HUNGARY.

Auckland Examiner, Volume 1, Issue 1, 11 December 1856, Page 4

HUNGARY.

To understand exactly the Hungarian cause, it is quite necessary Ito be somewhat acquainted with the true nature of the form of Hungarian institutions. You all know that Hwftga|y was for more than eight hundred year! ' in Europe always a constitutional monarchy, and perhaps this is no small fjroof of the elements of life which, in my notion, are to be found when we consider the geographical position of Hungary, and the moral position of the natiw Magyar race, —an Asiatic people the midst of European nations, without any kindred, without any affinity, without any resemblance, —and when we consider they were surrounded on all sides by absolute and despotic powers ; on one side Turkey, which encroached, for centuries, not only upon civilisation, but on religion, and where my poor nation was the bulwark of Christianity in Europe ; on the other Ade the Russian empire, which has, not for the benefit of mankind, grown up prodigiously in the one-and-a-half century ; on the third side, the Austrian empire is a very new one—but the Government of the house of Hapsburg, which never, if there be told truth by history gave one friend to political freedom, — though one genius it had, one friend to religious freedom, one friend to the rights of conscience, but ever quite in opposition to the social and political freedom of the people, —the Emperor Joseph 11. This then was our position. Turkey, Russia, and Austria, or rather the house of Haspburg, —by such was Hungary surrounded ; and, besides, /he people, which must ever be considered as the most firm and mighty basis of greatness and welfare of a country and as the most strong, sure, and powerful safeguard of its liberties—the people in Hungary unhappily were excluded from political rights, they shared not in the constitutional benefits ; and still this Magyar race, An such difiicult circumstances, through eight centuries and

more, has conserved, not only its life, but its constitutional liberty and national institutions. Now, the house of Hapsburg ruled Hungary for three hundred years. It ruled Hungary, not by conquest, but by the free choice of the nation ; not by the free choice of the nation, without conditions but on basis of a treaty, the chief featu re of which treaty is that the monarch should reign in Hungary by the same lineal succession as in the dominions of the house of Austria; that tbe Austrian dynasty was recognised, and should re*main Kings or Hungary, and thereupon the King took on himself a sacred duty to respect and conserve the Hungarian constitution, and to rule and govern Hungary by its own public institutions, according- to its own ancient laws And that was the duty of the of King. “ I swear to God I swear to the eternal God, that I hope He will so bless me as 1 shall keep that word.” This is a resume of the facts so far. Well, out of the thirteen kings we had of this house and dynasty, no one who knows anything of history can charge me with exaggeration when I say that their rule was one of continual perjury. lam a plain common man ; I call things as they are. — Kossuth.