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GERMAN FOR THE HUNGARIANS
ADDRESS AT THE JUBILEE CELEBRATION OF THE EMANCIPATION OF THE
HUNGARIAN PRESS, MARCH 26, 1899
The Ministry and members of Parliament were present. The
subject was the "Ausgleich"--i. e., the arrangement for the
apportionment of the taxes between Hungary and Austria.
Paragraph 14 of the ausgleich fixes the proportion each country
must pay to the support of the army. It is the paragraph which
caused the trouble and prevented its renewal.
Now that we are all here together, I think it will be a good idea to
arrange the ausgleich. If you will act for Hungary I shall be quite
willing to act for Austria, and this is the very time for it. There
couldn't be a better, for we are all feeling friendly, fair-minded, and
hospitable now, and, full of admiration for each other, full of
confidence in each other, full of the spirit of welcome, full of the
grace of forgiveness, and the disposition to let bygones be bygones.
Let us not waste this golden, this beneficent, this providential
opportunity. I am willing to make any concession you want, just so we
get it settled. I am not only willing to let grain come in free, I am
willing to pay the freight on it, and you may send delegates to the
Reichsrath if you like. All I require is that they shall be quiet,
peaceable people like your own deputies, and not disturb our proceedings.
If you want the Gegenseitigengeldbeitragendenverhaltnismassigkeiten
rearranged and readjusted I am ready for that. I will let you off at
twenty-eight per cent.--twenty-seven--even twenty-five if you insist,
for there is nothing illiberal about me when I am out on a diplomatic
debauch.
Now, in return for these concessions, I am willing to take anything in
reason, and I think we may consider the business settled and the
ausgleich ausgegloschen at last for ten solid years, and we will sign the
papers in blank, and do it here and now.
Well, I am unspeakably glad to have that ausgleich off my hands. It has
kept me awake nights for anderthalbjahr.
But I never could settle it before, because always when I called at the
Foreign Office in Vienna to talk about it, there wasn't anybody at home,
and that is not a place where you can go in and see for yourself whether
it is a mistake or not, because the person who takes care of the front
door there is of a size that discourages liberty of action and the free
spirit of investigation. To think the ausgleich is abgemacht at last!
It is a grand and beautiful consummation, and I am glad I came.
The way I feel now I do honestly believe I would rather be just my own
humble self at this moment than paragraph 14. |
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