FERENCZ LAJOS AKOS

KOSSUTH (1841– )  , Hungarian statesman, the son of Lajos Kossuth, was born on the 16th of November 1841, and educated at the Paris Polytechnic and the London University, where in 1859 he won a prize for political economy . After working as a civil engineer on the Dean Forest railway he went (1861) to Italy, where he resided for the next thirty-three years, taking a considerable part in the railway construction of the peninsula, and at the same time keeping alive the Hungarian independence question by a whole series of pamphlets and newspaper articles . At Cesena in 1876 he married Emily Hoggins . In 1885 he was decorated for his services by the Italian government . His last great engineering work was the construction of the steel bridges for the Nile . In 1894 he escorted his father's remains to Hungary, and the following year resolved to settle in his native land and took the oath of allegiance . As early as 1867 he had been twice elected a member of the Hungarian diet, but on both occasions refused to accept the mandate . On the loth of April 1895 he was returned for Tapolca and in 1896 for Cegled, and from that time took an active part in Hungarian politics . In the autumn of 1898 he became the leader of the obstructionists or " Independence Party," against the successive Szell, Khuen-Hadervary, Szapary and Stephen Tisza administrations (1898—1904), exercising great influence not only in parliament but upon the public at large through his articles in the Egyetertes . The elections of 1905 having sent his party back with a large majority, he was received in audience by the king and helped to construct the Wekerle ministry, of which he was one of the most distinguished members . See Sturm, The Almanack of the Hungarian Diet (1905-1910), art . " Kossuth " (Hung.) (Budapest, 1905) .