I call after this on Baron Kállay. I am very pleased to have an opportunity of seeing him, for I am told on all sides that he is one of the most distinguished statesmen of the empire. He is a pure Magyar, descended from one of Arpad’s companions, who came to Hungary towards the close of the ninth century. They must have been a careful and thrifty family, for they have been successful in retaining their fortune, an excellent precedent for a Financial Minister! When quite young, Kállay displayed an extraordinary taste for learning, and he was anxious to know everything; he worked very hard at the Slav and Eastern languages, and translated Stuart Mill’s “Liberty” into Magyar, and for his literary labor he obtained the honor of being nominated a member of the Hungarian Academy.
Having failed to be elected deputy in 1866, he was appointed Consul-General at Belgrade, which post he held for eight years. This period was not lost to science, for he spent it in collecting matter for a history of Servia. In 1874 he was elected deputy in the Hungarian Diet and took his place on the Conservative benches, now the Moderate Left. He started a newspaper, the Kelet Nepe (The People of the East), in which he depicted the part Hungary ought to play in Eastern Europe.
It will be remembered that when the Turko-Prussian war broke out, followed by the occupation of Bosnia in 1876, the Magyars were most vehement in their manifestations of sympathy with the Turks, and the opposition was most violent in attacking the occupation. The Hungarians were so bitterly hostile to this movement, because they thought it would be productive of an increase in the number of the Slav inhabitants in the Empire. Even the Government party was so convinced of the unpopularity of Andrassy’s policy that they durst not openly support it. Just at this time, Kállay took upon himself to defend it in the House. He told his party that it was senseless to favor the Turkish cause. He proved clearly that the occupation of Bosnia was a necessity, even from a Hungarian point of view; because this State forms a corner separating Servia from Montenegro, and thus being in the hands of Austria-Hungary, prevents the formation of an important Slave State which might exercise an irresistible attraction on the Croatians, who are of the same race and speak the same language. He explained his favorite projects, and spoke of the commercial and civilizing mission of Hungary in the East. This attitude of a man who knew the Balkan peninsula by heart and had deeply studied all the questions referring to it, was most irritating to many members of his party, who continued for some little time Turcophile; but the speech produced a profound impression on the nation in general, and public opinion was considerably modified. Baron Kállay was designated by Count Andrassy as the Austrian representative in the Commission on Roumelian affairs, and, on his return to Vienna, he was appointed chief of a section in the Foreign Office. He published his history of Servia in Hungarian; it has since been translated into German and Servian, and, even at Belgrade, it was admitted to be the best that exists. He also published, about this time, an important pamphlet in German and Hungarian, on the aspirations of Russia in the East during the past three centuries. Under the Chancellor Haymerlé he became Secretary of State, and his authority increased rapidly. Count Szlavy, formerly Hungarian Minister, a very capable man, but with little acquaintance with the countries beyond the Danube, was then Financial Minister; and, as such, was the sole administrator of Bosnia. The occupation was a total failure. It entailed immense expense, the taxes were not paid into the exchequer, it was said that the money was detained by the Government officials as during the reign of the Turks, and both the Trans-Leithanian and Cis-Leithanian Parliaments showed signs of discontent. Szlavy resigned his post. The Emperor very rightly thinks an immense deal of Bosnia. It is his hobby, his special interest. During his reign Venetian Lombardy has been lost, and his kingdom, consequently, diminished. Bosnia is a compensation for this, and possesses the great advantage of adjoining Croatia, so that it could easily be absorbed into the empire; whereas, with the Italian provinces, this was totally impossible. The Emperor then looked around him for the man capable of setting Bosnian affairs in order, and at once selected Kállay, who was appointed to replace Szlavy.
The first act of the new Minister was personally to visit the occupied province of which he speaks all the varied dialects, and to converse with the Catholics, Orthodox and Mahommedans there. He thus succeeded in reassuring Turkish landholders, in encouraging the peasantry to patience, in reforming abuses and turning the thieves out of the temple. Expenses became at once reduced and the deficit diminished, but the undertaking might well be compared to the cleansing of the Augean stables. Baron Kállay employed great tact and consideration, coupled with relentless firmness. To be able to set a clock in thorough order it is necessary to be perfectly acquainted with its mechanism. Last year he was warned that a tiny cloud was appearing in Montenegro. A fresh insurrection was dreaded. He started at once to ascertain the exact position of affairs for himself, and he took his wife with him to give his visit a non-official character. Lady Kállay is as intelligent as she is beautiful, and as courageous as intelligent; this latter is indeed a family quality: Countess Bethlen, she is descended from the hero of Transylvania, Bethlen Gabor. Their journey through Bosnia would form the subject of a poem. While on his way from ovation to ovation, he succeeded in stamping out the lighted wick which was about to set fire to the powder. Since then, it appears, matters there have continued to improve; at all events, the deficit has disappeared, the Emperor is delighted, and every one tells me that if Austria succeed in retaining Bosnia she will certainly owe it to Kállay, and that a most important rôle is assuredly reserved for him in the future administration of the empire. He believes in a great destiny for Hungary, but he is by no means an ultra-Magyar. He is prudent, thoughtful, and is well aware of the quagmires by the way. His Eastern experience is of great service to him. I call on him at his offices, in a little narrow street and on the second floor. The wooden staircase is dark and narrow. I cannot help comparing it in my mind to the magnificent palace of the Railway Company, and I must confess my preference for this. I am astonished to find him so young; he is but forty-three years old. The old empire used to be governed by old men, but this is no longer the case. Youth has now the upper hand, and is responsible, doubtless, for the present firm and decisive policy of Austria-Hungary. The Hungarians hold the reins, and their blood has preserved the ardor and decision of youthful people. It seemed to me that I breathed in Austria an air of revival.
