༡ PARALLELS BETWEEN THE CONSTITUTION AND CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY OF ENGLAND AND HUNGARY. BY J. TOULMIN SMITH, Esq., OF LINCOLN'S-INN, BARRISTER-AT-LAW. "Mr. Justice Powel.-My Lord, this is wide:-Mr. Solicitor would impose upon us : let He shall not impose upon me: I "Lord Chief Justice.-Brother! impose upon us? LONDON: EFFINGHAM WILSON, 11 ROYAL EXCHANGE. 1849. Aus 80418 larvard College Library Georgina Lowell Putnam CONTENTS. PRINTED BY RICHARD AND JOHN E. TAYLOR, RED LION COURT, FLEET STREET. 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 and 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. PARALLELS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND HUNGARY. INTRODUCTION. STRONG appeals have been lately made to Englishmen for sympathy with Hungary in her unequal struggle against Austria and Russia. The instinctive sympathies which every generous mind must feel on behalf of the oppressed have been justly roused. But it is extremely important that such instinctive sympathies alone should not form the basis of an expression of the public will. It is not enough that one nation is struggling for its independence against another, nor that the watchword of "Liberty" forms the rallying cry of the party that claims our sympathy and aid. That watchword has often been profaned; and that independence has been sometimes claimed in violation of history and of the rights and welfare of freemen. It behoves Englishmen to look closer than this into the matter. Every Englishman worthy of the name is conscious that his greatest pride and his greatest cause of thanksgiving are, that he is coheir of certain Rights and Liberties which his fathers have inherited, struggled for, and maintained, through untold ages; which they never owed to the gift of any man; which have neither been granted nor are grantable by any man; which were their as they are now his-inalienable and noblest inheritance and inherent and best birthright. Born to Free Institutions as his Birthright, the Englishman rejoices to see the consciousness of human dignity, and therefore the cause of constitutional freedom, making its way among any people and in B |