As early attempts to get methodical about nonviolent resistance theory and practice, these are interesting works.
I’ll note some of what he had to say about tax resistance as a nonviolent resistance tactic here today:
Tax resistance against the Education Act of
This was the organized opposition to the English Education Act of , which extended the private school system of the Anglican and Roman Catholic churches at the expense of the general taxpayer.
The interest of the matter for the purposes of the present discussion lies in the fact that it was explicitly an example of passive resistance, inasmuch as the agitators called themselves “passive resisters” and published, for a decade or more, a periodical called “Passive Resistance,” from whose pages this account is drawn.
Their method was to refuse to pay the school tax, which they held to be grossly unjust to dissenters, but to submit obediently to the penalty prescribed by the law for delinquency.
This punishment came with great regularity in the form of fines, which the passive resisters steadfastly and consistently refused to pay; whereupon their goods were distrained, or, in default of goods, the recalcitrant was cast into prison.
The magnitude of the movement is shown by the fact that within two and one half years of its inauguration the league had on file reports of seventy thousand summonses and 254 commitments to prison.
The character and social standing of the members of the movement are facts of significant interest.
According to the secretary of the organization,1 “The men and women whose goods have been sold belong to all classes and ranks.
They are clergymen and ministers, journalists and teachers, manufacturers and magistrates, members of Parliament and candidates for Parliament, farmers and gardeners, aged women and young men.”2
The movement was losing momentum in , in response, as was supposed, to a feeling on the part of some that the Liberal victory of , for which the Passive Resisters seem to have been more or less responsible, insured the repeal of the obnoxious law.
But the decline was doubtless due also to the proverbially early exhaustion which overtakes all sudden expressions of popular indignation.
The secretary admitted in that the Passive Resisters were “fewer in number compared with the hosts which at first resisted the fraudulent legislation of .”3
“Passive Resistance,” ; p. 7.
Ibid.
Ibid.; p. 4.
Tax resistance in the American Revolution
The merchants, true to the intuition of their class, were by no means revolutionary or even reckless as regards the foundations of law and order, although in this case they permitted their zeal for prosperity to encourage social forces which, in turn, eventually raised a tempest that they could not quell.
Their intention, both real and apparent, was the organization of a boycott against British trade, particularly in commodities subjected to taxation or other restrictions under the recently enacted revenue laws.
This boycott was planned with clear comprehension of the interplay of interests that obtains in human affairs, and particularly the dependence of political policies upon personal and business influences.
Consequently the colonial merchants did not aim a general broadside at the whole British Empire, but planned to reach particular interests with a well-directed blow.
More specifically, they hoped, by means of their boycott measures, to give the British mercantile and manufacturing people a motive, in the person of their own imperiled interests, for seeking the ear of Parliament with a demand for the repeal of the objectionable legislation.
The straight, or primary, boycott was the method used to impress the minds of the British trading class, which was, of course, the British government for practical purposes.
The secondary boycott, as now known, was in turn brought to bear upon Americans who failed to observe the original agreement and resorted to dealing within the limits prescribed, either as to persons or goods.
For instance, in the earlier struggle, waged against the stamp tax, communities that paid the same were made to feel the disapproval of their neighbors, as in Charleston, South Carolina, where a radical fire company agreed that ”no provision should be shipped “to that infamous Colony Georgia in particular nor any other that make use of Stamp Paper.’ ”1
During the later boycott, directed against the Townshend taxes, Rhode Island yielded to that temptation which constitutes the greatest peril for any concerted movement of this kind, namely the impulse to reap a rich harvest by seizing the opportunities deliberately left to go begging through the self-denial of one’s competitors.
This incident also discloses another weakness inherent in such organized “voluntary” efforts, which is that they are really seldom, if ever, completely voluntary.
Enthusiasts for every cause, however worthy, almost invariably make use of coercion by means of the hundred and one devices known to social pressure, and thereby incorporate the seeds of their own disintegration.
Thus a contemporary Rhode Islander wrote that they “were dragged in the first place like an ox to the slaughter, into the non-importation agreement,” and that adherence to the same “would have been acting out of character and in contradiction to the opinion of the country.”2
The resistance of the colonists was destined, however, to run the entire gamut of forms known to social opposition and constraint.
Evasion of law had long been an established business in the form of smuggling; the peaceable boycott, both primary and secondary, was now well under way; but political action, litigation, social ostracism, mob violence, and armed revolution were either already coming into play or waiting to enter the stage as the historic drama proceeded.
