Count Contre Count

Bewildered patriots wondered whom to believe, last week, when Hungary's two foremost Counts and statesmen made public and opposite answers to a vital question: "Is or is not the Archduke Otto of Habsburg now King of Hungary, since he has come of age?" (TIME, Nov. 26.)

"Otto is King!" proclaimed Count Albert Apponyi, venerable and honored representative of Hungary before the League of Nations. As President of the Legitimist Party the Count issued this further statement:

"By immemorial right of the Habsburg Dynasty the eldest living male descendant of our late King Karl became King of Hungary when he [Archduke Otto] achieved the age of majority ."

Exactly the opposite view was taken by Count Stephen Bethlen, dictator and Prime Minister of Hungary, who has repeatedly accredited Count Apponyi to the League.

Sternly warning the Legitimists to cease their activities, Count Bethlen declared: ''Let me say, once for all, that no plans for the election of a king have been made. If and when they are made they will be placed before the country in a proper manner.

"Although every citizen is free to hold his own views as to the identity of the future King, my Government will take legal steps under the Constitution to punish those responsible for agitation, if the movement in behalf of Otto or any other candidate continues.

"I am very reluctant to create martyrs. But I shall do it if this evil propaganda persists. It engenders international suspicion of Hungary."

Since Count Bethlen himself recently intimated that a royal election might be expected soon, his remarks of last week probably meant that the Allied Powers have quietly but firmly informed the Prime Minister that he must deflate his original trial balloon. On Nov. 10, 1921 the Hungarian Government was obliged to assure the Allied Conference of Ambassadors in Paris that no Habsburg would be placed on the Hungarian Throne. The nation, now a "Kingless Kingdom," is technically free to elect anyone not a Habsburg to be King.

Count Apponyi.and the "Divine Right'' Legitimists, who hold that no election is necessary, charge that Count Bethlen is only biding his dictatorial time, waiting for a chance to have himself elected King. Meanwhile the Archduke Otto continues to rusticate in Spain.