PREFACE. THE first impression of the present work was issued on the 1st of October. A further impression having become necessary, some incorrect notions which have reached me as to the immediate object of the work make a few words of Preface desirable. For any sympathy and interest in any matter to be real and practical, and not merely vague and sentimental, it is essential that some true principle be at the bottom of it. There has been much vague and sentimental sympathy in this country for Hungary; too little real and practical sympathy. And yet the grounds for such real and practical sympathy exist, marked and deep. But, whether as to foreign or home affairs, it is always much easier to deal in loose generalities than it is to examine carefully and closely into principles, and their relations to past, present, and future conditions. By far the highest and worthiest point of view from which the Hungarian question can be looked at (though not the only one), is that of its relation to Constitutional Progress, and to the Fundamental Principles of Free Institutions. Those Fundamental Principles are, unfortunately, very ill understood at this time in this country. It is the interest of every government having Bureaucratic tendencies, and of all those who live and thrive by the machinery of a Bureaucratic system, to ignore those principles, and to hinder the teaching and understanding of them. And it is no less the interest of all who deal in Popular Agitation, or who parade unreal but glittering schemes of what they please to call "Reform," to prevent those true Principles being taught and understood. The purpose of the present work is, then, to show that grounds of real and practical sympathy between England and Hungary do exist, and what those grounds are. It aims to give an accurate view of past and present facts as regards Hungary; and to compare these with facts, past and present, as regards England. But it aims, yet further, to point out what are the Fundamental Principles of Free Institutions; to mark the importance and true bearing of those Principles; to show how they have been heretofore practically recognised, and are now practically recognised, or practically infringed, in England; and to compare this state of things with the state of things in the same respects in Hungary; and thence to draw conclusions as to the lasting Hopes of Free Institutions in each land. The object of the work is, then, directly—and, from the nature of the inquiry, permanently — practical. Whatever be the fate of the noble and gallant distant people whose Institutions are here explained, the facts and reasoning herein contained, as regards that people, are and must remain true and unchanged. And the practical bearing of the work upon the political condition and hopes of our own country is and must remain no less true and unchanged. HIGHGATE, NEAR LONDON. 25th Oct. 1849. |