And this list makes no mention of those subtle methods of persuasion and “influence” which operate between friends and relatives, business and scientific associates, boon companions, and numberless other channels of daily intercourse, not to mention the more overt persuasion of pulpit, press, and platform.
And one of the most significant aspects of it all is the tendency of any one of these situations to transform itself into one or more of the other members of the series, so that one method can hardly be used without sooner or later invoking the others.
This truth is clearly exemplified in the events now before us.
For example, in the secondary boycott directed by Charleston against Georgia, as quoted above, the resolution threatened death for future offenders, with destruction of their vessels.
In Boston, especially during the earlier contest over the Stamp Tax, the disturbances were most serious.
The rioters were led by one Mackintosh, a shoemaker, endowed by nature for “government by tumult.”
Under his leadership, the mob, which was currently reported to include “fifty gentlemen actors” partly disguised in workman’s attire, not only razed the stamp office but also attacked the house of the registrar of the admiralty, and even the residence of Governor Hutchinson himself.
In all these scenes the Sons of Liberty, composed largely of workingmen, did the strong-arm work.
Meanwhile the merchants, ostensibly committed exclusively to the boycott and orderly methods, lent in private an anxious but effective moral support.
One of them testifies in a private letter of the time that they were endeavoring “to keep up the Spirit” of resistance but were “not a little pleas’d to hear that McIntosh has the Credit of the Whole Affair.”3…
“The Colonial Merchants and the American Revolution, ,” by Arthur Meier Schlesinger; Vol. ⅬⅩⅩⅧ, Whole Number 182, of “Studies in History, Economics, and Public Law,” edited by the faculty of political science of Columbia University.
New York, ; p. 82.
Ibid.; p. 215.
Ibid.; p. 72.
Economic pressure through the boycott and physical force in the form of violence were constantly supported by the more subtle forms of social coercion.
Thus the Boston agreement of was to be enforced by a discountenancing “in the most effectual but decent and lawful manner” of all who should fail to aid the movement.
At Philadelphia, any person failing to support the boycott was to be branded “An Enemy of the Liberties of America,” and it was the plan to publish such names in the newspapers.
The commercial resisters of Savannah likewise agreed that “every violator should be deemed ‘no Friend to his Country’ ”; while in South Carolina non-supporters were “to be treated with the utmost contempt.”
In the Boston boycotters circulated thousands of handbills throughout their own and neighboring provinces calling on the inhabitants to have no trade relations with persons whom they named as lacking in regard for the public good.
While this is apparently merely a case of the secondary boycott already described, the publicity methods connected with it are of interest just here.
Public disapproval, aside from withdrawal of patronage, was a factor held in view.
It was an effort to revive the ancient pillory upon its mental though not its physical side that prompted some of these acts — perhaps that of the Harvard College seniors who resolved never again to deal with Editor John Mein, who championed the non-boycotters.1 The town meeting went a step further, and ordered the names of seven persistent offenders inscribed on the town records in order “that posterity may know who those persons were that preferred their little private advantages to the common interest of all the colonies.”2
Boston, the scene of so many stirring activities, staged a prototype of our present-day “peaceful picketing” on a mass scale, when, during the struggle to prevent disintegration of the boycott forces, in , a procession of more than a thousand persons proceeded, in what Professor Schlesinger describes as “impressive and orderly array,” to the homes and shops of the recalcitrant merchants, among them two sons of the governor, whom they sought under the roof of the executive mansion itself.
Having made their demonstration and protest, in every place the multitude quietly dispersed.3
Ibid.; pp. 112, 130, 148, 149, 158, 172.
Ibid.; p. 173.
Ibid.; p. 176.
Francis Deak’s campaign against Austrian domination in Hungary
Deak proceeded to organize a scheme for national education and industry, and a boycott against Austrian goods was set in motion.
As relations between the two governments became more tense, “Deak admonished the people not to be betrayed into acts of violence, nor to abandon the ground of legality.
‘This is the safe ground,’ he said, ‘on which, unarmed ourselves, we can hold our own against armed force.
If suffering be necessary, suffer with dignity.’
He had given the order to the country — Passive Resistance”; “and the order was obeyed.
When the Austrian Tax Collector came to gather the taxes the people did not beat him nor even hoot him — they just declined to pay.
The Tax Collector thereupon called in the Austrian police, and the police seized the man’s goods.
Then the Hungarian auctioneer declined to auction them, and an Austrian auctioneer had to be introduced.