Baron Kállay spoke to me first of the Zadrugas, the family communities which existed everywhere in India, as has so well been shown by Sir Henry Maine. “Since you published your book on Primitive Property” (which was, he says, at the time perfectly accurate), “many changes have taken place—the patriarchal family living on its collective and unalienable domain is rapidly disappearing. I regret this quite as much as you can do, but what can be done?”
Speaking of Bosnia, “We are blamed,” he says, “for not having yet settled the agrarian question there, but Ireland is sufficient proof of the difficulties to be met with in solving such problems. In Bosnia these are further complicated by the conflict between the Mussulman and our Western laws. One must be on the spot and study these vexed questions there, fully to realize the hindrances to be met with at every step. For instance, the Turkish law constitutes the State the owner of all forests, and I am especially desirous of retaining rights on these for the purpose of preserving them; on the other hand, in accordance with a Slav custom, the villagers claim certain rights on the forests. If they merely cut the wood they needed for household purposes, only slight harm would be done; but they ruthlessly cut down trees, and then turn in their goats to eat and destroy the young shoots, so that there is never any chance of the old trees being replaced. These wretched animals are the plague of the country. Wherever they manage to penetrate, nothing is to be found but brushwood.
“As the preservation of these woods is of the first necessity in so mountainous a region we intend to pass a law to this end, but the difficulty will be to enforce it. It would almost necessitate an army of keepers and constant struggles in every direction. What is really lacking in this fine country so favored by Nature is a gentry who would set an example of agricultural progress, as in Hungary. I will give you an example in proof of this. As a boy I remember that a very heavy old-fashioned plough was used on our land. In 1848, compulsory labor was abolished, wages increased, and we had to cultivate ourselves. We at once sent for the most perfected American iron ploughs, and at the present day these alone are employed even by the peasants. Austria has a great mission to fulfil in Bosnia, which will in all probability benefit general Europe even more than ourselves. She must, by civilizing the country, justify her occupation of it.”
“For myself,” I replied, “I have always maintained, in opposition to my friends the English Liberals, that the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Dalmatia was a necessity, and I fully explained this at a period when the question was not at all under discussion,[7] but the essential point of all is the making of a railway and roads to connect the interior with the ports on the coast. The Serayevo-Mortar line is absolutely a necessity.”
“I am quite of your opinion,” answers Baron Kállay, “ma i danari, all cannot be done in a day. We have but just completed the Brod-Serayevo line, which takes passengers in a day from Vienna to the centre of Bosnia. It is one of the first boons conferred by the occupation, and its consequences will be almost measureless.”
I refer to a speech he has recently pronounced at the Academy of Pesth. In it he develops his favorite subject, the great mission Hungary is destined to fulfil in the future; being connected with the East through the Magyars and with the West through her ideas and institutions, she must be a link between the Eastern and Western worlds. This theory provoked a complete overflow of attacks against Magyar pride from all the German and Slav papers. “These Hungarians,” they said, “imagine themselves to be the centre of the universe and their Hungaria, the entire world, Ungarischer Globus. Let them return to their steppes, these Asiatics, these Tartars, these first cousins of the Turks.” In the midst of all this vehemence, I am reminded of a little quotation from a book of Count Zays, which most accurately paints the ardent patriotism of the Hungarians at once, their honor and strength, but which develops a spirit of domination and makes them detested by other races. The quotation is as follows: “The Magyar loves his country and his nationality better than humanity, better than liberty, better than himself, better even than God and his eternal salvation.” Kállay’s high intelligence prevents his falling into this exaggerated Chauvinism. “No one understood me,” he says, “and no one chose to understand. I was not talking politics. I had no desire to do so in our Academy at a scientific and literary meeting. I simply announced an undeniable fact. Situated at the point of junction of a series of different races and for the very reason that we speak a non-Indo-Germanic idiom—call it even Asiatic, if you will—we are compelled to be acquainted with all the languages of Western Europe. Our institutions, our educational systems, belong to the Western world. At the same time, by some mysterious connection with our blood, Eastern dialects are very easily accessible and comprehensible to us. I have over and over again remarked that I can grasp much more clearly the meaning of an Eastern manuscript or document by translating it into Magyar, than if I read a German or English translation of it.”