjoy themselves thoroughly, they do not hide themselves away, they come into the open air and enjoy themselves to their heart's content. I wish you could see on a pleasant summer Sunday afternoon two or three hundred thousand of these "immoral" people enjoying themselves, like happy children, in the Prater. Vienna has the great advantage of possessing the finest surroundings of any large town in Europe. A half-hour's walk from the town on either side brings you to the country, where you could imagine yourself say in the Isle of Wight or in Devonshire, and on the opposite direction the scenery resembles that of the Highlands of Scotland. Thither the inhabitants go picnicing on Sundays and holidays. All the inhabitants enjoy themselves almost within sight of each other. How on earth, then, that high degree of immorality of which that English author speaks can take place, I, for one, cannot very well understand.

The Viennese are a good-natured people, and I have here a few books which were edited by that most unfortunate of men, the late Crown Prince of Austria. It has been said that the House of Hapsburg are the most cruel and despotic of tyrants, and so forth. But let me state what are the real facts. The Emperor of Austria lives in a house which there is no word in the English language to describe. It is like a passage, anybody and every- body can go through that house ; in fact, it is the main communica- tion between the inner town and the largest of the suburbs. Omnibuses and cabs, etc., pass through it. Twice a week the Emperor of Austria gives public audience to any one and every one. Those who have any petition to make, or any grievance to state, have only to send in their name in writing, and they are at once admitted. There are no policemen or guards to prevent any one going into the Emperor's house who wishes to have an audience with him. Now this Emperor had a son whose lamentable death you have doubtless all heard of. This son edited a book, in which you will see there are three sketches of typical Viennese — a Viennese cabman, a washerwoman, and a boy. If you will look carefully at these, you will appreciate more than you could from a hundred lectures what the inhabitants of Vienna are really like. Do that man's characteristics and type of feature give you the idea of a most awful person full of vice, etc.

Austria. 27

Well, now, as I said before, the present Austro-Hungarian Monarchy consists of two parts. It would be very dry and uninteresting were I to tell you how many inhabitants each of these provinces has, and to no purpose. Allow me only to make a few remarks. The inhabitants of Austria number 39,100,000. You will see, therefore, that the Austro-Hungarian Empire is not " une quantite negiigeable" i.e., not to be thrown entirely aside. It has more inhabitants than Great Britain and Ireland. The Austrian people are good natured, but they can give as good an account of themselves as any other people, more especially have they done so in the past when allied to English soldiers, which fortunately they almost always have been. There has been only a single case, in 17 16, where Austrian and English soldiers were not standing shoulder to shoulder. And in the Austrian army and administration several of the very highest posts are filled by Englishmen, or let us say, by " subjects of Great Britain, because they happen to be Irishmen.'' The present Prime Minister of Austria, Count Taafe, is just as much an Irishman as, or much more I should say, than even Parnell himself. He comes from a very old Irish stock, and amongst the titles which he still writes after his name is one connected with the Castle of Bally " some- thing.'' The Emperor's first aide-de-camp, O'Donnell, is also an Irishman. Lacey, one of the greatest Austrian generals, the same ; and if I am not mistaken, several members of the Austrian Parliament are descendants of old Irish families. One of the best speeches, I think, I ever heard in the Austrian Parliament was by one named Skene, who was also of Irish descent. Therefore you will see that Austria and Great Britain have many sympathies in common, and I am sure nobody should say very much bad of Austria on that account.

I am afraid, what I have now to say will not be very amusing for most of my kind hearers. But the object of these lectures consists also in giving some information concerning the political institutions of different foreign countries ; and, unfortunately, I know that politics are very seldom amusing, except for those to whom they are a stepping-stone to celebrity or wealth.

Austria, or rather that part of Austria with which I have to deal to-day, namely, the Cis-Leithanian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, is a constitutional country. Its constitution, or to speak more correctly, its constitutions, for there are several of them in existence, are all quite new, of very recent date. Until 1848 Austria was governed by the Emperor as Autocrat, or as Despot (in the old

28 National Life and Thought.

Greek sense of this word). Though there had been diets in existence since the sixteenth century, they were mere shadows without the slightest influence or power. They languished as machines, without a will of their own, simply for the purpose of registering the decrees of the Emperor. Some of the Emperors governed despotically in the modern meaning of this term, while during the reign of some quite a patriarchal system of govern- ment was the order of the day. Poor Emperor Joseph, the son of Marie Theresa, nourished quite Liberal ideas, but the clerical and feudal opposition from the highest in the land was too strong even for him, and he died broken-hearted. Francis the Second was rather good-natured, and not at all cruel as long as nobody dared to oppose his absolute system of government, but even the least attempt to propagate Liberal ideas was crushed with terrible rigour. The people's duty was simply to obey and not to think for themselves. Public affairs were entirely "forbidden fruit" for the subjects; they might discuss the theatre, the opera, or the ballet; they might have given dinners to celebrate and to praise all the public virtues of a Barnum of that time ; or the Press might have banqueted the great Pears of the period, and the greatest men in the land would have been proud to assist on those occasions, but politics were entirely tabooed. Notoriety hunters and self-advertising quacks among all the professions had it then all to themselves. But I am treading on delicate ground, and I will come back to poor benighted Austria before 1848, where such occurrences might have taken place.

The February revolution in Paris in 1848, the dethronement of Louis Philippe, excited the people of Vienna in the highest degree. Almost over night they also made a revolution, drove from power and country the all-mighty Metternich, and demanded a constitution, liberty of conscience, liberty of the Press, a Parliament, and all the rest of the institutions which existed in constitutional countries. The Emperor Ferdinand, a very weak, half-witted man, granted everything.

But it would take too much time to give you a history of the development of political life in Austria. You all know, perhaps, that the reaction carried on with a high hand from 1852 until i860, when, after the Italian war, the Emperor again began to have recourse to constitutional means in a somewhat modest way. Only after the German war in 1866 the present constitutional and dualistic system of government commenced in the Empire of the Hapsburgs, in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.

A ustria.

29

Austria Proper (Cis-Leithanian) and Hungary form two separate parts of the Empire, united through the person of the Emperor, who is also King of Hungary, and further united by certain Parliamentary institutions, which both parts of the Empire have in common. Though each part of the Empire has a Parliament of its own, yet certain common affairs, viz. the army and navy, foreign and consular affairs, certain money matters, etc., are discussed and settled by the so-called " Delegations." These delegations are, so to say, committees of the two Parliaments, to whom the above-mentioned matters are referred. Each delegation meets and discusses separately the matters laid before it by the Cabinet; they communicate with each other in writing; and only when a matter cannot be agreed upon after three " opinions in writing " have been exchanged by the delegations/then both dele- gations meet together, and the question is discussed as well as voted upon by both delegations, who ad hoc constitute then one Parliamentary body.

The Hungarian as well as the Austrian Parliament possess all the well-known privileges, and do the same work as most other representatives of the people. There are two Houses of Parliament in Austria — the House of Lords and the House of Commons ; Cabinet Ministers have a right to sit and speak in both Houses, even if not members of the House. The ministers are responsible to Parliament. Both Houses have legislative powers, Bills can be brought in either by the Cabinet or by members. The multifarious business of the House of Commons in reference to matters of administration, etc., are dealt with in Austria by competent Government officers, and not by elected members of the House of Commons. The right of questioning the Government is much more limited than in England. In theory all this sounds very well, but in practice Austria cannot very well be called as yet a real Parliamentary country ; for, after all, in some departments, say, for instance, concerning foreign affairs and certain military questions, the Emperor, and not Parliament, is the supreme power, not dejure, but de facto. Austria possesses also besides its Parliament seventeen diets — Landtage. These small Parliaments legislate upon all matters which concern the interest of the province alone, and which do not touch general interests of the whole Cis-Leithanian part of the Empire. They are a kind of enlarged county councils, or, if you like to call them so, a species of Home Rule Parliaments for the different parts of the realm.

Concerning the religion of the Austrians, it may be interesting

30 National Life and Thought.

to know that out of the thirty-nine million population there are twenty-nine millions Roman Catholics. Next to them come Protestants, numbering 3,572,961. Orthodox Greeks (which means the same as the Russians are), 2,900,000 ; but, strange to say, in Austria alone are to be found Catholics who call themselves Greek Catholics, and among these there has always been the greatest trouble going on between Russia and Austria. This was one of the greatest and most serious difficulties between Austria and Russia. People think that politics are the worst diffi- culties between them. But the great question is whether the Greek Catholics should preponderate to Vienna or to St. Petersburg.

The great majority of the people of Austria live an agricultural life, and until 1848 the number of manufactures was indeed very insignificant compared, let us say, with England. But since 1848 very great progress has been made. Two-fifths of the population of the Empire are now employed in manufactures.

And now let me come to a point which is much more important, and that is education. After all, soldiering, wars, and such things do not occur, fortunately, very often, and especially do not interest many here. But the questions of education, how many children go to school in the country, that is perhaps for Englishmen the most important, the most interest- ing question. In Austria education is compulsory; that is to say, every child which is over six years old is compelled to go to school. But if I were speaking in Austria, people would laugh if I said a child is compelled to go to school. What, compel a child to go to school ! Why, it is his great good fortune that he is allowed to go. On the contrary, it would be compelled not to go to school. Therefore it is not considered at all compulsory, but it is considered highly beneficent for the people that it is so. In Austria every child goes to school from the sixth to the thirteenth year of their age. From thirteen to fifteen they have Sunday schools in the afternoon for two hours. There are in Austria three million children of the age of six years who ought to go to school. Now, how many of these do not go to school ? Only seventy. I should think you will agree with me, that is not a very bad record for such a benighted country as Austria. In Hungary, on the other hand, which is far superior to Austria as far as politics are concerned, it is quite different. In Hungary there are 1,312,371 children who ought to go to school, and there are actually attending school 1,304,000, so that actually 8000 do

Austria.

31

not go to school out of one million, so that the percentage is worse in that politically better developed country than in Austria. Now the question is this : Is it better for a nation that the children should go to school, or that every man over twenty-one years of age should once in five years be able to vote for a Member of Parliament ? Permit me to say that the Austrians have the same right to vote for Members of Parliament, for there is also a Parliament for Austria. The number of Grammar Schools in Austria Proper is 131, and the number of teachers 2601. There are 11 Universities. In Vienna the University has 272 professors, teachers, and so forth, and 5606 students, not a very bad record for such a benighted town. Then, besides, there are special schools, technical, high schools, etc. In Vienna there is a High School for Agriculture alone. It has 31 professors and 340 students. There is also a School of Forestry, with 20 professors. So, you will see, the question of education is not lost there.

But the greatest claim of the Austrians, and of the Viennese especially, is that they are a music-loving people. You are, I daresay, all aware that Vienna claims to be, and that she has been and is, the seat of Music. I need only mention a few names to show that this claim of Vienna is not ill founded. Every one has heard the names of Mozart, of Schubert, and of Haydn. The operas of Mozart, the songs of Schubert, and the music of Haydn are certainly more or less known wherever civilised human beings meet ; and, I am sure, no one will deny that they give more enjoy- ment than the reading of all the Blue Books that have ever been published by Parliament. I, for one, take the liberty of saying that the country which has produced such men has given to the world more enjoyment and more of the blessings of real peace than any other.

The next proudest claim of Vienna to celebrity is her Medical Schools. It is well known in English professional circles that for twenty-five years and more that the Medical faculty in the University of Vienna was far above all others. The greatest English physicians have all been in Vienna and attended lectures there, which is not such a bad position for a country of which it has been said, "Show me a spot on earth where she has done any good."

Furthermore, the Austrians are the happy possessors of more good watering places than any other country in the world, such as Carlsbad, Gastein, etc. Even in this minor capacity Austria may be truly said to have been of much service to the sick and the aged,

32 National Life and Thought.

and therefore permit me to conclude my remarks by saying that, after all, Austria is not such a " poor benighted " country as it is alleged to be, and that a great many benefits have been conferred on the human race, not only by Austria, but by that " most immoral " city, Vienna itself.

III.

HUNGAR Y.

PROFESSOR AUGUSTUS PULSZKY.

ABOUT a century ago, when the sympathies of the people of Western Europe were first aroused in favour of wronged and struggling Poland, French writers often complimented the Poles on being " the French of the North," and this allusion to the similarity of character was invariably accepted as a flattering expression of appreciation. At the same period, and for many years afterwards, the denomination of " the England of the East " was sometimes claimed with fond complacency by Hungarians for their own country, desiring to impress foreigners with the marked difference between the people of Hungary and their unfortunate Northern neighbours. Of course, nobody dreamt of seriously comparing the culture, the development, the power, and the prosperity of the two nations, one of which, after centuries of freedom and enterprise, had risen to become the proud mistress of the seas, while the other had served as the bulwark of civilised Christendom against the attacks of Mohammedan Turkey, and bore resemblance rather to a shattered outlying bastion of a half-abandoned fortress than to the fields of the culture of the West. Still, as is generally the case with expressions that grow into stock phrases, there had been and there lingered yet a grain of truth in the analogy between Hungary and England. A certain similarity marked the origin of both — nor is it difficult to establish a parallel between the history, the institutions, nay, even between the very life and modes of thought of the world- renowned and splendid realm of liberty in the Western Isles, and of the comparatively obscure kingdom which had just but succeeded in maintaining its existence amidst the storms that had ravaged Eastern Europe, and which, after all, was the only state on the Continent that at the end of the last century had managed to uphold unimpaired its uninterrupted traditions of legal freedom. And to this very day, although the position and

34 'National Life and Thought.

the destinies of the two nations are as unequal as ever, a certain distant family likeness may still be detected between them. None of the other countries, except England and Hungary, are able to appeal to the unbroken continuity of ten centuries of constitutional development ; none other have preserved a flexible constitution, capable of alteration by the regular methods of legislation, and not based upon any rigid written Charter; in none but these two did that mixed form of government contin- ually prevail in which the distribution of the powers of the monarchy, and of the aristocratical and democratical elements, may have actually considerably changed in the course of time, without either of these having ever been entirely suppressed, or the balance of power irretrievably destroyed, even at the most critical juncture.