When he arrived he discovered that he would have to bring bidders from Austria also if the goods were to be sold.
The government found before long that it was costing more to distrain the goods than the tax itself was worth.”
Gandhi’s campaigns against anti-Indian measures in South Africa
The long struggle, which the London “Times” declared, according to Mr. Polak’s report, “must live in memory as one of the most remarkable manifestations in history of the spirit of Passive Resistance,” was drawing to its close in .
Mr. Gandhi, in connection with the discussion in Parliament and elsewhere in England, just prior to the great “March” of , above described, had accepted full responsibility for his advising the Indian community to resist the law.
His plan, which he held to be “of educational value, and, in the end to be valuable both to the Indian community and the State,” consisted, as he worded it himself, in “actively, persistently, and continuously asking those who are liable to pay the £3 tax to decline to do so and to suffer the penalties for non-payment, and what is more important, in asking those who are now serving indenture and who will, therefore, be liable to pay the £3 tax upon the completion of their indenture, to strike work until the tax is withdrawn.”1
This, as has been shown, was his plan of procedure at , when he proposed the strike of protest for .
But the new year opened with a series of conferences with the authorities, a truce was declared, and the principal points in the long dispute were finally settled by the Indian Relief Act, passed in …
“Speeches and Writings,” p.
ⅩⅬⅦ.
Gandhi’s independence campaign in India
At the close of his year of silence we find Gandhi organizing the ryots of the Kaira district in his own province in a passive resistance movement, i.e., Satyagraha, against the payment of taxes which they asserted should have been suspended because of a partial failure of their crops.
The struggle continued to , when the passive resisters were released from jail and their contention accepted.
Meanwhile the non-coöperation movement, the strangest revolution in human history, had been launched at a special session of the Indian National Congress, which met in Calcutta in .
the program was amended and strengthened in what are known as the Regular Congress Resolution, or the Nagpur Resolutions, of .
The resolution is based upon the two fundamental propositions, (1) that the British Government in India had forfeited the confidence of the country, and (2) that it should be brought to an end by the non-violent method of simply refusing to cooperate with it longer.
The program of non-cooperation was planned to culminate in “civil disobedience,” specifically in refusal to pay taxes for governmental support.
It was realized, however, that this drastic measure would subject the social order to a terrific and perilous strain.
Therefore a more or less extended period of discipline was seen to be necessary by way of preparation for the final stroke.
It will be recalled that the Non-cooperation Resolutions promised Swaraj within one year.
But as the tumult tended to increase with the passing months of , it became necessary, time and again, to postpone the most drastic measure, namely civil disobedience or refusal to pay taxes or remain in the government service, in which it was planned to culminate.
In , the All-India Congress met at Delhi, where Gandhi, according to the despatches to London of , declared it necessary to accelerate the movement by using all the measures in the non-cooperation arsenal.
“This,” he declared, “embraces the policy of civil disobedience, which means civil revolution.
Whenever it is practised it will end Government authority.
It means open defiance of the Government and its laws.
I will launch this campaign in my own district, in Gujarat, within the next fortnight.
The nation must await the result of this example, which should open the eyes of the whole world.”
The congress committee pointed out in a resolution that only a little more than a month then remained of the year within which Swaraj had been promised.
In view of this and the “exemplary self-restraint” observed by the nation in its adherence to non-violence, the committee then authorized “every province on its own responsibility to undertake civil disobedience, including non-payment of taxes,” provided they would observe Hindu-Moslem unity and all the other features of the non-cooperation program.
So much for the individual provinces, but, as for the nation as a whole, the decision was that it must await Gandhi’s signal.
And so it came about that at a meeting of the working committee of the All-India Congress on , with Gandhi presiding, a resolution was adopted postponing civil disobedience until , or pending the final result of the negotiations at the round-table conference then in progress between leaders of all parties…
During an interview with an American correspondent, in ,1 Mr Gandhi admitted that mass civil disobedience had been abandoned on the very eve of its promised inauguration, because “the country was not ready.”
“The principles of non-violence,” he explained, “had not yet made themselves felt.”
But he declared it merely a postponement, adding, “We will continue individual disobedience and boycott.”
Mr. John Clayton, in the Chicago Tribune, .
Shortly thereafter, Gandhi was jailed, and he was still in jail when Case was writing his book.
After the military suppression of Hungarian independence in , Hungarian nationalists embarked on campaigns of nonviolent resistance to try to press their cause.
Tax resistance was among the tactics they used.
