n accept his resignation.

*556. The Government's Partial Triumph.*--Incensed by the prolonged, and
in many respects indefensible, character of the parliamentary
deadlock, Francis Joseph resolved to establish in office an
essentially extra-constitutional ministry which should somehow
contrive to override the opposition, and likewise to set on foot a
movement looking toward the revolutionizing of Hungarian parliamentary
conditions by the introduction of manhood suffrage. Under the ministry
of Baron Fejervary, constituted June 21, 1905, there was inaugurated a
period of frankly arbitrary government. Parliament was prorogued
repeatedly, and by censorship of the press, the dragooning of towns,
and the dismissal of officers the Magyar population was made to feel
unmistakably the weight of the royal displeasure. For awhile there was
dogged resistance, but in time the threat of electoral reform took the
heart out of the opposition. Outwardly a show of resistance was
maintained, but after the early months of 1906 the Government may be
said once more to have had the situation well in hand. Two events of
the year mentioned imparted emphasis to the profound change of
political conditions which the period of conflict had produced. The
first was the establishment, under the premiership of the Liberal (p. 504)
leader Dr. Wekerle, of a coalition cabinet embracing a veritable
galaxy of Hungarian statesmen, including Francis Kossuth, Count
Andrassy, and Count Apponyi. The second was the all but complete
annihilation, at the national elections which ensued, of the old
Liberal party, and the substitution for it, in the role of political
preponderance, of the Kossuth party of Independence. The number of
seats carried by this rapidly developing party was 250, or more than
one-half of the entire number in the Chamber.

*557. The Parliamentary Conflict Renewed.*--The Wekerle cabinet entered
office pledged to electoral reform, although in the subject it in
reality cherished but meager interest. In 1908, as has been related,
it was impelled by popular pressure to submit a new electoral
scheme;[705] but that scheme was conceived wholly in the Magyar
interest and did not touch the real problem. It very properly failed
of adoption. Meanwhile the ministry fell into hopeless disagreement
upon the question of whether Hungary should consent to the renewal of
the charter of the Austro-Hungarian Bank (to expire December 31, 1910)
or should hold out f