The secret of this resemblance of institutions and of the concomitant ideas and feelings is easily discovered in certain common features of the history of the two commonwealths. From the days of Queen Elizabeth, when England definitely adopted Protestant supremacy, the cause of national independence was always intimately allied to that of liberty. The political existence of the English nation, religious and civil freedom, were alike imperilled by the Spanish Armada. During the following century the more insidious but equally dangerous endeavours of Louis XIV. of France, though menacing more directly consti- tutional government, were none the less indirectly aimed against religious independence, and against the assertion of a separate national policy. Again, in the wars provoked by the aggressions of the French Revolution and the ambition of Napoleon, the defence of the existing constitution and the consolidation of the British Empire were indissolubly connected. The same holds good as to Hungary. From the day following the dire calamity of the lost battle of Mohacs, where the separate and independent development of the kingdom, together with King Louis II. himself, fell a victim to the victorious sword of Sultan Suleyman, throughout all the civil wars of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- turies, throughout the political atrophy of the eighteenth, throughout the constitutional struggles in the nineteenth, the revolution of 1848-49 and the passive resistance offered to the attempts of Aus- trian centralization afterwards, down to the period of the definite arrangement with the dynasty and the so-called Cis-Leithanian hereditary kingdoms and provinces of the Emperor of Austria, the efforts for the re-establishment and support of a national state

Hungary. 25

were at all times necessarily connected with the defence of constitutional freedom, with the vindication of religious tolerance and of the legal recognition of the different Churches, with the maintenance of the political rights of the people, with the gradual development of the liberty of the subject, and with the economical emancipation of the lower orders. The national aspirations, the full outcome of the traditions of the past, were never for one moment dissociated from the endeavours to realise any part of what constitutes moral and material progress. Elements which in other continental countries were continually clashing with each other, and, when fully revealed, showed themselves to be discordant and antagonistic beyond remedy, were in Hungary indissolubly fused into one single sentiment, leavened by law-abiding respect for formal rights, by reverence for institutions which formerly had been the expression of the national mind, and prompted in no lesser degree by yearnings for spiritual liberty and by the instinctive desire of acquiring prosperity. In connection with this prevailing feeling, the idea of attaining and ensuring the complete national polity of Hungary became endowed with a magnetic power that attracted into its sphere, and united in it all the motives, all the forces of the people, which otherwise might have impelled its different sections and classes in divergent directions.

Indeed, this all-pervading, deep-rooted feeling of the supremacy of the national interest is the keynote of the life and thought of the Hungarian people, and furnishes a clue to the explanation of the differences that strike the observer when comparing its charac- teristics with those of the inhabitants of the surrounding countries. For a citizen of the British Empire, which embraces the fairest portions of the globe, spreads over all the latitudes of the earth, and rules over countless races of mankind ; for a member of a commonwealth the population and wealth of which have long ago overflowed the boundaries of a merely national existence ; for an Englishman sure, as he may well be, of the language he speaks and thinks in, and of the civilisation in which he has been nurtured, and to the pale of which he belongs, of both his language and civilisation having struck root and flourishing in the most different parts of the world, and serving the needs and guiding the destinies of new nations which have grown equal to and are perhaps overshadowing the old ; for the scion of a people that can afford to be, nay, to a certain extent needs must be cosmopolitan, — it is scarcely possible to realise the intensity of the spirit of nationality, where all that makes life worth living, in a higher

36 National Life and Thought.

sense, where all bonds of community extending beyond immediate private ties and aims, where every nobler and more generous impulse that stirs the blood or fires the imagination is concentrated to a single object, and where, according to popular estimation, the virtue of patriotism, which elsewhere, too, ranks high, but is deemed to be equalled, and perhaps even overbalanced, by rival qualities, is accounted as paramount and incomparable to any other, because including and absorbing the attributes of all excellence proper to human nature. The consolidation of the German Empire, the unification of Italy, are examples of the magnitude of the immanent power set free by statesmen who were endowed with foresight and ability sufficient to arouse the long dormant sense of nationality. Still, the most striking illustration of the potency of the spell exercised by the consciousness of common and single national destinies is not afforded by the cases of these great agglomerations, to the perfecting of which innumer- able other causes have contributed in no lesser degree, but rather by the persistent and unconquerable energy by virtue of which a people, comparatively weak in numbers, without racial affinity with its surroundings, isolated in its language, lacking natural means of communication, wealthy neither in intellectual traditions nor in acquired capital, continually menaced, on several occasions overrun, by enemies more numerous, more powerful, sometimes more cultivated than itself, has succeeded in holding its own during a thousand years, and in securing for the organism of its commonwealth the recognition of an adequate and firm position amongst the acknowledged civilised States of Europe.

The deep hold which the spirit of nationality has obtained over the citizens of Hungary, and the matchless importance it has acquired as regards all the interests of the community, the struc- ture and the agency of the social fabric, comparable only with the supremacy of the questions of faith in England during the seventeenth century, is all the more interesting by the contrast it affords to the spectacle presented by the circumstances which led to the establishment of the national States of Germany and Italy. Nationality based upon a community of descent, language, thought, literature, and religious interest, was pre-existent in these latter cases ; the aspiration towards unity, the violent irresistible craving for framing a single organisation out of provinces that had never been knit together, in the past, by an adequate tie, were only awakened after centuries of separate existence, were the realisation of an idea that had a long antecedent history. In

Hungary. 37

Hungary, as with the nations of Western Europe, it was the reverse process that took place. The Kingdom of Hungary had been established for countless generations, national and foreign dynasties had repeatedly alternated on its throne, before the full requirements and consequences of a truly national life were in their entirety apprehended, demanded, and enforced. Moreover, to this very day it is not the exclusiveness of pride in purity of race, it is not a supercilious contempt for aliens, or the separateness and aloofness engendered by religious prejudice, or intolerance of unaccustomed ways and expressions of thought, that form the backbone of national sentiment in Hungary. There is no place in the world where people belonging to more varied and distinct stocks live and mingle together, where on an area of equal extent more languages, so entirely unconnected, are spoken, where the allegiance of faith is divided amongst religions so numerous, and where true tolerance, in the sense of a ready admission of equal, or, at least, of proportionately assigned rights has, to such a degree, become absolutely necessary in the common relations of life. Speaking in round numbers, six and a-half millions of Magyars, two and a-half of Roumenes, two and one- third of Croato-Serbs, nearly two millions of Germans, only a few thousands fewer of Slovacks, three hundred and fifty thousand Ruthenes, and about a hundred thousand of diverse motley minor nationalities, such as Wends, Italians, Armenians, and Gipsies, live peaceably, side by side, in a population close to sixteen millions, all of them interspersed in the different sections of the territory of Hungary; while the list of religions and creeds includes seven millions eight hundred and fifty thousand Roman, one million and a-half Greek, and three thousand Armenian- Catholics, over two million Calvinists, one million one hundred and thirty thousand Lutheran Protestants, fifty-five thousand Unitarians, two millions four hundred and forty thousand members of the Oriental Greek Churches, and six hundred and forty thousand Jews. Nor do the lines dividing different races- and tongues coincide with those separating the religious denomin- ations. Every nationality counts members belonging to different Church-establishments ; almost every creed includes adherents of several distinct nationalities ; besides, persons belonging to each are found in every class of society. All are equally citizens of Hungary ; still, the dominant sentiment of the country is, and cannot but be, the Magyar, not in virtue of any privilege in law, but simply because it is the Magyar element that has formed and

38 National Life and Thought.

upheld the Hungarian nation, because it has been the nucleus around which the other parts of the population have rallied, because the Magyars have known how to identify with their own the common interests of the rest, compared with which the separate aims of each were partly rendered compatible by a generous policy, and partly felt to be insignificant ; because, to sum up the manifold reasons in a single expression, the Magyar State, culture, and law have unceasingly served as the sole possible condition of the development and liberty of every fraction of the people.

The causes that have concurred in producing these results may easily be seen written large in the course of history. It is exactly a thousand years ago, at the same period when the Northmen ravaged the shores of the West, settled in Northern France, and founded the houses of the rulers and the aristocracy of half of Europe, that the Magyars or Hungarians entered the country bounded by the Carpathians and by the flanking spurs of the eastern and southern Alps, which forms the great basin of the middle course of the Danube. They conquered it, settled in it, and for the first time in history established a united and stable realm in this part of Europe. Formerly only those portions lying near its boundaries had temporarily belonged to the sphere of civilised states ; the great plains between and along the Danube ;uid the Theiss had never formed the seat of a nation before the Hungarian immigration. A large part of the territory was at the time a scarcely inhabited waste ; the mountainous and hilly districts, covered by forests, were sparsely occupied in the North and in the South by a Slavonic, and in the West by a German population. The number, however, of the conquering Magyars, though sufficient to ensure their victory and to render them terrible to their western and southern neighbours, was not large enough to fill the expanse of the provinces their valour had acquired and their determination was able to defend permanently. Hence foreign elements were introduced, first by compulsion, later on, as Christianity was adopted, by invitation and grants of royal privileges ; and the policy ushered in by the great King Stephen, the Apostle-Saint of his people, and continued by his successors, consisted mainly in inducing immigrants from all parts to settle and gradually to infuse their life into that of the realm. The institutions of Western countries, the ideas embodied in the capitularies of Charlemagne and his successors, and in the laws of the Church, were adopted and adapted to the Magyar traditions,

Hungary. 39

in which the germs of self-government and of the participation of the subjects in the sovereign power were deeply ingrained; constitutional government was gradually developed out of these rudiments in conjunction with the moral and legal conceptions, which formed the common heritage of mediaeval semi-Latin civil- isation under the fostering care of the Roman Catholic Church. Thus in the twelfth and thirteenth century the annals of Hungary present an absolute parallel to those of the Western countries, all the more, because the pretensions of the Holy Roman Empire to over-lordship were successfully repulsed. It is therefore no mere freak of history that the Golden Bull of Andrew II., analo- gous both in its antecedents and contents to the Magna Charta of England, was granted to the nation within a few years of the success of the English barons at Runymede ; nor is it a coincid- ence, occasioned by chance alone, that the demands of the Pope for feudal supremacy, and his attempts at foisting a sovereign of his choice on the nation, were equally resisted in Hungary as in England.

Still, the increase of the population was not able to keep pace with the advance of culture. The best blood of the foreign settlers was continually absorbed by the ruling Hungarian element, which was never chary of admitting into the pale of social and political rights all those who, unreservedly, took part in the tasks of the organisation and defence of the nation. As to the kingdom itself, it never recognised any aristocracy of race. Yet the continual drain occasioned by incessant wars — the strain upon the Magyars who had principally to sustain the military burdens — always rendered new immigrants welcome. Especially the great Mongolian invasion of 1241 decimated the country, and the Roumenian and Ruthenian populations were gradually settled in their present abodes, for the most part about the second half of the thirteenth century.

During the two hundred years that followed, from the four- teenth to the sixteenth centuries, Hungary, under the rule of the elective Kings belonging to the Neapolitan Anjou, the Bohemian Luxemburg, the Austrian Hapsburg, the native Corvine, and the Polish Jagellone dynasties, sought to establish itself as the centre of an empire, under the suzerainty of which Bosnia, Servia, Wallachia, and Moldavia were to occupy the position of feudatary provinces, and these efforts were to some degree crowned with success. The spirit of imperial destinies again attracted promin- ent members of every minor nationality to follow the instinct

40 National Life and Thought.

of the unity of the Hungarian State. At the same time, a continual tendency was manifested towards forming a stable union by the identity of the monarch in Hungary, and in one or the other of the great neighbouring kingdoms. This was attempted, as regards Poland, by Louis the Great, and by Sigismund with reference to the Holy Roman Empire. Later on, as the Turkish power loomed up, menacing from the South, the task of ensuring assistance in defence of Christendom against the encroachments of the growing Mohammedan power became more imminent, and both the House of Austria and Matthias Hunyadi rivalled each other in the attempt to join the hereditary eastern dominions of the Hapsburgs and Hungary permanently into a single system. The Jagellones at last actually succeeded in uniting the crowns of Hungary and of Bohemia on their heads. But in connection with these endeavours there necessarily arose in Hungary the conviction of danger to Hungarian independence and to con- stitutional liberty, from the Kings having under such circum- stance an at least equal regard for the interests of another foreign country. Hence a certain tone of legal opposition was given to the national sentiment, which was destined to exercise a consid- erable influence over its further development — all the more because it was at this very juncture that the common law of the realm was systematically collected in the so-called Tripartite Institutes of the great jurist Verboczy; and that, in consequence, all the elements of the State became fully conscious of the precise extent and limits of their rights, and of the influence each in turn could claim in the shaping and determining the course of the nation's life.

Up to this period the tenor of the history of Hungary essen- tially coincides with the contemporary vicissitudes of other countries. But the simultaneous occurrence of three momentous changes, the Turkish conquest, the separation of Transylvania, and the Reformation, was to determine a novel and tragical turn in the fate of the realm. Its dynasty and power were shattered by the onslaught of the Turks, who subsequently for a hundred and fifty years occupied the central plains, and oppressed and devastated the homes of the richest and sturdiest part of the Hungarian people. The rest of the country was torn into two ; the western half raised to the throne and acknowledged the rule of the House of Hapsburg, which was thus able to unite in the person of the ruler the sovereignty of the Holy Roman Empire, of Bohemia and of Hungary, besides disposing of the strength of its

Hungary. 41

hereditary provinces, the hopes of assistance by which had con- stituted the principal reason for the election of the head of the Austrian dynasty to Hungarian royalty. The eastern counties of Hungary, not subject to the Turks, gathered around the princi- pality of Transylvania, which, under elective native dynasties, organised itself separately, with the firm intent, however, of joining in the reconstitution of the realm so soon as this might be feasible after the expulsion of the Ottoman invaders. The Pro- testant Reformation meanwhile rapidly spread over the whole country ; permeated all classes of the population ; gave the people a new interest in religion, in education, and in literature; supplied a new opportunity for the development of self-government in its ecclesiastical institutions ; but it also inevitably entailed upon the coming generations the secular dissensions and bitter struggles which for the moment still further weakened the enfeebled nation, although destined later on to elicit its full enthusiasm in the defence of constitutional rights, and ultimately to lead to the establishment of religious tolerance and of the liberty of con- science.