Today I’ll share some mentions of Hungarian tax resistance from the English-language press of the time (mostly from the recently-released Spectator archives).
There is a considerable movement in Hungary.
Not only the students and Liberals are engaged in it, but the Conservative nobles themselves.
The Hungarian language, the constitution of , the ancient rights of the people, and of the Protestants, are demanded on all sides.
It is even said that some nobles have refused to pay taxes.
The Yorkshire Gazette of had a brief note that included this detail:
The collection of taxes encounters a passive resistance of a most dogged character, and the success of the people of the Romagna is the favourite topic among all classes.
The issue was still mostly anticipating rather than reporting:
It is stated that, should not the former constitution of Hungary be restored by the [Austrian] Emperor, a refusal to pay the taxes will be organized throughout the kingdom.
But the issue had more concrete news to report, though again, very briefly:
“The accounts which reach us from Hungary,” says the Leipzic Gazette, “are still very serious.
The pubic mind in that country is much agitated, and this feeling extends every day more and more to the provinces which formerly constituted part of Hungary.
The collection of the taxes begins to be attended with serious difficulties, and has already given rise to several regrettable incidents.
The arrests to which it was found necessary to have recourse at Temeswar are of a very serious character, as twenty persons among them belong to the higher classes of society.
Incendiary proclamations are said to have been found in their possession.”
There are rumours of a fierce reaction in Court circles at Vienna.
The Hungarians, who all along have demanded their Constitution, have employed the privileges granted by the recent Patent to revive their ancient provincial organization.
At first, it was believed that the Emperor would yield, but a letter from Pesth, of , thus condenses an ordinance just received—
“An Imperial ordinance, published by the Aulic Chancellerie, has reached the Government of Buda.
It … [among other things] … proclaims the intention of the Government to act severely against all who refuse to pay taxes, and other decisions adopted on that subject.”
The various counties of Hungary met to decide how to respond to Imperial demands.
From the Spectator comes this quote from the response given by the general assembly of the county of Gran:
“…your Majesty is as much bound to uphold the constitutional rights, privileges, and independence of the Hungarian nation as the nation is bound to be faithful to the King, and to recognize his hereditary rights. …
Your Majesty insists on the payment of the taxes, but they, in virtue of the Pragmatic Sanction, must be granted by the Diet.
Illustrious King, there is a story relative to the levy of taxes by force of arms and without a grant from the Diet, and the point of it is, that King Francis Ⅰ., your Majesty’s illustrious grandfather, said to the nation, Doluit paterno cordi nostra — pained our paternal heart.
That article noted that “All the counties have now reported, in answer to the Imperial rescript, and all insist on the Constitution of 1848.”
The issue gave these updates:
A conference between the local notabilities and the Chancellor of Hungary, intended to remove difficulties, ended in nothing.
The Hungarian Lord-Lieutenants refused to recommend their countrymen to pay taxes till the laws of were restored.
Taxes are already collected in Hungary by the soldiery, and, in short, all the signs which precede revolution are once more manifest in Austria.
…all taxes are now collected in Hungary by collectors backed by military force, the soldiery being quartered on any village which refuses its arrears.
These soldiers are all foreigners, the Hungarian regiments being retained in Germany and Bohemia, where they are surrounded by hostile populations.
A summary of the situation is given in the Spectator:
Hungary, according to M. [Ferenc] Deak, is a Sovereign State [and] also, a State with a free constitution, which must be acknowledged and restored in its entirety before a legal regime can be recommenced, or Frances Joseph be legally crowned King.
Till he is crowned he can do no sovereign act; and as the First Estate remains in abeyance, the Diet, which consists of three Estates, can raise no taxes or do any other act competent to a governing power.
There is no mistaking the meaning of M. Deak, and little hope that the Hungarians will recede.
A powerful party consider even these terms too servile: the people, by paying taxes only on compulsion, announce their adherence to their leader’s views, and the will of the nation must be considered finally expressed.
M. Deak evidently still hopes for an amicable compromise.
The Diet agrees that it will accept its share of the general debt, and will pay taxes while negotiating a compromise.
The people are not actively resisting the levy of taxes by force, and though this passive attitude may be the result of moderation, it may be also that of fear.
Hesitation always invites attack, and Austrian statesmen, whatever their faults, have always displayed political courage in excess.
…[T]he emperor may believe that the time for a struggle with Hungary has arrived.
The actual situation, at all events, is becoming unendurable.
The empire cannot exist without a revenue, nor can it for any length of time levy the taxes by military force.
