"'We are not, but we shall be,' said
one of our patriots. You Britishers are rash in your impatient
criticism of a state which has not come to its full growth. It is hardly
thirty years since we emerged from the middle ages, so to speak; and you
expect our civilisation to have the well-worn polish of Western States.
Think how recently we have emancipated our serfs, and reformed our
constitution and our laws. Take into account, too, that just as we were
setting our house in order, the enemy was at the gate--progress was
arrested, and our national life paralysed; but let that pass, we don't
want to look back, we want to look forward. We have still to build up
the structure that with you is finished; we are deficient in everything
that a state wants in these days, and in our haste to make railways,
roads, and bridges, to erect public buildings, and to promote industrial
enterprises, we make certain financial blunders. You must not forget
that we in Hungary are much in the same state that you were in England
in the thirteenth century, before tenant-holdings had become general. We
shall gradually learn to see the advantages to be derived from letting
land on your farm system. There is nothing we desire so much as the
creation of the tenant-farmer class, which hardly exists yet. Large
estates would be far better divided and let as farms on your system. We
are in a transition state as regards many things in agricultural
matters.
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