From 1526 to the end of the seventeenth century Hungary was thus the scene of continual depredations, of wars, and of civil and religious strifes ; and in spite of the patriotism of great leaders on both sides, of the Bathorys, of Bocskay, Bethlen, and Rakoczy, of the Zrinyis, of Cardinal Pazman, and of Eszterhazy, — in spite of the brilliant successes achieved from time to time, which assisted in keeping up the spirit of the people, and continually preserved the consciousness of common interests and single national destinies, the population, as well as the wealth of the country, was diminishing fast; and although poetical and religious feelings were aroused to a high pitch, although science was earnestly cultivated, and thus the conviction of a happier future, and of the assertion of the unity and independence of Hungary was main- tained, yet the decrease in numbers, power, and influence became undeniable, and the melancholy cast acquired by popular senti- ment in those well-nigh hopeless days of darkness has ever since remained a marked trait in the character of the people.

At last, in 1686, Buda, the ancient capital of Hungary, was retaken, and by the end of the seventeenth century the territory of the entire kingdom recovered from the domination of the Turks. Not, however, by Magyar forces alone, but by the imperial army, under Charles of Lorraine and Eugene of Savoy, an army of which the Hungarian troops formed no small con-

42 National Life and Thought.

tingent, but which otherwise was composed mainly of levies and volunteers from almost all the countries of Europe, and received considerable subsidies from Pope Innocent XI. The consequence was that attempts were made by the ministers of the Emperor and King Leopold I. to assimilate Hungary with the hereditary provinces of Austria, to suspend and abolish the constitution, to extirpate Protestantism, to germanise the Administration, to establish the absolutism of the Court of Vienna over a people that, it was supposed, would with the lapse of time forget the memories of its separate existence, and be content to merge into the mass of subjects, denuded of political rights, which constituted the bulk of the inhabitants of the inherited dominions of the Hapsburgs. But the Magyar population, although reduced in strength and pride, had preserved enough of vitality and energy to resist forcibly these endeavours of sanguinary proselytism and of despotical centralization ; and it was only after long-undecided civil convulsions, coinciding with the War of the Spanish Succes- sion, that peace was secured, the constitution of Hungary re- established, and the dynasty and the realm completely reconciled. But a great part of the territory had been laid waste, and was absolutely depopulated, and on this Serb, German, and Slovack immigrants were settled, " hewers of wood and drawers of water," who were a valuable addition to the resources of the country, but who required a long apprenticeship before growing ripe for political liberty, and being able to acknowledge as their own the inspirations of national life.

As the decades of the eighteenth century succeeded each other, without the internal peace of the country being disturbed, though there was no lack of foreign wars and of sacrifices for upholding the right of succession of the great Queen Maria Theresa, estab- lished by the acceptance of the Pragmatic Sanction, and for advancing the interests of the Austrian hereditary provinces, the community and mutuality of the defence of which, with that of Hungary, had been legally provided for — slowly and gradually the nation, and especially the upper and middle classes, composed almost entirely of landed proprietors, attained a considerable measure of material prosperity. Notwithstanding, a certain torpor, like the uneasy sleep of exhaustion after feverish excite- ment, crept over the minds of the people. Tied down to the feeble policy of the sinking Holy Roman Empire, removed from the great questions of European import, which were managed exclusively by the Viennese Chanceries, deprived of the healthy

Hungary. 43

stimulants of commerce and industry, which were monopolised by the more advanced town-inhabitants and capitalists of Austria and Bohemia, competition with whom was again excluded by an elaborate fiscal system of duties along all the frontiers, and cut off from immediate contact with the progress of Western Europe by the system of absolutism which rendered the hereditary provinces an almost impervious barrier to the entrance of novel ideas — Hungary fell into a sort of fatalistic quietism, during which it came perhaps nearer to losing its independence, its feeling of proper personality and identity, even its very language, and thus incurred a danger by far greater than had ever been the case under the blows of its adverse fortunes. Its governing nobility, apprehensive of the recurrence of events that might justify or, at least, furnish pretexts for new schemes of subverting the constitu- tion of the realm — already isolated on the Continent of Europe — dreaded and warded off all legal change and reform, and became attached to the doctrines and practices of extreme provincial Conservatism. The technical Latin of mediaeval documents quite supplanted the Hungarian language in the business of legislation, of administration, of the courts of law, and often even in the common intercourse of private life. The watchword of liberty had by a scarcely perceptible misuse degenerated into being synony- mous with the expression of aristocratical privilege, and the traditions of dearly acquired rights had been corrupted into jealousy of their further extension. The masses Avere looked upon as the "misera plebs contribuens? a miserable populace of tax- payers; the few hundred thousands of the privileged classes imagined themselves to be the totality of the nation, and in their ignorant scorn were fond of repeating, " Extra Hungariam non est vita ; si est vita, non est ita " — " Beyond Hungary there is no life; if there is any, it does not come up to ours."

The turn of the tide, however, came yet in time to arouse the nation. The well-meaning but impracticable bureaucratic in- novations of the Emperor Joseph II., who refused to have himself crowned King, being unwilling to burden his conscience with oaths of upholding a constitution he wished to abolish, dispelled the dreams cherished as to the security of the ancient institutions, and evoked an active opposition to the denationalizing tendencies, which had been carefully fostered, and now were openly avowed by the court. The supreme importance of a national spirit in the development of Hungary, if it meant to retain its individuality as a State, the necessity of national ideals, of a broader and more

44 National Life and Thought.

enlightened patriotism, even for the leading classes, flashed upon the minds of the whole people ; and the excitement occasioned by the democratical doctrines of the French Revolution, which had penetrated only so much as to merely touch the higher social layers, soon polished off the rust that had settled on their minds.

In the memorable Parliament of 1791-92 the principles of in- dependence, of political, civil, and religious liberty were asserted anew, feelings of enthusiasm were kindled for the national language, and for the first time again, after a secular neglect, the interests of the masses began to be considered. The movement was arrested, and the realisation of the more high-minded proposals adjourned in consequence of the revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and of the reactionary policy all over the Continent, of which the Viennese Government became the stronghold. For the first quarter of the present century even the manifestation of Liberal views was effectually suppressed ; and later on, all legal changes were hampered by the refusal of the Government to assent to them, and by the predominant influence of the Court in the House of Lords. But even though the actual institutions and the material conditions remained undeveloped, the progress of the ideas could not be stopped ; and thus even- tually, as the times ripened, the changes could be effected in an easier and more even manner. Public opinion gradually grew too strong to be successfully opposed any longer. Great leaders of the nation arose. Count Sze'chenyi from amongst the members of the Aristocracy urged economical reforms in the first place, demanding laws for the establishment of credit, favouring industry, developing communication, instituting social and humanitarian clubs, and, above all, raising the cry for universal and equal taxation. Francis Deak, essentially the representative of the middle classes, but whose noble and enlightened patriotism, disinterestedness, moderation, wisdom, and eloquence were to render him the universally acknowledged spokesman and guide of his people, the arbiter of their destinies, was the presiding master- spirit of the party of reformers who prepared the ground for the achievements of 1848. Last, but not least, Louis Kossuth, rising from the ranks of journalism, communicated the fire of his extraordinary genius to the whole country, and decided the constitutional contest in favour of the emancipation and enfran- chisement of the lower orders, and of the adoption of the system of responsible parliamentary government. The twenty years that elapsed between 1828 and 1848 were indeed the period of the

Hungary. 45

effervescence of the national spirit, which was manifested not only in the brilliant debates of the Legislature, not only in the self- governing activity of the counties, not only in the broad views of generous religious tolerance adopted by the adherents of all churches, nay, to a degree unprecedented in any other epoch or country, by the clerical authorities themselves, but equally so in poetry, especially by Vorosmarty and Petofi, in literature, and in all the walks and occupations of life. Nor was participation in public concerns any longer confined to the formerly governing classes. The necessity of a democratical remodelling of the constitution was openly avowed. It was clearly seen that the concurrent efforts of all elements of the nation were indispensable to its being raised to the eminence from which it might proudly claim a position equal to that of the peoples of other European States.

The fruits of these struggles and labours were reaped in 1848. The peasantry was relieved of the dues it had to pay to the land- lords, in work and kind, for the use of its farms ; a considerable part, nearly half of the land, was made over in fee simple to the tenants, the compensation of the landed proprietors being assigned to the fund of general taxation. Class privileges were abolished, equality before the law was asserted, equal civil rights were extended to the entire population, and political rights attached to a comparatively low franchise. Ministerial responsibility was introduced, Transylvania reincorporated into Hungary, and the sovereign independence of the State not only theoretically re- established, but practically given effect to in its several institutions. The royal sanction was obtained to all these measures ; and the general hope seemed to be well founded, that all obstacles to peaceful progress had thus been overcome by lawful means, without the reproach of a single deed of violence.

Once more, however, a cruel disappointment lay in store for the country. The settlement of two questions had been neglected, the attendant dangers underestimated, and the inexperience which thus afforded the enemies of Hungary a handle for carrying out their sinister plans was dearly paid for by the nation. Parallel with the expansion of Magyar sentiment in Hungary, the ambitions of the southern Slav population of Croats and Serbs had also developed. In spite of the prophetic warnings of Count Szechenyi, no account was taken of the symptoms of separatistic tendencies in Croatia. Instead of offering to this province — -the only part of Hungary which was geographically and historically distinct from

46 National Life and Thought.

the remainder, and which, while the rest of Hungary by its natural features is mapped out as an essential unity, seems to bear equally the evident marks of having been destined for a sort of Federal union — some degree of Home Rule, it was fused into the rest, nor was the equal use of the Croatian with the Magyar language in the Legislature conceded to its representatives. The feelings of dissension thus engendered, as well as the unreasoning hatred felt by portions of the Servian and Roumanian peasant populations, especially in the South and in Transylvania, against their former landlords, were still further inflamed by the intrigues of the reactionary party in Austria, and finally broke out in sanguinary insurrections. On the other hand, no contrivance had been effected by which the foreign and military policy, the common affairs of the Kingdom of Hungary and of the hereditary provinces of the Hapsburg dynasty, which constituted the Empire of Austria, properly so called, might be managed harmoniously and with common consent, especially since constitutional govern- ment had been introduced, not without the urgent insistance and assistance of the Hungarian Parliament, in Vienna, too. Besides, no arrangement had been made for Hungary's acknowledging and assuming any share of the burden of the public debt of Austria, incurred, partly at least, in the interest of the common policy of both countries. Hence misunderstandings and ill-will arose between the Governments and Parliaments of Vienna and Pest ; and a pretence, wearing some semblance of justice, was thus furnished for meddling with the internal affairs of Hungary, which the Court, anxious to do away altogether with innovations and constitutional government alike, was not slow in making use of. Thus, first an armed civil struggle ensued in the South and in the East ; then the Imperial Austrian Government, which, after quelling insurrectionary movements in Prague and Vienna, had practically restored Absolutism, supported the Croatian and Roumenian rebellions, and openly attacked Hungary. The war lasted for one year. The armed resistance of Hungary, strictly legal in the beginning, assumed a revolutionary hue when the abolition of the constitution and independence of the Realm became the avowed object of the Viennese statesmen. The Hungarian armies, victorious so long as they were opposed to the Croatian and Roumenian insurgents, and to the Austrian forces alone, were unable to cope with the superadded power of Russia, the intervention of which had taken place in the interests of despotism. By the end of the summer of 1849

Hungary. 47

Hungary was again prostrate at the feet of a relentless foe ; her best blood A\ras profusely shed on the scaffold, the flower of her citizens were cast into prison, or escaped as fugitives into foreign exile.

For twelve years the name of Hungary, as a State, was erased from the map of Europe. Bureaucratic Absolutism ruled supreme in Austria, and did its best to obliterate all Hungarian institutions. Germanisation was the order of the day, the German tongue being declared the exclusive language of official life as well as of the higher schools. Government was carried on by means of foreign, German, and Czech officials. No vestige was left, not only of the national independence, but either of Home Rule or of self-government of any sort ; the country was divided into pro- vinces without regard for historical traditions ; in short, an attempt was made to wipe out every trace denoting the existence of a separate Hungary. All ranks and classes opposed a sullen passive resistance to these attacks against the existence of the nation ; even the sections of the nationalities which had rebelled against the enactments of 1848, at the instigation of the re- actionary Camarilla, were equally disaffected in consequence of the short-sighted policy of despotical centralisation ; and it was at this critical phase of the national life that the diverse elements of the country were again welded into the unanimity of patriotic sentiment, that all minor differences were sunk in the passionate craving for the restoration of the realm and of its constitutional rights, and that the paramount importance of the national questions rendered the people definitely tolerant as to diverg- encies on all other issues.