The troops are billeted on all who refuse to pay the taxes, and behave with the usual insolence of Austrians.
In the town of Gran, for example, sixty-two men are billeted on the burgomaster who has been driven into his stable, fifty on the captain of the city, and thirty-six on an engineer living in lodgings.
The inhabitants, however, do not yield, and only eighty-six of the citizens of Gran have paid the taxes demanded.
The London Daily News carried a report in its edition from its Hungarian Correspondent, dated , that included the following background about the tax resistance situation:
When the Emperor Francis Joseph… consented to the restoration of municipal self-government in Hungary… the German ministers, though unacquainted with the working of constitutional institutions, had still some dim idea that the levy of taxes by the municipal authorities would become difficult.
They, therefore, insisted upon it that whilst the political administration was to pass into the hands of elected national authorities, the central tax-gatherers and centralised police should remain in Hungary, and continue to assess and levy the taxes as decreed by the will of the ministry.
As soon, however, as the constitutional authorities were elected in Hungary they refused to give any assistance to the tax-gatherers, maintaining that the right to vote taxes belongs exclusively to the Diet, and that a constitutional law of Hungary clearly forbids to pay any taxes not voted by the Diet under the penalty of treason.
The taxes were now generally refused, first in Hungary, then in Croatia, and the tax-gatherers and centralised police, not supported by the municipal authorities in their conflicts with the tax-refusing population, soon found that their occupation was gone.
Since , no taxes were paid, and the Minister of Finance became greatly embarrassed; whilst, on the other side, some of the imperial tax-gatherers and central policemen (gens-d’armes), who displayed too much zeal, were imprisoned and tried by the municipal authorities for assault and battery. …
Under such circumstances the Chevalier Schmerling and M. Plener, irritated by the passive resistance of the Hungarians, issued the order of military distraint for the taxes in arrear; at the same time the imperial tax-gatherers and gens-d’armes were exempted from under the jurisdiction of the Hungarian local authorities, and put under the military jurisdiction.
The Hungarian Chancellor did not countersign these two orders, which made the deepest impression in Hungary, and at the Diet drove many adherents of the address into the camp of the revolution.
The military arrived at once in about ten or twelve counties, and in the smaller centres of population.
The greater towns of Pesth, Pressburg, Debreczin, Miakoloz, Ujividek, and Szegedin have not yet been disturbed; the experiment was confined to those places where the people were not likely to be able to offer resistance.
The municipal officials were everywhere visited with peculiar severity.
From forty to sixty soldiers were quartered in their houses, with instructions to annoy the landlords as much as possible until the arrears were paid.
The natural brutality of the soldiers thus encouraged led to the most infamous results.
The families were worried or expelled from their houses; the furniture wantonly destroyed; pianos were cut up for firewood, the pantries and cellars were broken open, and still the sufferers refused to pay.
They offered the keys of their cash-boxes to the officers, to help themselves to the required amount, but they refused to pay of their own accord.
In some places the inhabitants treated the soldiers in execution with wine, in the name of Kossuth and Garibaldi, till they got tipsy, and shouted their hurras for Kossuth and Garibaldi.
Thus the people became exasperated, the military discipline is loosened, the papers give every day more atrocious reports about the exactions, and even the officers of the Austrian army get ashamed of the infamous part assigned to them; whilst the result from the financial point of view is most insignificant, and does not answer the expectations of Messrs. Schmerling and Plener.
We hear that the treasury is nearly empty, the thirty million florins (three millions sterling) borrowed lately without the authorisation of the Imperial Council have already been spent, and that by a new loan of eight millions becomes indispensable for carrying on the administration.
The taxes are still collected by bands of soldiers, but the Emperor is exceedingly unwilling to resume a military occupation, which must destroy the last vestige of credit, and make every movement in Italy a serious danger to the empire.
His Majesty has, however, sanctioned the prosecution of five hundred town councillors of Pesth, on a charge of high treason, for signing a circular animadverting on the levy of taxes by force.
Already, the nobles resist the military collection of taxes.
One, a cousin of the Chancellor Baron Vay, hearing that the imperial troops were about to be quartered on his estate to compel him to pay his taxes, removed his family, drove off his sheep, and burnt his chateau to the ground.
Another received four hundred soldiers, and entertained them so sumptuously that, as he said, they were certain to be mutinous ever after.
All who can bear the expense of the soldiers’ provisions adhere to their resolution not to pay.
There is nothing for it but passive resistance, a calm steady refusal to do anything not enforced by military violence.
