| Revenue. | Expenditure. | |
| 1904 | £49,611,200 | £49,592,400 |
| 1908 | 57,896,845 | 57,894,923 |
The ordinary revenue of the state is derived from direct and indirect taxation, monopolies, stamp dues, &c. In 1904 direct taxes amounted to £9,048,000, and the chief heads of direct taxes yielded as follows: ground tax, £2,317,000; trade tax, £1,879,000; income tax, £1,400,000; house tax, £1,000,000. Indirect taxes amounted in 1904 to £7,363,000, and the chief heads of indirect taxation yielded as follows: taxes on alcoholic drinks, £4,375,000; sugar tax, £1,292,000; petroleum tax, £418,000; meat tax, £375,000. The principal monopolies yielded as follows: salt monopoly, £1,210,000; tobacco monopoly, £2,850,000; lottery monopoly, £105,000. Other revenues yielded as follows: stamp taxes and dues, £3,632,000; state railways, £3,545,000; post and telegraphs, £710,000; state landed property and forests, £250,000.
The national debt of Hungary alone, excluding the debt incurred jointly by both members of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, was £192,175,000 at the end of 1903. The following table shows the growth of the total debt, due chiefly to expenditure on public works, in millions sterling:—
| 1880. | 1890. | 1900. | 1905. |
| £83.6 | £171.9 | £192.8 | £198.02 |
Religion.—There is in Hungary just as great a variety of religious confessions as there is of nationalities and of languages. None of them possesses an overwhelming majority, but perfect equality is granted to all religious creeds legally recognized. According to the census returns of 1900 in Hungary proper there were:—
| Per Cent. of Population. | |||
| Roman Catholics | 8,198,497 | or | 48.69 |
| Uniat Greeks[11] | 1,841,272 | or | 10.93 |
| Greek Orthodox | 2,199,195 | or | 13.06 |
| Evangelicals— | |||
| Augsburg confession, or Lutherans | 1,258,860 | or | 7.48 |
| Helvetian confession, or Calvinists | 2,427,232 | or | 14.41 |
| Unitarians | 68,551 | or | 0.41 |
| Jews | 831,162 | or | 4.94 |
| Others | 13,486 | or | 0.08 |
In many instances nationality and religious faith are conterminous. Thus the Servians are mostly Greek Orthodox; the Ruthenians are Uniat Greeks; the Rumanians are either Greek Orthodox or Greek Uniats; the Slovaks are Lutherans; the only other Lutherans are the Germans in Transylvania and in the Zsepes county. The Calvinists are composed mostly of Magyars, so that in the country the Lutherans are designated as the “German Church,” and the Calvinists as the “Hungarian Church.” The Unitarians are all Magyars. Only to the Roman Catholic Church belong several nationalities. The Roman Catholic Church has 4 archbishops; Esztergom (Gran), Kalocsa, Eger (Erlau) and Zágráb (Agram), and 17 diocesan bishops; to the latter must be added the chief abbot of Pannonhalma, who likewise enjoys episcopal rights. The primate is the archbishop of Esztergom, who also bears the title of prince, and whose special privilege it is to crown the sovereigns of Hungary. The Greek Uniat Church owns besides the archbishop of Esztergom the archbishop of Gyulafehérvár (Carlsburg), or rather Balásfalva (i.e. “the city of Blasius”), and 6 bishops. The Armenian Uniat Church is partly under the jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic bishop of Transylvania, and partly under that of the Roman Catholic archbishop of Kalocsa. The Orthodox Eastern Church in Hungary is subject to the authority of the metropolitan of Carlowitz and the archbishop of Nagyszeben (Hermannstadt); under the former are the bishops of Bács, Buda, Temesvár, Versecz and Pakrácz, and under the latter the bishops of Arad and Karánsebes. The two great Protestant communities are divided into ecclesiastical districts, five for each; the heads of these districts bear the title of superintendents. The Unitarians, chiefly resident in Transylvania, are under the authority of a bishop, whose see is Kolozsvár (Klausenburg). The Jewish communities are comprised in ecclesiastical districts, the head direction being at Budapest.
Education.—Although great improvements have been effected in the educational system of the country since 1867, Hungary is still backward in the matter of general education, as in 1900 only a little over 50% of the population could read and write. Before 1867 public instruction was entirely in the hands of the clergy of the various confessions, as is still the case with the majority of the primary and secondary schools. One of the first measures of newly established Hungarian government was to provide supplementary schools of a non-denominational character. By a law passed in 1868 attendance at school is obligatory on all children between the ages of 6 and 12 years. The communes or parishes are bound to maintain elementary schools, and they are entitled to levy an additional tax of 5% on the state taxes for their maintenance. But the number of state-aided elementary schools is continually increasing, as the spread of the Magyar language to the other races through the medium of the elementary schools is one of the principal concerns of the Hungarian government, and is vigorously pursued.[12] In 1902 there were in Hungary 18,729 elementary schools with 32,020 teachers, attended by 2,573,377 pupils, figures which compare favourably with those of 1877, when there were 15,486 schools with 20,717 teachers, attended by 1,559,636 pupils. In about 61% of these schools the language used was exclusively Magyar, in about 20% it was mixed, and in the remainder some non-Magyar language was used. In 1902, 80.56% of the children of school age actually attended school. Since 1891 infant schools, for children between the ages of 3 and 6 years, have been maintained either by the communes or by the state.
The public instruction of Hungary contains three other groups of educational institutions: middle or secondary schools, “high schools” and technical schools. The middle schools comprise classical schools (gymnasia) which are preparatory for the universities and other “high schools,” and modern schools (Realschulen) preparatory for the technical schools. Their course of study is generally eight years, and they are maintained mostly by the state. The state-maintained gymnasia are mostly of recent foundation, but some schools maintained by the various churches have been in existence for three, or sometimes four, centuries. The number of middle schools in 1902 was 243 with 4705 teachers, attended by 71,788 pupils; in 1880 their number was 185, attended by 40,747 pupils.
The high schools include the universities, of which Hungary possesses three, all maintained by the state: at Budapest (founded in 1635), at Kolozsvár (founded in 1872), and at Zágráb (founded in 1874). They have four faculties: of theology, law, philosophy and medicine. (The university at Zágráb is without a faculty of medicine.) There are besides ten high schools of law, called academies, which in 1900 were attended by 1569 pupils. The Polytechnicum in Budapest, founded in 1844, which contains four faculties and was attended in 1900 by 1772 pupils, is also considered a high school. There were in Hungary in 1900 forty-nine high theological colleges, twenty-nine Roman Catholic; five Greek Uniat, four Greek Orthodox, ten Protestant and one Jewish. Among special schools the principal mining schools are at Selmeczbánya, Nagyág and Felsöbánya; the principal agricultural colleges at Debreczen and Kolozsvár; and there are a school of forestry at Selmeczbánya, military colleges at Budapest, Kassa, Déva and Zágráb, and a naval school at Fiume. There are besides an adequate number of training institutes for teachers, a great number of schools of commerce, several art schools—for design, painting, sculpture, music, &c. Most of these special schools are of recent origin, and are almost entirely maintained by the state or the communes.