In Austro-Hungarian politics a new contention had now been developed, which divided the Independence party, led hitherto by M. Kossuth and Count Apponyi, so that it acquired on the new question a third more extreme sectional chief, in the person of the President of the Chamber, M. de Justh. The followers of M. de Justh were demanding the transformation of the existing joint State Bank into two autonomous banks, connected in operation, but distinctly Hungarian in one organization and Austrian in the other. This demand was opposed in Austria as determinedly as the obnoxious demand for army use of the Hungarian language in Hungarian regiments, and the Crown would give sanction to neither. Apparently, neither Kossuth nor Apponyi would act with M. de Justh on the bank question, and the Independence party lost, consequently, its advantage as the largest of the various parties in the Chamber. In November, when a test of numbers occurred at a conference of the party, the following of M. de Justh was found to be largely in the majority. A resolution demanding the separate Hungarian State Bank was adopted by 120 votes against 74, despite a declaration by M. Kossuth that he would quit the party if it took that stand. According to a Press report of what occurred at the conference, the burden of Kossuth’s speech to the conference was "that without his name and his leadership the party would never have obtained the majority, and that many of those who were about to vote against him owed their seats in Parliament to his recommendation. His speech was indeed a scarcely-veiled threat that when deprived of the support of his name his opponents would find themselves forsaken by their constituents. The defeated minority proceeded forthwith to constitute itself as the ‘Independence, 1848, and Kossuth party,’ as distinguished from the ‘Independence and 1848 party,’ over which M. de Justh now reigns supreme." {40} Immediately after his triumph at the party conference M. de Justh resigned the presidency of the Hungarian Chamber and presented himself for reelection. In that test he suffered defeat, the combined forces of the Andrassy Liberals, the Clerical People’s party, and the Kossuth group casting 201 votes against 157. The Croatian Deputies abstained, owing, it is said, to a promise made to them by Dr. Wekerle that, if they remained neutral, he would deliver Croatia from the oppressive rule of the Ban, Baron Rauch. The political situation in Hungary was thus more than ever confused. AUSTRIA-HUNGARY: A. D. 1908-1909. The "Greater Servia Conspiracy." Alleged treasonable movement of Servians in Croatia. The Agram trials.