Deak’s statesmanship undoubtedly found at any rate a temporary solution of the questions which kept Austria and Hungary at variance in a compromise which bears some analogy to the arrangement by which Home Rulers propose at once to loosen and to maintain the connection between England and Ireland.  In the case of Austria-Hungary, the union which exists is not, on the face of it at least, a step towards unity, but rather the surrender of the endeavour to mould the two parts of the monarchy into a united empire.  The Dual system is therefore the instance of the blessings attending Home Rule which is most sedulously thrust upon English attention.  Let us see, then, what in outline this system is, and what are the causes which favour its existence.[4]

German jurisprudence has taxed hard its boundless stores of ingenuity and obscurity in the endeavour to find a proper scientific definition of the nature of the anomalous union which binds together the monarchy of Austria-Hungary.  With the inquiry, however, what may be the precise class of constitutions under which we ought to bring a political arrangement which is “singular” in the strictest sense of that word, English inquirers need not concern themselves.  The broad outlines of the Dual system, invented by the ingenuity of Deak, and accepted under the stress of necessity by the sagacity of the Emperor, may, for our present purpose, be roughly sketched in short, and it is hoped in not unintelligible terms.

The Dual system is a permanent alliance rather than a union between the kingdom of Hungary and the countries now represented in the Austrian Imperial Parliament, or (to use convenient though not quite accurate terms) between Austria and Hungary.

The essential features of this alliance or compromise, which is in its nature a treaty far more than an act of legislation, may be thus summed up.

At the head of the whole monarchy stands the Emperor-King.  The rules for the succession to the throne indeed secure that the Imperial and the Hungarian Crown shall always devolve upon the same person.  The Crowns, however, are distinct, the monarch on whose head they rest governs two distinctly different peoples, bound to him by different ties of allegiance.  He has Hungarian subjects and Austrian subjects, but he can claim authority over no man as a subject or citizen of Austria-Hungary.  The monarch (and this is a matter of supreme importance) is not only the nominal, but the real link connecting the two halves of his dominions.  He is moreover a true ruler.  Englishmen hear of a Parliament at Vienna and of a Diet in Hungary, of Austrian ministers and of Hungarian ministers, and they fancy that Francis Joseph is a constitutional king after the type of Queen Victoria of England, or King Humbert of Italy.  No idea is more erroneous.  He is the actual head of the State; he is the real commander of the army.  In the Austrian Empire he exercises a predominant influence on the Government, and observers who look