This, it is said, is the Hungarian resolve.
The Diet will sit passively till forcibly dissolved.
The county committees will continue their protests till the members are driven out of their halls.
The conscripts will be only sent when seized, and the taxes only paid in presence of military compulsion.
Hungary will wait, and her waiting implies the paralysis of the Austrian empire.
A kingdom full of men whose hate has risen to the Italian point, will need an army for its garrison, and another to put down local outbreaks.
Taxes steadily refused cost more to collect than they are worth, and the Austrian treasury is in no position to wait till a more complaisant temper has returned.
Day by day incessant outrage will deepen the popular hatred, and incessant resistance weaken the Imperial authority, until at last, at the first external shock, the Austrian Government will find that in Hungary, as in Italy, it has not a subject who is not an open foe.
The Spectator said that “Only four villages have yielded to the military pressure placed upon them for the collection of taxes… [The Austrian] Government, however, proclaims officially that it has money enough for the year, and that considerable sums are coming in even from Hungary.”
An ordinance from the Minister of Finance orders that, at present and during harvest-time, those Hungarian taxpayers who are really indigent are to be treated with indulgence, but that the most energetic measures of severity are to be employed against those solvent persons who refuse to pay the taxes.
The Spectator reported on the official reply of the Hungarian parliament to Austria’s rejection of its autonomy.
In part, the Hungarians declared that “we cannot recognize as binding any state burden or obligation founded by the Reichsrath [Austrian parliament], any loan contracted by its authority, or the sale of any royal demesne sanctioned by it.”
Furthermore:
We declare, finally, that we are compelled to regard the present administration of the country, especially the despotic conduct of unconstitutional officials, as illegal, and subject to punishment according to the laws of the country; and the direct and indirect taxes imposed in violation of the law, and levied by military force, as unconstitutional.
The taxes are collected by military force, the soldiers, for instance, cutting off the nose of a forester in the employ of Count Carolyi, who refused to pay, but no other function of Government is performed.…
The people, nevertheless, are as undaunted as ever, the electors have received their representatives with applause, and the taxes are not paid till the soldiers become unendurable.
That didn’t end the tensions between Austria and Hungary, though.
Here is a similar example of Hungarian tax resistance from , as written by Bela Szekely for the Boston Evening Transcript of :
have seen only the growing of the popular demand for the granting of the national concessions.
In Szegedin, the second largest city in Hungary, it came to a bloody conflict between the populace and the military.
Patriotic women adorned with wreaths the statue of Louis Kossuth, the hero of the Hungarian Revolution in 1849.
Students from various universities and academies of the country, walking to Szegedin in pious pilgrimage to the bronze image of the great apostle of liberty, were greeted on their way by immense enthusiastic crowds.
The Independence party held meetings all over the country, inciting the populace into hatred against Austria.
Parliament having not yet voted the budget for the current year, the city councils throughout Hungary resolved with unanimity not to accept even voluntary payment of the State taxes.
As the government had merely existed for the past ten months on the surplus money of the treasury and the voluntary payments of the State tax, this step of the municipalities involved the danger of bringing to a standstill the whole of the State machinery.
And more of a similar nature is found in this dispatch from Vienna found in The Philadelphia Record of :
Among the measures which the Hungarians declare they will employ in defense of their constitutional rights are the refusal to pay taxes, which cannot be legally collected before the House of Deputies passes the budget; the refusal to grant recruits and the refusal by Hungary of its pro rata contribution to the common expenses of the dual monarchy.
Affairs in Austria are not going well.
The Emperor, finding it impossible to form a strictly Parliamentary Ministry which will protect the unity of the Imperial Army, has appointed Baron Fejervary Premier in Hungary, in the hope that ordinary business at least may be carried on.
On the Chambers reassembling, however, on , a vote of No Confidence moved by M. Kossuth was carried in the Lower House by a two-thirds majority.
A Royal Rescript proroguing Parliament was then read; but the President permitted debate upon the Rescript, and Baron Banffy submitted a Motion declaring the prorogation illegal because no business had been done, forbidding the payment of the quota for Imperial expenses, and summoning the counties and communes to pay no taxes and collect no recruits.
This Motion also was carried by a two-thirds majority amid shouts of “Long live Norway!” [Norway had gained its independence from Sweden ]
World War Ⅰ both overshadowed the Hungarian nationalist movement and accomplished its goal, by fatally weakening the Austro-Hungarian Empire and permitting Hungary to escape its hold.
