Mr. Storer to Mr. Hay.
Vienna, November 29, 1904.
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the Department’s instruction No. 116, bearing date of October 29, 1904, calling for inquiry into the circumstances under which Mrs. Horniak has made complaint to the Department in regard to her treatment by a Hungarian official at Fiume. * * *
Notwithstanding the fact that the Department has not yet acknowledged Mr. Hale’s dispatch No. 178, bearing date of October 18, 1904, with reference to the complaints of the Red Star Line, and also that sufficient time has not elapsed for reply to my No. 184, bearing date of November 17, 1904, I have deemed it advisable to have another personal interview with the Austro-Hungarian foreign office on this subject.
Mr. de Mérey, the chief assistant secretary, is a Hungarian, and therefore I placed, to-day, the general question again before him instead of Count Goluchowski, pointing out the likelihood that some measures of reprisal might be urged before our Congress at its early meeting next month, as had been the case last spring.
Mr. de Mérey was deeply interested in the question, not only from the standpoint of the foreign office, but also as a Hungarian; and asked me to let him make a full exposition of the difficulties the foreign office had to labor under.
It would appear that immediately on the assumption of office of the Tisza ministry in November, 1903, great energy was displayed in putting into operation in a vigorous and rigorous fashion the general law concerning emigration from Hungary, framed, but not put into execution by its predecessor in office next but one—the ministry of Mr. Koloman de Széll.
Full text of the law originally drafted under Szell in the spring of 1903, of the law modified in certain particulars as put into force, and of the several degrees or orders issued by Count Tisza as minister of the interior, under the provisions of the law to give effect to its operation, were transmitted to the Department at the time.
The new ministry, presided over as it is by a man of immense energy, of broad modern ideas of progress, and great self-reliance, set itself naturally to develop the commercial interests of the only seaport Hungary possesses—Fiume—of which the country is very proud, and to improve which expenditures relatively enormous have been made.
As heretofore described to the Department, the Hungarian Government bound itself to furnish 30,000 emigrants from Fiume to the Cunard Company, and the sense of this obligation was felt from the top to the bottom of the Hungarian officialdom. There is no denial or doubt, Mr. de Mérey gave me to understand, that discrimination against all Atlantic lines other than the Cunard Company for Fiume was intended, and that the same was urged upon and expected from all subordinate officials throughout Hungary.
Soon, however, the chances of commerical and political reprisals both on the part of the navigation companies other than the Cunard and of the Government of the United States became visible.
[Page 90]Keen competition by other shipping lines via Trieste, to which the provincial and local governments of the Austrian provinces interested gave welcome, began to threaten; and the session of our Congress last spring, just at its close, was full of warnings for the Hungarian Government.
This latter felt itself compelled to cancel certain features of its contract with the Cunard Company, including the guaranty of the number of emigrants to be at least 30,000, and the widespread outcry against the acts of its officials, emanating from the hostile shipping lines, both through the press of Europe and through the diplomatic representations from the home countries of these rival merchant fleets, compelled the relaxation of the efforts to compel forcibly all emigration to pass through the official channel.
In fact countermanding orders have been issued from the ministry of the interior denouncing and prohibiting any official interference with the route chosen by those intending to emigrate, But, it was added, perhaps not unnaturally, such orders were slower to affect the mind of the under officials, and bring about their hearty and instant obedience, than the original efforts to develop Fiume, to which national pride and popular feeling had given an impulse, apart from official instructions.
Count Tisza has personally urged Mr. de Mérey to send in at once the details of any complaint of the action of any Hungarian officials, and the ministry of the interior will, without the slightest delay, make instant inquiry, hold functionaries to strict measure of account, and see that justice is done.
Here I may interpolate that last week Mr. Strasser, the director of the Red Star Line, called in person at the embassy to bring sundry cases of what is said to have been unjust and tyrannical action of the Hungarian minor authorities as to emigrants intending to go to America via Antwerp and holding tickets for that object.
Mr. Strasser told me that his company had no doubt in the world of the good faith of Count Tisza in seeing the mistakes heretofore made and in trying to remedy them. He knew that orders, as I have described, had been issued by the ministry of the interior. He claimed, however, that up to this time such orders had been of little effect on the subordinate officials, with whom the agents’ fee of 18 kronen, paid by the Cunard Company to every person (official or otherwise) who was the means of bringing an emigrant to the vessels of that company at Fiume, was more powerful than the instructions of their own official chiefs.
At the close of this explanation Mr. de Mérey urged me to submit through the foreign office to Count Tisza each and every case of alleged oppressive action or improper interference with the free departure of any one in whom the United States Government had any interest or duty, as it was the request of the Hungarian Government that all such cases be brought to its attention in order to probe them to the bottom.
Accordingly, following your instructions, I shall transmit to the foreign office, for the attention of the Hungarian Government, all cases notified to the embassy either by the Department or the Red Star Line.
I have, etc.,