"Drop That Language!"

Karl Peyer, Socialist deputy in the Hungarian parliament, banged his desk with his fists last week.

"Does the government intend," he shouted, "to delay remedies until the populace begins to storm the bakers' and butchers' shops? Yes indeed, hunger revolts in the provinces have already started. Continue your present policy. Just continue! You won't have to wait long to see the results."

Prime Minister Count Stephen Bethlen de Bethlen banged his desk too.

"Drop that language!'' he roared, his big mustache fluttering like an angry brown moth on his upper lip. "Such words are not suitable to Parliament. I won't tolerate such language. Go use it on the streets!"

Parliament adjourned without fixing a date for meeting again. A committee of 35 was appointed to help the Bethlen Cabinet rule Hungary by decree.

Count Stephen Bethlen de Bethlen has been continuously Prime Minister longer than anyone else now living: ten years. In that time he has kept Hungary from Communism, weathered the franc-forging scandal which embroiled many of the country's leading personages (TIME, Jan. 18, 1926 et seq.), kept France and her Little Entente (Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, Rumania) at bay; made an alliance with Dictator Mussolini, signed treaties of friendship or arbitration with Austria, Turkey, Switzerland, the United States. Last week correspondents realized that Count Bethlen's rule was seriously threatened. The German crash and the general European situation was the immediate crisis. His troubles started more than a year ago when he limited the open ballot districts of Hungary from 242 to 196.

For ten years the Bethlen regime has kept in power by a neat device. Electoral districts, chiefly in the country, were made ''open ballot" districts. In them voters had to announce before the election committee just whom they wanted to vote for. It worked beautifully, but this spring the number of open ballot districts was reduced. As a result of the election 51 Opposition members took their places in the Hungarian parliament, and by the Hungarian Constitution 50 members have the right to call special and general sessions.

There were many new Socialist members, but more important from Count Bethlen's point of view was an ardent royalist, a beautiful dark-haired girl, one of the few women in Hungary's Parliament, the Princess Klara Odescalchi. For years the Princess Klara has been a fanatical opponent of Count Bethlen who, she believes, has persistently refused to allow the enthronement of 18-year-old Archduke Otto upon the vacant throne of Hungary. What makes her a dangerous opponent is that she is wealthy and can use her wealth to great political advantage. She is intelligent, she has had long training in European intrigue. Her father is the great Count Julius Andrassy, onetime Foreign Secretary (1918) of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Disregarding what damage Princess Odescalchi and the other Opposition deputies may do in the absence of Parliament. Count Bethlen and his Cabinet struggled last week with emergency decrees:

As in Germany, the export or transfer of currency abroad was forbidden without permission from the National Bank.

Hungarians crossing the frontier may take only 300 pengoes (some $52) with them.

Quotation of foreign currency rates on the Bourse was suspended.

Exporters sending goods out of the country must deposit the full value of foreign currency involved in the National Bank.

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