The Magyar language itself is incapable of expressing the difference between "Hungarian" and "Magyar." The difference is approximately the same as between "British" and "English." The "Magyar State" set itself to Magyarize education and every feature of public life. Any protest was treated as "incitement against the Magyar State Idea" and was made punishable by two years' imprisonment. It was as though a narrow-minded English Administration should set itself to obliterate all traces of Scottish, Welsh, and Irish national feeling; or as though the Government of India should ignore the existence of all save one race and language in our great dependency. In comparison with the Government of "Magyarland," the Government of Austria was a model of tolerance. In Austria, Poles and Ruthenes, Czechs, Germans, Italians, Serbo-Croatians, and Slovenes were entitled to the public use of their own languages and enjoyed various degrees of provincial self-government. The Austrian side of every Austro-Hungarian banknote bore an indication of its value in every language of the empire, whereas the Hungarian side was printed in Magyar alone. This was done in order to foster the belief that Hungary was entirely Magyar. In reality, Hungary is as polyglot as Austria. Exact statistics are not obtainable, since the Magyar census returns have long been deliberately falsified for "Magyar State" reasons. Roughly speaking, it may, however, be said that, in Hungary proper, i.e., exclusive of Croatia-Slavonia, where the population is almost entirely Serbo-Croatian, there are perhaps 8,500,000 Magyars, including nearly 1,000,000 professing and a large number of baptized Jews. Against this total there are more than 2,000,000 Germans, including the numerous colonies on the Austrian border, the Swabians of the south, and the Saxons of Transylvania; more than 2,000,000 Slovaks, who inhabit chiefly the northwestern counties; between three and four million Rumanes, living between the Theiss and the Eastern Carpathians; some 500,000 Ruthenes, or Little Russians, who inhabit the northeastern counties; some 600,000 Serbs and Croats in the central southern counties; 100,000 Slovenes along the borders of Styria and Carinthia; and some 200,000 other non-Magyars, including about 90,000 gypsies, who speak a language of their own. Taking the population of Hungary proper at 18,000,000, the Magyars are thus in a minority, which becomes more marked when Croatia-Slavonia with its population of 2,600,000 southern Slavs is added. [Illustration: Distribution of Nationalities in Hungary.]