Finally, after the collapse of the system of Absolutism in consequence of financial disasters and of the misfortunes of the Italian War of 1859, the Hungarian Parliament was again con- voked ; and after protracted negotiations, broken off and resumed again, the impracticability of a system of provincial Federalism having been proved in the meantime, and the defeat incurred in the Prussian War of 1866 having demonstrated the futility of any reconstruction of the Empire of Austria, in which the national aspirations of Hungary were not taken into due consideration — an arrangement was concluded under the auspices of Francis Deak, Count Andrassy, and Count Beust on the basis of the full acknowledgment of the separate national existence of Hungary, and of the continuity of its legal rights. The idea of a centralised Austrian Empire had to give way to the dual Austro-Hungarian

48 National Life and Thought.

monarchy, which is in fact an indissoluble federation of two equal States, under the common rule of a single sovereign, the Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary, each of the States having a constitution, government, and parliament of its own, Hungary especially retaining, with slight modifications, its ancient institutions remodelled in 1848. The administration of the foreign policy, the management of the army, and the disbursement of the expenditure necessary for these purposes, were settled upon as common affairs of the entire monarchy, for the management of which common ministers were instituted, responsible to the two delegations, co-equal committees of the parliaments of Hungary and of the Cisleithanian (Austrian) provinces. Elab- orate provisions were framed for the smooth working of these common institutions, for giving weight to the constitutional influence, even in matters of common policy, of the separate Cisleithanian and Hungarian ministries, and for rendering their responsibility to the respective Parliaments an earnest and solid reality. The financial questions pending in the two independent and equal States were settled by a compromise ; measures were taken for the equitable arrangement of all matters which might arise in relation to interests touching both States, such as duties, commerce, and indirect taxation, all legislation on these subjects taking place by means of identical laws separately enacted by the Parliament of each State. Every device human foresight and political ingenuity, sharpened by long experience, could suggest to ensure the requisites of both firmness and stability of the entire monarchy, as well as the maintenance of the free and independent national life of each of its realms, was adopted in order to harmonise the conditions of imperial dominion with those of the sovereignty of the separate constituent States. Simultaneously with these arrangements the political differences between Hungary and Croatia were compromised by granting provincial Home Rule to the latter, an expedient which has not quite done away with the difficulties that crop up from time to time, but which still, on the whole, has diminished the chances of direct collision, and, up to the present, has prevented the occurrence of irreconcilable conflicts.

Thus the organisation of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy on the basis of dualism, and the compromise entered into between the two halves composing it, whilst uniting for the purposes of defence the forces of two States of a moderate size and extent into those of a great empire, able to cope with the exigencies of

Hungary. 49

an adequate position amongst the first-class Powers of Europe, restored also to Hungary its independence and its unfettered sovereignty in all internal matters. On this solid foundation it was rendered possible for the country to devote its attention chiefly to the reform of its institutions, and to the development of its resources, moral as well as material. The pressure, which for centuries had directed the efforts of the people mainly towards upholding constitutional rights, and had concentrated the national thought into opposition to absolutistic attempts in the service of foreign ideas, having been removed, new channels were opened out for the energies of the community in all those directions in which the modern life of civilised nations demands their activity. All the great human and social interests, scientific, educational, administrative, sanitary, and economical, which by the side of the paramount claims of the national cause upon the people, necessitating practically the sacrifice of all minor, though important, aims, had formerly received merely a partial, and rather theoretical than actual recognition, have thus obtained their due position in the public view, and are able to attract the amount of attention and devotion they deserve; indeed, the proper balance of national life in Hungary has been, in conse- quence, re-established.

A full picture of the life and thought of Hungary in the present would, therefore, merely repeat the well-known outlines of the social, industrial, mental, and moral features of other civilised communities in Europe. The Magyar has ceased to be a so-called " interesting nationality," Hungary has neither an eastern nor an antiquated character, but has simply resumed its position amongst the factors of Western culture. There are doubtless certain differences between its condition and that of other nations, but rather of degree than of kind, and manifesting themselves no longer in salient outward traits. Hungary is still far more of an agricultural than of a commercial, and perhaps more of a com- mercial than of an industrial country. Its acquired capital is not yet proportionate to its natural wealth, nor are its investments commensurate to the talent, skill, and industry of the nation. It is only by persevering efforts, with due patience for the accumul- ation of results in course of time, that essential and indubitable progress can be accomplished. There are, however, already certain social conditions as to which Hungary, even at this day, stands well nigh unrivalled. The bulk of the population in the plains and midlands is composed of a freehold peasantry,

D

5<D National Life and Thought.

endowed with the franchise, accustomed to communal, and participating in county self-government, entirely independent in thought and bearing, who for public spirit, education, working power, and for their standards of life and comfort and wealth, may favourably compare with any other similar class on the face of the earth. The cities and towns, too, are rising fast, have become almost entirely Magyar in character, and are growing to be more and more centres of intellectual activity.

Political life, although happily no longer occupied by con- stitutional questions, has not lost its attraction for the people, and, as is natural in a free country, absorbs a great part of public attention. An enormous mass of political work has been done since 1867, and is still going on. Elementary education has been rendered universal and compulsory, and the institutions for higher and University courses have been taken charge of by the State, and rendered national. The system of railway communica- tions has been perfected to a high degree, and the State has obtained direct control of almost all the lines. The franchise for the House of Commons, and the election of the members, has been regulated, and the House of Lords reformed, without, however, any elective element being introduced into it. Agri- cultural, industrial, and commercial laws have been passed in great numbers. The administration of justice has been assured by a system of an independent judiciary appointed for life, and removable only for cause, and even the great task of legal codification has been begun, and is in a fair' way of being accomplished.

Of course, a considerable amount of the strength of the nation has been devoted to military armaments. Indeed, the sacrifices demanded by the circumstances of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy for keeping step in its military organisation with the immense and unprecedented development of the armed forces of the neighbour- ing empires, have proved a severe strain upon the finances, and have taxed to the uttermost the ingenuity of Hungarian statesmen, and the forbearance of the taxpayers, in order to be enabled to incur permanently the attendant expenses, without the utter ruin of the country. Compulsory universal military service for the men of all classes has been adopted, and besides the common imperial and royal army, the Hungarian Honve'd-army has been Constituted and fully equipped. But though nothing has been spared to enhance the means of the defence of the monarchy, the even balance of receipts and expenditure in the Hungarian budget,

Hungary. 5 1

which at first was endangered by the necessity of profuse state- investments and by the expenses for the army, has been re-estab- lished, and all political parties are unanimous in their determina- tion of not allowing it to be disturbed.

As to social and political tendencies in general, the overwhelm- ing majority of the Hungarian people is neither Conservative nor Radical, but adheres to tenets which in England would be termed the views of moderate Liberalism. The aristocracy has preserved a certain amount of prestige, and no one dreams of abolishing the House of Lords. The bulk of the political power is in the hands of the middle-class landed proprietors, whom the peasantry at this day, too, willingly accept as their political leaders. Demo- cratical ideas have acquired a permanent hold over the minds, but not so far as to obliterate traditions, which in Hungary bear no tinge of reactionary associations, but rather point to devotion to the cause of national rights. There is no virulent sectarian feeling, nor any possibility of the success of ultramontane doctrines, Church matters being essentially regarded from the standpoint of broad tolerance. In consequence of all these circumstances, there is no strongly marked line of division between any sections of the people ; and although party feeling at times inevitably runs high, the implacable spirit of faction is seldom entertained, and then but by very few ; nor is there any important body of citizens advocating any doctrines other than those of steady and gradual progress in consonance with popular ideas.

Especially with regard to the foreign policy the whole nation is absolutely unanimous in favour of peace, not only for the moment, but on principle, so far as possible, for all times. Every one in Hungary knows that the country has nothing to gain, and much to risk, by any extension or conquest whatever. There can be no greater mistake than to suppose that the Hungarian people are eager for military glory, or desirous of revenge, because their ancestors have fought well on many a field, or because the last generation has given brilliant proofs of its valour in the wars of past decades. On the contrary, there is probably no nation in Europe in which any interference with foreign affairs is less popular. Even the occupation of Bosnia was accepted with reluctance, and only because it became evident that it was indispensable for the defence of the southern frontier, and as a counterpoise to eventual offensive plans of Russia, Naturally there is a resolute determin- ation throughout the people to be ready for any sacrifice, in order to resist aggression, and to maintain the independence and the

52 National Life and TJiought.

conditions of the free internal development of the nation. But war in any case would be regarded as the last measure of dire necessity. The consciousness that the strength of the realm' is continually increasing in peace, that the welfare of the people requires all the combined efforts of the citizens of Hungary, is much too deeply ingrained by the lessons of the past to be lightly forgotten or set aside. It is universally felt that Hungary is, though quietly, on the road of progress ; and in our days it is not the communities which know they are progressive that are likely to embark upon perilous adventures, or to jeopardise the benefits derived from the harmonious advance of the peaceful co-operation of mankind.

IV. GERMANY— POLITICS.

SIDNEY WHITMAN.

I FEAR it is only a sad repetition on my part if I begin by repeating what has been referred to each Sunday I have been present here, namely, our deplorable average ignorance of foreign countries in general. But I must even add to that, and mention our strange want of interest in other European countries.

Some years ago an excellent standard work on France, by an eminent German author, was translated into English and published by one of the leading London publishers. Now, although the book was published at a moderate price, although neither the author nor the translator received one penny for their work, the book at the end of an eight years' sale showed a loss of ^28 on the bare costs of publication ! Not a very encouraging speculation for author or publisher, you will admit.

One of the most ambitious of our monthly reviews lately treated a book on Germany by a person I am acquainted with to this nice little criticism : "A dull book on a dull subject." It is this arrogance which, inculcated by a certain section of our snobocracy, settles down in wider circles, and does us more harm than making us disliked ; it keeps us in ignorance. Though, of course, this is an isolated flagrant case, still, if this same author had written a book in German on England, although many German reviewers might have called the book itself dull, I venture to say that in the whole of Germany it would be impossible to find one educated critic who could be such a self-satisfied Pharisee as to call the subject of England a dull one.

But it is only fair to state that we are by no means alone in our ignorance of our neighbours. I remember seeing the letter of a French prisoner during the war of 1870, who was interred in the city of Stuttgard, the capital, as you are doubtless aware, of a petty German kingdom nearly adjoining France. He wrote home, "lama prisoner here in Stuttgard, on the frontier of Russia." 53

54 National Life and Thought.

I have found very strange ideas prevailing in Russia with regard to us, and even with regard to Russia's immediate neighbours, the Germans. Even the Germans themselves, by far the best educated of Europeans, have some very strange notions about us, although, as I shall have occasion to notice later on, their acquaintance with other nations as a rule is extraordinary.

But it is not the ignorance of the untutored many that is so surprising as that of men in high and responsible positions. It is a well-known fact that the belief of Napoleon III., at the outbreak of the '70 war, that South Germany would join France, a belief shared by a great number of educated Frenchmen, could only have been the result of most culpable ignorance.

At that very time an exceedingly able Frenchman, Baron Stoffel, was military attache at the French embassy in Berlin, and only too truly gauged the real state of affairs, but he was not listened to. Unhappily for France, the politicians of Paris did not want enlightenment ; they preferred to follow the blind impulse of passion and hatred.

In our own country, the biographies and memoirs of political personages during this century again and again reveal an astonishing ignorance of the most simple facts regarding other countries — ignorance which, fortunately, has not involved us in any of the disastrous consequences above referred to, although more than once it has brought us very near to serious international complications.

Against the above, it is pleasing for us to know that the authors of the standard works on Germany's two greatest men of the last century were Englishmen. Carlyle wrote the History of Frederick the Gnat, and G. H. Lewes the best History of Goethe. These two works are each accepted in Germany as the standard ones in their respective subjects. That shows us what we are capable of doing when we set ourselves to familiarise our minds with the doings and thought of other countries.

It is indeed a start the Germans have over us that, firstly, through their superior general education, and, secondly, through the wonderful hunger for information and knowledge of all kinds that pervade that people, from the highest to the humblest, they possess an acquaintance with other countries that is perfectly unequalled.

This knowledge has assisted their leaders enormously in shaping their policy ; it has assisted the mass of the nation in their unceasing efforts to rival other nations, and particularly us, in

Germany — Politics. 55

commerce and manufacture, as well as in science ; in fact, in every branch of national striving and activity.

The history of our time affords a very striking instance of this intimate knowledge the Germans possess of other countries.

During the Secession War in America we English, even leading politicians and the wealthy classes (I do not like the words upper and lower classes), were entirely at sea as to the aspects and prospects of that struggle. The masses of this country — to their honour be it said — sympathised with the North. The well-to-do classes not only sympathised with the South, but, a proof of great ignorance of the realities of the struggle, believed in the success of the South, and even invested their money in their belief.

In Germany there was perhaps less barren sympathy spent (the Germans, unlike us, are not in the habit of squandering that commodity broadcast) ; but every servant girl, every boots at an inn had his savings snugly invested in green-backs. Millions and millions of money were made in Germany by the population at large in this one instance, not to mention what larger capitalists made — a striking instance, I hold, of the usefulness of geogra- phical and political information about other countries beside our own !

So much for the drawbacks of ignorance ! Now let me draw nearer to the subject of my lecture.

Of course, in the short time at my disposal, the limits of which I promise you not to exceed, it is quite impossible for me to tell you much about Germany ; anything, in fact, at all compre- hensive. Nor can it be my sole aim to-day to point out to you by a series of parallels where the Germans are deficient or where they shine to advantage by comparison with us. The most I can do is to endeavour to give you some faint notion of the general political history that has gradually, after a lapse of over a thousand years, brought Germany to the position she occupies to-day.

All I can hope for is, that the subject may interest you suffi- ciently to warrant your pursuing it yourselves more fully to some purpose.

The Germans have reaped great benefits from studying us. It is high time we endeavoured to gain some more solid advantage by studying them and their institutions ; for we have reaped many advantages already by so doing. For instance, our wonder- ful progress in industrial art and manufacture, our technical schools that are springing up everywhere, not to mention our

56 National Life and Thought.

greatly improved educational status of late years, is almost solely owing to what we have learned of Germany.

But, believe me, there is still more to be learned from that source, particularly in the present day, than is dreamt of in our philosophy. I need only refer to the great problems of social progress which clamorously await solution with us. The study of Germany offers us valuable hints, believe me, in this important branch of politics.

With your kind permission, I should iike to begin by dwelling for a few moments on the word politics itself, the one science everybody seems to think he understands without having learned it.

I presume the word itself is derived from the Greek — 7roAis : polts = a city. iroXires : polites = a citizen.

Politics, then, in the original acceptation, might perhaps be termed the science that shall treat in a broad aggregate sense of the wellbeing and the prosperity and progress of the units of a nation — the citizens.

That must have been in remote ages when civilisation was simpler than it is to-day, and when the wellbeing of the citizen was, except for occasional interruption by war, famine, or flood, the whole concern of the rulers of a people. The greatest happiness of the greatest number is an ideal state of things.

In our time politics has come to mean in its full sense that vast and complex science which deals with the balance of power ; the supremacy of one people over the other ; the predominance of one race over another ; the dominion of one continent, or of one small island, over a great part of the inhabited globe.

