Page:Diplomacy and the War (Andrassy 1921).djvu/232

 importance, but no new electoral law was passed. The King himself raised this question at the time of Féjeváry as a battle-cry against the Majority, who were defending the national point of view, and in raising this question he used all his might. By this means he played the Socialistic idea off against the spirit of nationalism which had become uncomfortable. The Minority Government of Féjeváry, which represented the will of the King, used the popular desire for a general and equal vote as well as for voting by ballot in the course of the fray. Momentary success was achieved. The whole manœuvre was to the detriment of the national cause, as they were attacked from underneath while they were fighting the powers above them, and because, at a time when they were met with bayonets, they failed to control the streets.

By this means the Crown, however, was not able to secure the sympathy of labour, which saw in the democracy of the court only a democracy of necessity, and the Crown, moreover, injured Hungarian national feeling, which regretted bitterly that the King of Hungary sought an agreement with the international rather than with the national Hungarian tendencies.

Unfortunately, the problem of the election was not solved in spite of the King's initiative. By virtue of an agreement with the King, the Government of the Opposition had to introduce general suffrage, which I wanted to realize as a member of the Coalition Ministry of Wekerle in another shape. I regarded it as a dangerous step that all of a sudden we were to change