Regent Eclipsed

The power of the Regent of Hungary crumbled at the elections last week, before the might of the Premier. A few years ago Admiral Nicholas Horthy de Nagybanya, Regent of this "Kingless Kingdom," rode through the streets of Budapest like a monarch in his own right. But last week not one of his close friends was elected to the Lower House, while the National Unity Party of Premier Count Stephen Bethlen de Bethlen won absolute control with 213 seats out of 245.

Count Bethlen. Since 1921 Count Stephen Bethlen has been continuously Premier. His second cabinet, formed in 1922, is the oldest in Europe, having outlived eleven French cabinets, eight German, four British. During this time Count Bethlen's activities and his successes have been prodigious. He put down an armed attempt by King Karl (died 1922) to regain the throne in 1921. He visited Rome, Paris and London in 1923, persuaded those governments to reverse decisions of their own Reparations Commission which would have crushed Hungary financially; and substituted the League control of Hungarian finance whereby the country "came back" under the fiscal dictature of a U. S. League of Nations Commissioner, Jeremiah Smith Jr. of Boston (TIME, July 5).

Finally Count Bethlen weathered last year the greatest national counterfeiting scandal of the century (TIME, Jan. 18 to June 7). Some of his appointees are now in jail as a result of this staggering attempt to attack France by counterfeiting French francs; but no Hungarian doubts the unselfish patriotism and high abilities as a statesman, politician and diplomat of Count Bethlen. On Jan. 25 the new Hungarian House of Peers (TIME, Nov. 29) will assemble, for the first time with the Count entrenched firmly as its guiding genius.