That is what politics have come to in our time. Now, although it is a wise saying that you should not prophesy unless you know, I will venture to prophesy that we have reached an epoch in the history of civilisation when politics will have to go back to their primitive occupation and busy themselves more earnestly, devotedly, and unselfishly with the welfare of the unit — the citizen; the poor citizen; the weak, who cannot fight the battle of life in a callous world rolling with wealth, and side by side with misery, poverty, and degradation.

And let me tell you, that the first step towards attacking — I do not say solving, that is still far distant — this most pressing political problem of our time was taken by the late Emperor William, assisted by his great minister Bismarck, in his proposals for the care of the aged, the sick, and the wounded in the grim battle of life — the life of the working man.

Germany — Politics. 5 7

The science of politics, as I have endeavoured to point out to you, has mighty problems to solve, and yet we are daily in the habit of receiving and giving opinions on them with a very slender foundation of knowledge or experience.

What would the specialist think if we were to give a confident opinion, and back it by our vote, on an important point of a science which we have never specially studied ? And yet we do this daily with regard to that most intricate of sciences — the science of politics.

Believe me, the question of home politics requires a close study, not only of our own social conditions of life; in our time I think, I may safely say, it is also necessary to study and profit by the experience gained, through much individual effort and suffering, by other countries also.

But as for some of the broader questions of international politics, I make bold to say, it is unlikely for us to have three consecutive logical ideas on the subject, unless we are more or less familiar with the past history of other countries beside our own.

Now for a glance at the past history of Germany, in order the better to understand its product — the present.

The centre of Europe had been inhabited by a number of German tribes even before the time of Csesar, nineteen hundred years ago, but it was not until the year 800 of our era that they were united into one great empire.

It was on Christmas Day of the year a.d. 800 that Charle- magne, the head of the Franks, was crowned at St. Peter's, in Rome, as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, King of Ger- many, and Arch Protector of the Christian Faith.

Thus over two hundred and fifty years before the battle of Hastings, from which our modern English history dates, we find Germany a great power — the central constituent of the greatest power in Europe.

I must pass over the history of centuries in leaps and bounds, merely mentioning that the dissensions of the sons of Charlemagne and their successors ultimately resulted in dividing the centre and west of Europe into three distinct monarchies : —

i. France, the least powerful, but the foundation of the France we all know.

2. The kingdom of Lorraine, a great part of which, together with Burgundy, is now merged in the France of to-day.

3. Finally, the kingdom of Germany, ruled by elective monarchs,

58 National Life and TJiought.

who at the same time were only crowned as Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire, by this fact of being kings of Germany.

The time at my disposal does not allow me to do more than refer to the splendour of the Empire of Germany during the Middle Ages, when she was practically supreme over the whole of Christianity, except independent little England. The dawn of the Reformation found the German King or Roman Emperor virtually ruler over a realm on which the sun never set.

We require an effort of the imagination even to recall that there was a time when the ships of the Hansetowns brought over unrivalled wealth to their harbours, and had a larger seaboard than the whole of England, when Germany was the home of merchant princes who helped their monarchs from their own private means, when German architecture was most splendid, when German life was most luxurious, and German manufacture the most renowned.

The greatness of Germany found its apogee in Charles V., and began to decline immediately after his death.

Charles the Fifth lived 1520-55, and was cotemporary with our Henry VIII. , who, in fact, as well as Francis the First of France, both competed for the German crown, which, as I have already pointed out, was elective. Charles the Fifth practically ruled over the whole of Central Europe, Spain, and those parts of America which had been discovered by Spanish naviga- tors and explorers.

France, who has within the memory of living men — though only of the very aged — held sway over the whole of Europe, always excepting England, was a comparatively small Power in these days. But it was not to be very long before she should profit by the most potent causes of decay of the German Empire — internal rivalries, selfish family policy, and religious dissension — and rise to power at its expense.

And this brings me to that part of the history of Germany — the period of the Reformation, and one of its results, the terrible Thirty Years' War, without knowing something of which, I think, it is almost impossible to form a fair idea of the political aspira- tions of Germany of the present day.

We must bear in mind that it was Germany that bore the brunt of the fierce struggle on the Continent against the intellectual bondage of the Roman Catholic priesthood of those days.

It was a German peasant's son, Martin Luther — whose birthday it is this very day — who stood alone with the Bible in his hands,

Germany — Politics. 59

before the Imperial Court at the Diet of Worms, and with the prospect of death before him, sooner than yield one inch of his convictions, held by these memorable words, " I cannot do otherwise. God help me. Amen ! " When warned not to go to Worms, for fear of assassination, this mighty peasant's son replied, " And yet I will go to Worms if the house-tops were crowded with devils."

This battle cry of conviction, pitted against the power of Rome, backed, as was that power, by all the immense might of the Catholic Emperor, Charles V., found an echo far and wide among the best blood of the Fatherland. Thus began the dawn of a new era in Europe, the Reformation initiated in Germany by Martin Luther, although it took nearly seventy years to grow strong enough to pick up the gauntlet thrown down by Charles V.'s suc- cessors, backed as they were by the whole weight and power of Catholicism.

This led, in its consequences, to the Thirty Years' War, perhaps the most dreadful curse and calamity that ever befell a people. In that war the northern and central part of Germany fought for thirty long years, at times assisted by the Swedes, the French, and other foreigners, against the power of the Houses of Austria and Bavaria.

We in England also have our glorious pages of Protestant history connected with the Reformation. We need only recall Queen Elizabeth and the Spanish Armada. But with us its inception was more of a political and aristocratic character. In Germany the dawn of modern times sprang from the very heart of the best of the people, and they also it was who suffered most in its furtherance. We always had the advantage of being safe on this tight little island we love so much. Our country has never been invaded, and our population decimated, as was the case in Germany during the Thirty Years' War.

Before that war Germany had a population of over sixteen millions ; at its close less than five millions remained. Before that war broke out Germany was perhaps the wealthiest country in Europe ; at its close the population was on the verge of starvation.

To give you some faint idea of the horrors of the Thirty Years' War, reliable chronicles of the time inform us that towns which were only visited by it when it was half over lost seventy-five per cent, of their population.

For years hordes of robbers and thieves, disbanded troops, traversed the country from one end to the other, burning and

60 National Life and Thought.

stealing and murdering in broad daylight. Prosperous manufac- turing towns with 10,000 inhabitants had a population of 500 left after the war. Hunger and famine led the people, in many instances, to tear the newly-buried from their graves and devour them. Disease carried off what the sword had spared.

When the Peace of 1648 put an end to the war, the country itself was one mass of waste, fields not tilled for a generation, whole towns swept away, burned or razed to the ground.

The Peace of Westphalia, as it is known in history, stripped Germany of the fruits of centuries of labour and effort, which even now she has only partially recovered.

It left the Protestant part of Germany impoverished, helpless, unable to defend itself, in the centre of Europe. France profited by a large extension of territory, and from that time onwards found it more and more easy to turn German soil into the battlefields of her ambitious rulers.

From that time down to our own, excepting the brief period of the French Revolution, when German sovereigns — not their people — endeavoured to coerce the French people, and paid dearly for it, — from that time the policy of France, the policy, in common fairness, it should be said, of French rulers and statesmen, not of the French people, has been the spoliation of Germany.

Any student of history can tell you that the whole of Germany is marked by mementoes of French battlefields and burnt ruined castles.

If I refer to Frederick the Great, it is to point out that with him rose in the last century a Protestant great Power in the north of Germany which in our time has crowned the long-longed-for edifice of National Unity.

He it was who, with a population of five millions — one quarter more than London to-day — held the determination to stake every- thing sooner than run the risk of falling back into the hideous political nightmare of the past.

In England we cannot understand the strength of this resolve ; we have practically never known a foreigner on our soil for eight hundred years ! But the Germans have hardly known anything else ! And I contend, not only that they are justified in holding on to the armaments ; but, I maintain, their whole history proves — even that of the last twenty years as well — that the Germans are a peaceful, non-aggressive people.

You may answer to this, that their government has lately

Germany — Politics. 6 1

shown itself occasionally aggressive with regard to the African Colonies !

True, perhaps ; but what a paltry matter that is compared to the enormous annexations of territory we have accomplished during the last ten years !

And yet, even those small, but, I hold, perfectly justifiable, efforts to have colonies of their own, have met with great opposi- tion from the German people. Believe me, the Germans do not aspire to rival us beyond the seas ; and if they did, they could not ! No more than, I honestly believe, they will ever beat us in the long run in commerce with all their cheapness.

But I do not say we should indulge in any sentimental feeling with regard to them. If Germany trespasses on our interests, let us defend them ; but do not let us cant over it. But England and Germany have every interest to remain at peace ; and thus, without any entangling alliance, they are both at one in the interests of peace as against all peace-breakers, and so will remain.

Further than this, I say we should try and inform ourselves as to the history and the qualities of a great nation, whose interests, whereas they nowhere seriously clash with our own, go hand in hand with them in many important matters.

We should try to look at such a nation, which is bound to play a great part socially, with judgment intellectually, as well as politically, unbiassed, without favour, but without prejudice, in order, if possible, to gain some benefit to ourselves, some ex- perience in many important matters, social, intellectual, and political, by so doing.

How comes it that we find the united armies of Russia, Austria, and France, representing a population of over a hundred millions, at bay more or less for seven years ?

And when he passed away, it was not long before the greatest soldier of modern times, an avenging Attila in modern form, I mean Napoleon the First, appeared on the scene ; and profiting by the dissensions and incapacity, yea, even the want of character of German rulers, again turned Germany into the battlefield of Europe, and preyed on the vitals of the impoverished German people for nearly twenty years !

The history of the last two hundred years, and the sufferings the people of Germany underwent all through that long period, explains the readiness of Germans to-day to bear any taxation, to put up with any strain, even poverty if you will, and to stand and fall

62 National Life and Thought.

with their Emperor to retain the position they have bought with their blood.

If I have especially dwelt on the misery revealed in the history of the last two hundred years, it is because it affords an explanation of the central idea that governs the politics of Germany. If we find such difficulty, as we undoubtedly do, in appreciating that main principle, may it not be more or less in consequence of some such frame of mind as this : — If a nation prospers by different methods to our own, we do not regard them exactly so much with envy as with a certain diffident incredulous irritability that their prosperity must be " delusive," as it has not been secured by our own hallowed, patent process ?

The success of Germany in our time can be distinctly traced to the initiative of great men. Our democratic age does not believe in great men ; it is rather inclined to sneer at them — at least at its own great men, who have yet to face the verdict of posterity. I would venture to say there is a time for great men ; everything in its proper time; great men, majorities, and ballot boxes; but nothing final, for all illnesses — like a patent medicine — in this great world of ours, in which nothing is final but change.

Our attention is drawn to the affairs of other nations. We know little of them. We have a hazy idea that they are some- how not so free as we are ; hence, we take our stand by the magic word " Liberty " — itself only a means to an end — and judge others by our standard of that magic quantity !

It is perhaps true that we do enjoy the greatest amount of political liberty of any country, consequently some of us think we are in a position to look down upon others and to pity them, their status and their aims, forthwith !

I am sorry to say that I am unable to endorse this view, much less to believe in its finality. And if I had not restricted the limits of my lecture to-day to the politics of Germany — after all, only one phase of a nation's life — I think I could easily prove to you that, as far as the comparative amount of happiness is con- cerned, that is to be found here and in Germany, we are by no means in the position to pity our neighbours or look down upon them.

I am sorry to say that the frame of mind which enables a man to call out, " I thank my stars that I am an Englishman," is one I cannot share. I hold that not only to be a reprehensible senti- ment, savouring of the Pharisee of the New Testament, but one precluding any possible fair estimate of other countries. In this

Germany — Politics. 6 3

case it is doubly so, at least from my point of view, holding, as I do, that although we owe our first affections to the land of our birth, we do not owe it blind idolatry, which prevents the critic recognising where there is something beyond our seas to admire and to learn from.

I hope I cede to no man in my pride at what England and Englishmen have achieved and are achieving, but there my feelings stop ; for if they did not, I should consider myself perfectly unfitted to address you on the subject before us. In fact, I might never have taken the trouble to study it !

But you may say, Yes, that is all very well, but you cannot deny that it is a sad state of things that, with all admitted prosperity and military success of Germany, there should be so little liberty there, that thousands and thousands of emigrants flee their native shores year by year in order to escape the hated conscription.

Well, I do deny the latter part of that contention. I even am of opinion that it is a libel on the manhood of Germany ! I even believe that, without any conscription at all, emigration would be just as great, for it is the natural consequence of that mysterious law that seems to govern mankind since thousands of years to steer from east to west in search of fortune !

It is disproved by the thousands and thousands of Germans who hurried back to their native shores at the trumpet call of war in the memorable year 1870 ! It is indirectly disproved by analogy by the enormous emigration from Ireland ! Is that caused by the law of compulsory military service ?

Now, as regards individual political liberty, the contention must be admitted to be partially true. But what does it amount to ? Everything gained on earth is the result, it would seem, of a compromise.

Must we not ourselves admit that, notwithstanding our boasted political liberty, we have a greater amount of social slavery, of drunkenness, of bigotry, of human misery to show than military- ridden Germany.

If you will not admit it, I pledge you my word of honour it is so, nevertheless.

The facts are simply these : The Germans had to accept national independence — the first condition of national life — whence and under what conditions it was possible. If they had waited until public opinion — I do not deny that public opinion was partially for it — a free press and the ballot-box had beaten off their enemies and cemented their hopeless internal differences,

64 National Life and Tkouglit.

surrounded by enemies, as they always were, they might have waited in vain until the day of judgment !

Strong men had to come, but, mind, honest, fearless,' self- sacrificing men ! And they came, and led, and conquered the right of a great nation to regulate its own affairs, without let or hindrance, from outside.

These advantages must remain ; their comparatively trivial drawbacks must yield gradually to the spirit of the time. You must remember in judging Germany that she has only just emerged from a life struggle for her very existence as an inde- pendent united nation !

What are twenty years in the life of a nation ? A day, a week in the life of a man !

Germany in some senses can only fairly be compared to England as it was centuries ago, and that comparison involves no disadvantage to her. She will soon be found in touch with, if not ahead of her time, believe me !

It is the policy of Germany to-day to retain the fruits of the sacrifices that have been brought. These fruits are necessary for her existence as a strong, independent, peace-loving Power in the centre of Europe ; she does not wish to add to these fruits from the mere lust of conquest.

At present, it must be admitted, there are many inconveniences to be met in Germany that jar on our unaccustomed nerves.

The officials are in many cases arbitrary, and inclined to think themselves the masters and the public their servants. These are disadvantages, I admit; but against these, and sundry others, believe me, there are many things to be met with in Germany for which we might well envy the Germans, police-ridden, military- ridden as they are !

If they enjoy less political liberty than we, they suffer less from heartless social tyranny, from ostracism of the poor, than we do. If their educated men frequent the churches less than ours do, on the other hand, when you enter a German church you will find the rich sitting beside the poor.

If their system of administration is somewhat cumbersome, irksome, and inquisitorial, on the other hand, the Government of Germany protects the poor from the unprincipled adulteration of articles of food, which is the curse of Italy, England, and America.

Imprisonment and enormous fines await the adulterators in the Fatherland; here in the land of liberty an eminent statesman

Germany — Politics. 65

once told Englishmen that, according to these wondrous laws of supply and demand, adulteration is a mild form of competition ! A nice creed for the working-man with £1 a week and a family to console himself with when he is half-poisoned with whiskey adulterated with sulphuric acid.

I will only add, for your information, that many of the stoutest planks of your Radical platform — a long way off practical applica- tion in this country — are already accomplished facts in poor Germany. For instance, local government, which exists all over Germany in excellent working order, side by side with, but subor- dinate to, the Imperial Parliament at Berlin.

I fancy I could tell you a deal more -about Germany that would be new to you, but it is slightly outside the scope of my lecture of to-day.

With your permission, however, I should like to conclude with a word regarding the general acceptation of militarism and war — a subject we cannot overlook in dealing with political Germany.

We may like it or not, but the sad truth it is, nevertheless, that mankind is always at war.

The battle of life is one of the inexorable conditions of existence all the world over in the whole animal kingdom — man- kind at its head included.

And, among mankind, let me tell you, there are few more per- sistent fighters than the entire Anglo-Saxon race.

In fact, we who now indulge in dreams of peace, we owe our very existence to our capacity for fighting and beating our enemies all over the world.

The Americans, our kinsmen, are at present silently at war with the North American Indians ; we ourselves are at war with the Maoris in New Zealand, the aborigines in Australia, who, all in measurable distance of time from now, will as surely be cut off from the face of the earth, as the extinct bird, the dodo • as surely as if they were cut off by the sword in one single night.

The ordeal of battle is by no means the most terrible one humanity has to face, particularly if it has to be faced in an honourable cause by a whole nation in arms ; the rich fighting in the ranks side by side with the poor ; both equal, under the directing hand of genius. And the nation which shirks this ordeal when its honour and its existence are at stake is sure to go towards decay and ultimate obliteration.

Is that not war we see in our midst ; the grim fight of the

E

66 National Life and Thought.

dockers for a bare existence ; the constant fight of the Sheffield grinders with death, which vanquishes them invariably before the prime of life ; the struggle of the stokers on board the American liners, which finishes them in three to five years. Go into the slums of Salford and Manchester, and look at the population there, and come back and tell me whether you have not seen one of the most hideous struggles amidst dirt, improvidence, and poverty ?

Let us endeavour to see things as they are, not as an over- excited, though kindly, imagination would picture them to us. We are told of the cruel wrong of taking men away from the blessed productive labour of peace ! I cannot see much blessing or much happiness in a family during peace starving on ten shillings a week.

It is, doubtless, a grand achievement of our time that the desire to arbitrate should have arisen, even when only compara- tively trivial interests and imaginary honour are at stake; but, believe me, as surely as we owe our national and racial pre- dominance almost exclusively to successful fighting, so surely will it ever be in the future, that we must be prepared to back our arguments, in the last resort, by the sword.

The lessons of history teach us that it is imperative that a nation should be able to fight. Humanity teaches us to be merciful and just in the hour of victory.

To those who look at politics without illusions, and yet with a full belief in the onward progress of humanity, there can be few more cheering and consoling items in our time than the history of the great American Secession War of 1 86 1-68, in which, although the passions were inflamed as much as ever in times gone by, yet in the moment of victory a new spirit of mercy and forgiveness came over the victors, that would not allow a drop of blood to be spilt, but sought to heal the wounds an unavoidable struggle had struck.

Why is America at peace now ? Because she is humanitarian ? No ; because nobody dare touch her !

We hear of a war that throws a nation, and with it civilisation, fifty years back.

But this is not always the case. Even an unsuccessful war has before now been an admitted benefit, in some instances, to a nation, let alone a legitimate and successful one. Witness the case of Austria in 1866. That war acted on Austria like a storm that swept away the miasmas of stagnation. Austria since that

Germany — Politics. 6j

period has become one of the most liberally constituted countries in Europe, if that is of any benefit to a nation.

Frederick the Great, on his return to Berlin after the Seven Years' War, could not restrain his tears when he heard the loyal cheers of the half-starved and beggared population that had suffered so much. And yet, who shall deny to-day that those sufferings of the Seven Years' War, as well as later those of the War of Liberation against the First Napoleon, steeled the nerves of the nation to do and die in our time ?

And to-day, if you read the newspapers, you will find that every- where the German Emperor goes he is received with enthusiasm. If you think that the poor enslaved Germans cheer their chains, you are very much mistaken. Whatever socialistic malcontents and opponents of every form of royalty may think, yet among the vast majority of the nation he is immensely popular, because he represents the national aspirations — if not all of them, at least the principal ones. When he said that eighteen army-corps would bite the dust before the ground which had been won by such sacrifices should be yielded, he gave vent to a sentiment which we Englishmen can only understand, if we imagine the eventuality of Ireland being threatened by a foreign Power !

To hear people tell about the peace of the world, the sympathy between peoples, etc., does credit to the illusions of those that propound these ideas, and credit to the heart of those that take them up and applaud them. But from the point of view of the student of politics, the hope of practical realisation of these senti- ments has little basis in the history of the world !

I think it would be a little more natural to look for more sym- pathy between ourselves, as man to man, as class to class, before we go far afield in our desire to embrace the whole world in one bond of union and cheap sympathy.

We allow our politicians to make party capital out of the wrongs and sufferings of nations and races at the other end of Europe. I have never yet seen any benefit accrue to my country- men from such doings !

Believe me, there is more real unhappiness, more hopeless misery to be met with within a mile of London Bridge than in the whole of Asiatic Turkey !

Let us drop our artificial sympathy with the sufferings of others. We cannot afford it. Let us strive to find out where there is something to admire in others ; where they are ahead of us ; where they are better off than we. And if we can gain some

68 National Life and Thought.

of the advantages others possess without their disadvantages, let us make up our minds that we will have them too, or know the reason why !

Before we indulge in dreams of cosmopolitan sympathy, our aristocracy, and particularly our middle classes that are led by the clergy, must get rid of the suspicion of looking upon poverty as next door to a crime.

Our democracy must get rid of that " envy and hatred " which it vents "sometimes" against those who do not share its views.

Listen to the tone of some of our democratic organs against the so-called military despotism of Europe.

What do they usually know of those countries, and their vital necessities ? Very often but little, I fear.

Then let us strive and add to our knowledge all round, so that we may be better able each of us to fulfil that little part in the battle of life unconsciously assigned to each of us, namely, each to contribute, according to his opportunities, his mite towards the solution of that great social political problem — to leave the world a little better than we found it !

V. GERMAN CULTURE.

SIDNEY WHITMAN.

IF I venture to submit a few words on German Culture for your consideration, it is that I was partly educated in that country, and have been lastingly impressed by much I saw and learnt whilst there.

I shall not be surprised if you even opine that my picture of German culture be rather a favourable one. If so, I can only say I am dealing with the spirit of things, and not with any preference for the nation as individuals.

There seems to be little doubt that a certain unpopularity of Germany has of late years made itself felt, not only in this country ; but history fails to show that temporary popularity, much less unpopularity, as distinct from the verdict of posterity, has much to do with the merits or demerits of a people. Every nation in its turn comes in for a gust of international dislike. The weaker a power, the less likely she is to earn foreign animosity; but that does not prove her to be any the better on that account.

About the year 1848, Lord Palmerston, our Foreign Secretary, was so disliked all over the Continent, that they used to sing a ditty in the streets of Vienna ending —

" And if the devil has a son, He surely must be Palmerston."

Yet we are not told that this did Lord Palmerston any harm in his own country.

Now, as regards the partial unpopularity of Germany of to-day, all I can say is that, as a student of the German nation, I do not join in that feeling. Not that I deny there may be some cause for it ; but whatever it may be, I do not let it affect my judg- ment of the nation, which I respect, nor of its culture, which I greatly admire.

If the Germans try to beat us in politics, my common sense 69

JO National Life and Thought.

tells me that we, as a great power, are perfectly well able to stand up and defend our own interests if they are trespassed upon.

As for the poor German princes whom we think fit to call over to our shores, and endow with money and position, and who at our Radicals are constantly railing, my common sense again tells me that it is we who are to blame for being so liberal, not they for accepting our bounty. I know of one or two impecunious English noblemen who pass through the bankruptcy court with amiable regularity, and who would only be too delighted to go and live in clover in Germany, if that country were so foolish as to pay them to do so. I also know of a few German princes who are almost as wealthy as our wealthiest peers, and who would not care to come over here and accept our favours.

As for German competition in the labour markets, there are undoubtedly pushing traders in Germany as there are here. Well, competitors in trade are never congenial acquaintances. But as for the Germans underselling us, and living on nothing in doing so, I do not believe these are the causes that need make us fear German competition. I believe there are as many poor Englishmen at the present time forced to live on starvation wages as any German. No, believe me, the main cause of German success in the labour markets is to be found in the superior culture and education of the masses !

I cannot hope to prove that to you to-day ; I can only ask you to accept it at present on trust, to be proved, perhaps, with your kind permission, on some future occasion. All I can do to-day is to draw your attention to some features of German culture which I think may interest you, and to be impartial in doing so.

In the first place, the very subject of my lecture, " Culture," almost precludes an exact division of light and shade, of advantages and drawbacks. These are to be found everywhere and in everything. We do not all believe in the Old Testament notion of the " chosen people." It smacks too much of privilege and favouritism for our taste. It seems more natural to believe that every people has its special failures and its compensating virtues. And if it happens to be my set task to-day to illustrate a bright side of the German people, that does not mean that you cannot find the same amount of envy and uncharitableness in Germany as we can show of cant and hypocrisy in England.

But we do not analyse shadows when we are dwelling on the characteristics of light. And those must be left to take care of themselves to-day, even at the risk of your fancying that I ignore

German Culture. yi

their existence. It is well known that in Berlin and elsewhere the struggle of life is becoming as severe as with us. In Germany, as elsewhere, there are social problems to be solved which culture alone can neither solve nor put out of sight. But I believe firmly that there are hardly any political or social problems the solution of which will not be ultimately facilitated for any nation by widespread education and an exalted standard of thinking.

Culture, in its higher sense, has hitherto with us been the privilege of the few. I maintain that in the future many of its attainable features must become accessible to all. For when I speak of the adhere of a nation, I do not mean an artificial refinement, nor do I refer to a privileged, cultured class. I refer to the thought and aspirations of many millions, including the best of all classes.

In this sense, I look upon "culture" as the very sun that brightens the daily life of a nation. And if on this point I am guilty of partisanship for Germany, it springs from the belief that I have sometimes seen more true dignity of life and enjoyment among the population there than here, strange as this statement may appear to you.

Only the other day I was talking to a friend, a hard-headed, matter-of-fact London solicitor. He said to me that he could not understand why I often seemed so favourably impressed by Germany. " Well," I replied, " you yourself have often been there. Tell me honestly, where has it struck you that there seems to be more happiness among the people — here or there ? " His immediate reply was, " Undoubtedly in Germany." " Well, then," I answered, "that is my justification."

Let me take an incident at random from Christmas time in Germany as evidence of what I mean. The Standard contained a telegram the other day from Berlin stating that over 400,000 Christmas trees had been disposed of there. That means practically a Christmas tree in every family in the capital. That means a gathering of good-will and an exchange of presents, however trifling, in every family, down to the humblest working-man of the community.

Surely no insignificant sign that, notwithstanding blood-tax and heavy money taxation, there exists in Germany a universal feeling of culture in a family sense, and the means to gratify it in an almost unparalleled proportion. If I have admired the beauties of nature in Germany, the culture of the educated ; if I have

J 2 National Life and Thought.

participated in the enjoyments of the wealthy, as well as in the simpler pastimes of the humble, my enjoyment has seldom been spoilt by the sight of the hard, cold, cheerless life of ■ the many. And I adhere to this, notwithstanding the important fact that the masses in this country hardly pay any direct taxes at all, whereas they are almost always paying petty taxes in Germany.

These may seem strong statements to you, who mostly only hear of foreign countries as so much behind our own, and of their people as only deserving pity in their thraldom; but what is more, I am morally certain, that if you had lived in Germany or France, and knew these countries as I fancy I do, you would share my views. I have found plenty of travelled Englishmen who feel even stronger on this subject than I do.

And now I must ask your indulgence for the apparent egoism of these few preliminary personal remarks. But I judged them necessary, in order to enable you the better to understand the drift of my lecture. For it is really no easy matter to give you even a faint idea of German culture in the sixty minutes at my disposal.

To begin with, what is culture? Like most terms of far- reaching application, it is somewhat difficult to give a concise definition of it. The word itself would seem to mean simply the process of cultivation ; something that is cultivated; a soil that has been ploughed, that is eager to produce. The Germans even use the very term Kultur, as applied equally to a high state of mental education and also to a tilled soil — Culturboden. And I think you will find the same wide application of the word in some English dictionaries.

And yet that will not give us a sufficient indication of the word's meaning. For the Americans, with all their excellent school training, are in some respects less cultured than the uneducated Italians. The French, again, although vastly inferior to the Germans in book knowledge, are, from some points of view, perhaps more cultured than the Germans.

The explanation of the above contradiction must be sought and will be found in the fuller explanation of the meaning of the term itself. Culture does not stand alone for the amount of exact knowledge or talents we possess, be they artistic, practical, or scientific. It includes in its significance the feeling for refine- ment, for the fitness of things in general. Thus a man who. with imperfect mental attainments, combines a refinement of feeling for the sufferings or the wants or susceptibilities of others

a fulness of true sympathy, as opposed to a false, hysterical,

German Culture. 73

diseased sentiment — is in many respects more cultured than a walking encyclopaedia of knowledge, combined with coarseness of manner and feeling.

Self-respect, in its best sense, is part of all true culture, even when possessed by the unlettered. And this speciality of culture will be found most prevalent in those countries in which the dignity of labour is most generally recognised. That rare quality, tact of the heart, which enables us to respect ourselves in showing a proper regard for the feelings of others, is a part of true culture that may be learnt by mixing with the world, but which is ever best exemplified when it is inborn. I have seen it in some of very humble station, and found it wanting in many holding exalted position.

Again, a proper respect for women is a special feature of true culture, and one in which, I make bold to say, Englishmen are perhaps second only to our own race beyond the seas.

Another point of culture, in which the long stability of our political system has undoubtedly given us a striking pre-eminence, is the great respect we have in England for established law. This feeling extends even towards the law's humblest representative. The moral ascendency of the English policeman I hold to be unparalleled in the world.

Another point, which I venture to think is not unconnected with our prosperous and great national history, is a certain generosity and breadth of mind we often meet with in England in judging others. I may be biassed in this, but it has struck me in comparison with the rapidity and ease with which I have found slander and misrepresentation travel and propagate in some other countries. Bigotry and intolerance, class pride and class selfishness, are incompatible with true culture, which itself is synonymous with a broad and generous cast of mind.

Again, the mere jQ s. d. utilitarian, whose narrow mental horizon does not enable him to discern even the indirect money value of knowledge, let alone its power of adding to the dignity of our life, he will pooh-pooh our ideas of culture, and simply ask, " What is your bank balance?" "Very little." "Well, then, you are a pauper, with all your culture."

Such was the frame of mind of an otherwise worthy citizen, to whom a friend of mine showed a complimentary letter he had been honoured with by Mr. Gladstone, whose birthday it is to-day. Now, I think you will agree with me, that whatever political party we may belong to, we may look upon a personal compli-

74 National Life and Thought.

ment from an intellectual giant such as Mr. Gladstone as a high honour. But our Avorthy citizen thought otherwise, and merely asked, t: Is there a cheque in the letter ? " This man was slightly wanting in the sense of reverence — an important one in all culture.

It is true the apostles of culture do not often amass riches. The late Mr. Matthew Arnold died the other day little better than a pauper, from a banker's point of view. He did not write books that were read by the million. But the day may come when such books, though on a broader basis, will touch the minds of the million as Dickens' works now touch their heart ; and then it will be plainly seen that the one goes hand in hand with the other — the heart with the mind — in educating us to feel the beauty and dignity of life on this earth. However, I will not tax your attention any farther by vague generalisations, but rather try and make my meaning clear by explanation as I go along.

To begin with, I think I can discern three distinct, broad lines of culture — that of the mind, that of the heart, and, thirdly, the culture of the body. Now, taking the last first, if we accept the splendid advertisements of " Pears' Soap," of " Sunlight Soap," of " Brooke's Soap" that " won't wash clothes," and many others, as any criterion to go by, we must either be dreadfully in want of soap, or we really ought to be bodily the cleanest nation on the face of the earth ; and if you believe it, no word of mine shall cast a doubt on your faith.

In that other important branch of body-culture — namely, our outdoor sports, and hygienic science in general — I think it is less open to doubt that the Anglo-Saxon race is really the first in the world. Indeed, the indomitable spirit of emulation and rivalry shown in the practice of athletics is not unconnected with our mighty history of colonisation and world-power. But as I do not believe in the uncompensated superiority of any people all round, so also I cannot help remarking that the prevalence of the spirit of gambling and betting is a direct outcome of some forms of sport, and goes far to moderate our complacency.

As for the culture of the heart, the splendid record of individual unselfish effort for the good of others that is stamped on every page in our national history, the charity of the wealthy, the devotion of the humble, — these show us what our race is capable of, and make me feel it unnecessary to stray at large under this heading in order to point a moral or adorn a tale.

Now, let us note what the great Russian novelist Turgenieff has

German Culture. 75

to say on German Culture. He expresses his views very unmis- takably in a letter dated 1 8th August 1862: — " When you leave muddy Poland and arrive on German soil, you find yourself, as it were, in a radiant land. The poor Slavonic race ! We blame Hegel for having assigned to the Slavs a less illustrious mission than to the German family. Alas ! every one can convince himself that Hegel was right. Civilisation is worked out, not by ideas, but by manners. Yes, here es wird behaglich zu muthe (a sense of comfort comes over me) ; this is mainly because my intellectual development is associated with Germany. Not to mention philo- sophy and poetry, even German humour is after my own heart. Alas ! our Russian so-called education disposes us to imitate rather French morals, and the more is the pity. Moreover, what pleases us in French education are its bad sides — notably its licentiousness and its slipshod ways ; it is mostly these things that the Russian selects and assimilates. The German spirit, which is made up wholly of discipline, is not in harmony with our nature. What a pity that Russian tourists merely pass through Berlin, without entering into the spirit of the place ! Only good schools can cure us of our superficiality."

It is to some aspects of the German spirit that I wish to draw attention, and particularly to one special feature thereof — the unconscious endeavour to make the everyday aspect of life less cold and cheerless, particularly to those who are not blessed with wealth and other worldly advantages. This special German feature seems to me to be a joint product of heart and mind, acting for generations past in rare unison, in a direction already marked out for us, although on somewhat different lines, by the ancient Greeks, the most cultured people of antiquity.

That truly great and good man, Abraham Lincoln — in my humble opinion one of the most cultured men we have seen in our time — had a jocular habit of illustrating his most important utterances by the following playful words : " Now, let me tell you a little story."

Among my memories of Germany, few have retained such a firm hold of my thoughts as a little woodcut taken out of an American illustrated paper. It represented an elderly German citizen in bed, reading by the light of an enormously long candle, stuck into a small shaky candlestick. The bedcover, one of those dreadful feather-bed counterpanes to be met with perhaps only in Germany, reached from his chin down to somewhere a little below his knees. Underneath this realistic sketch the following words were printed ;

7 6 National Life and TJwught.

"The candle too long, the bedclothes too short ; but what does it matter as long as you are happy ? "

It seems to me there is a world of fact and of food for thought in that little sketch and in those accompanying words. In the first place, note the small, shaky candlestick. Could there be a more apt illustration of the one great drawback of much we might otherwise admire in Germany — namely, the want of practical ability in everyday matters ? — one of the qualities the possession of which has long given the Anglo-Saxon people such a start in the race for wealth. I never remember seeing a properly-fitting candle- stick in Germany, and it is only lately that German beds are anything like the practical coaxers to rest that we are accustomed to here. The political misery and the poverty of the past have undoubtedly had a deal to do with the neglect of this depart- ment of culture — namely, the culture of " comfort." But in this respect Germany has made great strides within the last twenty years.

Now, coming back to my woodcut, let me draw your attention to the fact that this man is in bed — at first sight a trivial circum- stance, but in reality a most instructive one. He might be sitting up and drinking, or, worse still, be out at some music hall or public-house. Not that this German is a henpecked husband, who dare not go out and enjoy himself; or that he, like an English blue-ribbonite, never indulges in malt liquor. Far from it. He polishes off his mug of beer at his favourite beer-house, where the humblest, and some of the high and well-born too, mingle and behave themselves. He whiles away an hour there in the congenial company of the educated men of the town, for he is no psalm-singer, who denies himself the harmless enjoyments of life. But he keeps early hours, he goes to bed at a reasonable time — in fact, he is a moral man.

Oh, you may say, it is late, and the public-houses are closed ; and there you would be sadly mistaken. In the first place, there are no public-houses in Germany. The culture of the German people would prevent their patronising such dens of adulteration and cold-blooded drink. In the second place, there are no Draconic early-closing laws in Germany. It is even a great question whether the politically down-trodden German would tamely submit to such tyranny, let alone local option or total prohibition. Only some years ago there was a riot, attended with bloodshed, merely because of an attempt to raise the price of beer. It would want a bold legislator indeed to dare to tell the humblest German to give up his harmless glass of beer, and turn

German Culture. jj

out at the strike of the clock into the street like so many children. But as there is no coercion, so there is little drunkenness, although no teetotalism, and that notwithstanding the unlimited hours the beer-houses are allowed to remain open. The case of Germany goes to show, that it is self-respect, and not prohibition or enforced pledges of teetotalism, that will make a nation sober.

As I said before, the subject of my sketch is in bed, and even risking to set fire to the bed-clothes and to catch rheumatism in his lower extremities, in order to improve his mind before courting the slumbers of the just ; for I feel convined that he is reading some instructive book — perhaps Darwin's Origin of the Species. Yes, it is this wonderful thirst for useful knowledge which distinguishes the whole German people, and mentally ennobles them. This is one of the most striking features of their wide- spread culture ; for the Germans look upon intellectual know- ledge as something almost divine, something to be regarded with reverence, to be worshipped for its own sake.

It is this trait in the national character which explains the extraordinary influence the poet Goethe, as a man and as a thinker, has exercised over the minds of his countrymen. And here the Germans possess a great advantage over us, who unfortunately know next to nothing of the personality of our greatest countryman, Shakespeare. We can only judge what an immense loss this is to English culture, when we know what Goethe's personality has been to Germany.

Take away the poet Goethe, who, perhaps, of all moderns, has best rendered and revived the Grecian ideals of the beauty and dignity of life, and there remains the intellectual character of the man, to whom every fruit from the tree of knowledge and truth was a prize to live for, and the search of which was its own reward. " Oh," he once exclaimed, " that I could come again in a hundred years, if only to see and enjoy the sight of the progress mankind will have made in that time along the path of truth." And these words strike the key-note of the best culture of Germany — the love of scientific truth, of mankind, the unselfish interest in its progress and happiness.

No field of learning but what Goethe strove to work in it ; not in a spirit of vanity, or with a feverish longing for worldly honour and the noisy recognition of the multitude ; no, from pure love of truth itself, of which our own poet Keats so aptly says — ■

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty ; That is all ye know on earth, and all ye need to know."

-A

78 National Life and Thought.

Goethe, as is well known, foreshadowed the conclusions since drawn from Darwin's works, which in our time have revolutionised our conception of cosmogony. It was Goethe, the friend of princes, who, in the character of Faust, teaches the highest philosophy to all— namely, that happiness is only to be found in the fulfilment of duty, useful work done for the benefit of all. Faust, after passing through every stage of worldly power and enjoyment without obtaining rest, at last finds contentment as a tiller of the soil ! But even where his efforts were incomplete or unproductive, his example has remained a constant spur to the intellect of Germany. Well might such a man exclaim, without vanity, on being created a noble: "The dignity of nobility has nothing surprising in store for me ; I was not con- scious of an addition to my standing." For him there could only exist the truly aristocratic distinctions of mind and character.

To Goethe is in great part owing the wonderful appreciation of Shakespeare, Walter Scott, Burns, and Byron we find all over Germany. Of Shakespeare he once said, "When I think of Shakspeare, I cannot understand how I can have the audacity to attempt anything." And yet Goethe knew that he, too, was destined to be immortal ; but, like all true greatness, it is ever found hand in hand with the recognition of kindred genius. It is reserved for the Liliputian to cavil at those whose size makes him doubly conscious of his littleness.

I have travelled much in Germany, and I think you would be surprised if I could tell you of the widespread admiration and knowledge to be met with everywhere of our English literature, and of our English greatness of thought and action. The Germans stand first in their eager recognition of the best in foreign countries. We might well learn from them in this. A German schoolmaster once told me : " I always urge my pupils to read Sir Walter Scott. In the first place, he is a glorious novelist ; and then the perusal of his works inculcates a nobility of aim and feeling that are only too rare nowadays in this money- making age."

Shakespeare is known to all in the Fatherland, and I might even say the same of Dickens — that great poet of the human heart, as an eminent German man of letters once styled him to me. The other day I read in the Times (Nov. iS, 1889) respecting German theatres: "The stage interpretation of Shakespeare is rapidly rising to a higher level in Germany even than in England." How neatly put, " even than in England " ! I cannot under-

German Culture. yg

stand these circumlocutions, when it is so easy to speak the truth. Why not state the plain truth — namely, that the stage interpretation of Shakespeare in Germany is not "rapidly rising," but rather that it lias long been far above that, " even " in England ? There are at least a dozen towns in Germany in which you may any day witness not only as good representations of Shakespeare as our best, but many masterpieces of Shakespeare that are never performed in England at all, because they don't pay. But they pay in poor, military-ridden Germany, because the Germans love Shakespeare. The mind of Shakespeare' is one of the corner-stones of German culture. They have fairly gained a right to love the greatest Englishman that ever lived. They have won him for themselves by studying and reverencing his divine spirit — perhaps the proudest conquest in the field of intellect to be met with in the history of the world, this conquering love of a foreign nation of forty millions for a humble Englishman who lived three hundred years ago ! If I wished to pay the spirit of German culture, in one sentence, the highest encomium I can think of, it would be that it is worthy of sharing the proudest boast of the Anglo-Saxon race — namely, the possession of Shakespeare.

The other day I was reading an account of the foundation of Cavendish College, Cambridge. I may add that its peculiar feature is to consist in its cheapness, and in the desire to help forward the industrious but poor student — a most praiseworthy intention, no doubt, and one which is hailed by a public organ with pleasure as a new endeavour to bring the universities and the people into closer communion. But it is somewhat strange to read such a mouthful about so little in the freest country in the world !

Why, in poor despotic Germany there are twenty-two univer- U" sities, some of them far larger in number of students than any of our English ones. Talk of our tiny, new-fangled thread of communion between the universities and the people ! Why, the German universities are almost identical with the German people ; the former are part of the latter, as the heart is part of the human frame. The youth of the German people, in their twenty-two universities, are not the representatives of the respectability of a class, but have long been the torchbearers of every national ideal striving towards independence and culture. The German nation did not want the threatening wave of democracy in order to open up the portals of instruction to the poor. Education has been gratuitously open to the poorest in Germany for generations.

8o National Life and Thought.

If it be true, as a thinker has said, that "the elevation and expansion of the individual is the true aim of government," then I say, without fear of contradiction, that, as far as culture is concerned — the beautifying of our daily life, its dignity and its happiness — even the petty German governments of the past have in many ways more to show than we, with all our boasted machinery of ballot-boxes — which, by-the-by, the Germans have now got into the bargain, as well as universal suffrage.

It is but lately that it has been thought worth while to educate our people at all. The word education is not to be found in the gospel of the Manchester school of middle-class money-bags, with their ten commandments summed up into one, "Buy in the cheapest, and sell in the dearest market." Sell your soul to the devil, if necessary; but keep a bank balance, be respectable, and court popularity if you can. Germany has its unscrupulous devotees of the laws of supply and demand as well as we have. It has its greedy traders, who would adulterate every article of food if they dare— the only difference being they dare not; but they do not rule Germany, much less represent German culture.

We have certainly secured the almost unlimited political liberty of the subject. That is undoubtedly a great gain, though due as much to our favoured geographical position as to our matchless national virtues. But we have, up to the present, lived under an almost despotic social tyranny. We have hitherto neglected the mental and moral well-being of the helpless unit, and been content to leave him unfettered to fight the battle of " the devil take the hindermost " without much care of his mental status.

I do not deny that this hard struggle has done a great deal to foster that manliness and energy for which the English national character is noted throughout the world. I do not deny that our political freedom has given us, in some sense, the supremacy of the individual, as against a fussy bureaucracy. But I think well enough of my countrymen to believe that we might retain these qualities, and yet pour a little light on the lives of those whose fight in the battle of life is at best but sunless and dark.

Hitherto it is the strictly practical that has guided us most. I think it is time to mix a little ideality with the elixir of life. Fortunately, we are tending in that direction, but more through the initiative of private individuals than through the action of our responsible authorities. It is by means of such societies as that before whom I am lecturing, and of which so many have spontane-

German Culture. 81

ously sprung up in this country, that charitable individuals seek to make up and atone for a ruthless system of neglect.

We thought little of education as long as it only meant to us a higher perception of life to the people, a weapon to emancipate us from social and mental slavery. Not that I mean we are forcibly enslaved by others, but rather by ourselves, through our ignorance and want of true culture. Unlike some politically backward people, we are undoubtedly free in a political sense — the pity is that want of culture often prevents our using the freedom which the franchise has given us. For I contend, that being so favoured through our geographical position in our past political history, we ought to enjoy every advantage other nations possess, and a deal more besides which they have been unable to attain. In money we are the richest nation in the world ; I see no reason why we should not be the happiest and the most cultured, which, I maintain, we are not.

We only adopted popular education when we adopted breech- loaders. When the German wars of 1866 and 1870 suddenly revealed to our surprise that education also helped to make a nation fight successfully ; and when it had fought, to compete with us in commerce, and to send over its better-educated sons here, and take the bread out of the mouth of our neglected, untutored countrymen. And this may show you what I omitted to refer to at the beginning — namely, that superior education may also assist us to prosper in an jQ s. d. sense.

Now, you may say this is all very well, but seeing is believing. Where are the tangible proofs and results of all this culture to be seen? How can you trace their connection with the well- being of the community ?

Well, then, let us cast a glance at the outward aspects of the country. It is not so very long ago that the poet Coleridge referred to Cologne as the town of ugly wenches and nasty stenches. Now, I am not going to say that the physical beauty of the modern representatives of the mythical eleven thousand virgins — God bless them ! — has improved since the days of Cole- ridge, nor do I say that sanitary science is as yet as far advanced in Germany as it is with us. This, as I said before, is a branch of culture in which we are still ahead of the Germans, though it may not be for long. For there at least we witness the honest and thor- ough application of old-fashioned principles by the corporations, whereas with us the best scientific systems are sometimes negli- gently and dishonestly applied by our parochial authorities.

82 National Life and Thought.

However, I do say I only wish, in order to prove the truth of a few of my contentions, that I could accompany some of you on a fortnight's trip through the Germany of to-day.

It would be doubly instructive to you at the present time, when we read daily of the dishonest extravagance of our hospitals ; the jerrybuilding of our board schools, and its consequences of typhoid fever and diphtheria ; the dirt of our metropolitan bakehouses, swarming with vermin ; the dirt of our military barracks, of our police-cells, and sundry other unsavoury little indications that our institutions are not yet all that they might be.

I would only ask you to come in a fair frame of mind, not in that of a lamented club friend of mine, whom I once met in one of the most picturesque of the many lovely German watering- places. " How do you like Kissingen ? " I asked. " Why, they haven't got a decent glass of brandy at the hotel, and I can't get up a rubber of whist in the whole blessed place ! "

I think I could show you dozens of towns in Germany with finer and better-kept streets and public buildings than our own. The town of Frankfort, for instance, one of the most beautiful and most wealthy towns of Europe, has as low a death-rate as even our most favoured seaside health resorts, and that not- withstanding a drainage system that does not come up to our standard. Or, take a typical smaller town, such as Hildesheim, in Hanover, a coloured print of which I have brought for your inspec- tion. This is a town of about 20,000 inhabitants ; and if you look at the print, you will see among its sights five different buildings of public schools, every one of which is of interesting, if not of commanding architecture.

Walk through the streets of any one of these German towns on a Sunday. You will find them as clean as a new pin. You will find the shops closed after mid-day, and the people enjoying themselves in a sensible, healthy fashion. In larger towns, where there are museums and picture-galleries, they are open from early in the day. In the afternoon the population has flocked out to the numberless coffee and beer gardens in the suburbs, where they are sitting in family groups, all classes inter- mingled, listening to the military bands. Suddenly the people rise from their seats and take off their hats, but no one leaves their places. It is only the king and queen taking an afternoon walk with their children, and passing along the country road adjoining the beer gardens. The king's family has reigned over the country more than 800 years in one unbroken line.

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He himself is acknowledged to be one of the best military leaders of the country. The people, although strongly demo- cratic in feeling, have a great respect for their ruler and his tamily ; but they don't rush after them and mob them. Their tact, their self-respect, prevent them doing so. Also, the royal family is to be seen almost daily walking among the people, and returning their respectful silent greetings. Towards evening many stroll back to town and crowd the theatres, where, on a Sunday, almost always some classical plays or high-class operas are given.

In few things is the culture of Germany more apparent than in the sound character of their amusements, inviting all classes alike by their excellence and cheapness.

It is true you are reminded everywhere of the military charac- teristics of the nation. The whole nation is in arms ; it is a sad fact, but at least it is not for conquest. But even here the effects of "culture" are strongly visible. Go back to the Franco-German war, and history — I believe even French history — will tell you that, during a six months' influx of nearly a million men in an enemy's country, flushed with the excitement of victory, there is not one single authenticated instance recorded of insult to a woman. If you want to know what that means, you can take the trouble to read up the detailed records of a few previous struggles in the history of this century.

I remember being present in Berlin at the triumphal entry of the troops, 45,000 men, in July 1871. The town was so crowded that I had to pay 15s. a-night for being allowed to lie down at night on the floor with several others in a fifth-rate hotel. I think I was on and off the pavement that day from five in the morning till nearly five the next morning, and I can assure you that I did not see one single drunken person.

But let us come back to our times. Look in on a German town on a week-day, and pass the public schools. You will be struck by the palatial buildings, situated on the finest sites, reserved for the education of all classes alike, at which instruction is given free to all alike. Come nearer, the windows are wide open, and you may just happen to witness the singing lesson, and hear the youthful voices sing one of those glorious choral songs of Martin

Luther : —

" God is a mighty citadel, A trusty shield and weapon."

Let us come away out for a stroll in the open country. You

84 National Life and Thought.

may not see many mansions of the immensely wealthy nobility ; but what there is will not be walled round with bricks and ornamented with boards advising you that you will be prosecuted by the lord of the manor if you dare try to look at and trespass on the choicest bits of scenery of your country, the private property of a few. I say, it was want of culture of the heart that originally made landowners surround their property with brick walls, broken bottle glass, and iron fences. In Germany you can, as a rule, at all times walk, unhindered and unheeded, in the private grounds and gardens of the great. You can see and rejoice in all — gardens, orchards, and vineyards ; and nobody will be there to watch you, and warn you that you are a trespasser. But also nobody would dream of robbing an orchard in Germany. A people is backward in culture, discipline, and self-respect that cannot be trusted to pass under a tree without pilfering its fruit. But the sight of fruit is no incentive to theft in Germany. A numerous peasant class exists. They are landowners and fruit- growers. In fact, throughout the greater part of Germany the public high roads are lined with fruit-trees, and passers by are kindly allowed to pick up whatever falls to the ground.

Walk on. You may come upon some big factory, nowhere a very picturesque sight ; but in Germany sometimes anything but an ugly one. You may even chance to come when work is stopped. The workmen are all marshalled in military fashion in a large courtyard, for they have all been soldiers, workmen, clerks, and employers alike, and as often as not the latter as privates in the ranks. You ask, What is the matter ? It is the fifty years' jubilee of an old workman. There is going to be a little speech- making, and a concert afterwards by the band of the men. The head of the firm is going to hand a gold watch to the workman in question ; more important still, the reigning prince of the petty state has sent down one of his own ministers in person to deliver the gold medal for faithful service to the humble workman.

This may be a bit of the comedy of paternal government ; it may be mere sentiment. Then all I can say is, the world is the poorer for the lack of a little of such sentiment. Now, if you are not already tired of my company, then come back to the German town with me. It is already dark, but we are met by a vast surging concourse of people. A brilliant torchlight procession marches past, followed by a large crowd and a band playing — ■ not one of those wretched German bands you see, and unfortun- ately hear too, in London, which do not hail from Germany at

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85

all, which are in fact forbidden there. No, it is a band composed of citizens, some of whom have fought in twenty pitched battles in defence of their country, and have the medal on their breast to testify to it. What is it all about? we ask. Oh, it is the twenty-five years' jubilee of a popular lady-teacher at one of the public schools, and the different trade-unions have turned out to do honour to her, and to bring her a serenade ! Stand still a moment in the crowd, and let your thoughts wander. I fancy it would take a strong dose of insular prejudice to make you believe that you are standing in midst of the unhappy population of a down-trodden, despotic, military-ridden country !

Now, in conclusion, let me come back to the little woodcut I mentioned to you, and the words inscribed beneath it, " What does it then matter as long as you are happy ? " There you have the key-note of my thoughts on the culture of Germany — the wish to point out a few items illustrative of the dignity, self-respect, and happiness of the greatest number ; and I cannot but think that, notwithstanding the unavoidable blood-tax of a so-called, but wrongly so-called, despotic government, in some respects the Germans are happier than we are, if not than we might be J and if so, their culture, fostered by their government, has largely con- tributed to that result.

VI. RUSSIA.

W. R. MORFILL, M.A.

MY hearers may imagine that in the short space of an hour I should never be able to exhaust all that can be said about Russia — certainly one of the most interesting of European countries. All I can hope to do is to set before you on this occasion some of the most noteworthy points in the political, historical, and social life of this great people.

I have some fear that I shall not carry the sympathies of all my audience with me, and there will be some who will find my lecture dull, when I say frankly at the beginning that I have no stories of Socialists or Nihilists, no revelations of "underground Russia," as it is called, to communicate.

In the first place, we shall probably be best able to realise the importance of Russia as a -factor in European politics if we consider the area of the country and the number of its population. The former exceeds 8,500,000 square miles, and, according to the valuable article contributed to the last edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the gross total of the inhabitants is one hundred and six millions. Of course in this aggregate a great number of races are included, the Slavs largely predominating. The Russians, if we add the Malo-Russians in the South, and the White Russians in the West, amount to more than sixty-three millions. These form the dominant race, and the dominant tongue is the Great Russian, which is now the only language allowed to be spoken at court, and has been so since the days of Nicholas. During last century and the early part of the present, French was in vogue — just as it was at the German court and in Sweden ; but when a people have risen to self-consciousness, they don't caie any longer to talk in the idiom of the foreigner. Such a habit argues a degraded condition in a nation, and it speaks well for the English that during last century, when the French language had such world-wide influence, our grandfathers and great grandfathers 87

88 National Life and Tliought.

never tolerated anything else than their native Saxon. At the present time, no one can hold any office in Russia who is not acquainted with the national language in which all business is transacted.

After the Slavs come the Litu-Lettish, the Ural-Altaic, and Tatar races. These populations cannot be said to affect the solidarity of the Russian Empire. The first amount to about three millions. They are an ancient people, who have been driven, as it were, into remote corners by advancing races. They have been receding since the commencement of the historical period. They remained pagans longer than any other of the European populations. They were converted in a rather violent manner in the fourteenth century, but when Herberstein travelled among them at the beginning of the sixteenth, he found them in some places still worshipping lizards.

Russia, as early as the time of Peter the Great, had acquired a portion of Finland ; the rest of the country was ceded by Sweden to Russia by the peace of Frederikshamm in 1809. Up to this time the Finns have been able to preserve their diet, and have enjoyed autonomy, but we have been hearing latterly that these valuable privileges are going to be taken away from them. Let us hope that the report will not prove true. Certainly the Finnish language has developed under Russian protection ; under the Swedes it had been depressed, but now the professors in the University of Helsingfors deliver their lectures