CZECHOSLOVAKIA'S CONFIDENCE
FROM A SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT
[Ile omission of any reassurance to Czechoslovakia in Herr Hitler's was regarded in many quarters as ominous.] speech last Saturday STRANGE though it seems, Czechoslovakia is not alarmed. She is surrounded by neighbours either actively hostile, like Germany and Hungary, or irritably disinterested, like Poland and Austria. Only at the narrow neck of land joining her with Rumania does she find a friend. Her frontier is interminable and desperately difficult to defend. She is isolated in Middle Europe, a democratic island with martial dictatorships or their satellites bearing down on her from all sides. Her allies are far away. Yugoslavia and Rumania, her Little. Entente partners, are only bound to support her against Hungarian aggression, but Hungary would never dream of running her head against this iron wall alone. France and Russia are engaged to come to her help against 'German aggression, but how could they do it ? France could only help her by battering away at the Gerinan defences in the Rhineland and thus keeping large German forces engaged there. Russia could only help her by coming through or over Rumanian territory, and thus probably driving Rumania, with her coveted wealth of oil and grain, into the enemy camp.
Inside Czechoslovakia are over 3,000,000. Germans, 2,000,000 of whom yearn to become subjects of the Hitlerist Reich, Germany and Hungary, apparently working in co-ordination, are conducting an ominous propaganda campaign against Czechoslovakia, alleging that the country is being Bolshevised, that Soviet agents control the military machine, that landing-grounds for Soviet air-fleets abound here. 'Such pretexts were used to justify an intervention in Spain, the real objects of which . were apparently to gain control of mines and territory. Since General Goering went to Rome Italy has joined in this campaign. What outlook could be grimmer ? Everything seems to vindicate those who feared a swift aerial and mechanised onslaught on Czechoslovakia one Saturday morning, the overwhelming of the Republic, its partition among hungry neighbours while London, Paris and Geneva debated whether to make a strong protest or a very strong protest. The pretext would have been to save Europe from Bolshevism. This very situation was vividly portrayed in a novel Written last year that found thousands of readers in Middle Europe, and few would then have questioned the possible 'truth of the grim forecast it made.
But . today. Czechoslovakia is not worrying. The feeling, so far.as a foreigner can analyse it and sum it up, seems to be this : " We know the Germans "—they do, none better.—" and we know that the. only thing in the world they fear is to lose a new war. We believe that an attack on Czechoslovakia would mean a European war in which Germany would be faced with a coalition too strong for her. We believe that Germany knows this, or at least that her doubts about it are strong enough to deter her from incurring the risk." • This faith in others may surprise those who look back to the Abyssinian episode and the unchecked interference in Spain. But the Czechoslovaks do not delude themselves into imagining that a European coalition would fight for Czechoslovakia's bright -eyes.. They think that France and England realise that French' and British interests would be inexorably menaced by a new subjugation of `Middle Europe. They -recall the treaty imposed on Rumania when that country collapsed : under it Prague. Rumanian wheat and oil and labour were to have been enslaved in perpetuity to a great German-Austrian- Hungarian military machine implacably set on European domination. In their eyes France and England only have one choice: whether Czechoslovakia shall remain independent, or whether the first-rate industry, the man- power, the resources of this land are to go to strengthen the belligerent martial dictatorships, with their incal- culable and illimitable ambitions.
It is vain to lecture Czechoslovakia, as British voices in spite of all post-War experience still tend to do, about her foreign or domestic policy. To urge, under the influence of German propaganda, that she should abandon her pact with Soviet Russia, is to suggest that this isolated democratic country, alone among European countries, should leave undone the little she can do to arrange for her own defence. This at a time when an un- paralleled international armaments race is in progress, when a storm of ominous propaganda is beating about her ears, when great German air forces are crouching astride the Dresden-Prague road, but a few minutes' spring from the Czechoslovak capital, when England is rearming day and night and ostentatiously strengthening her own bonds with France. The idea of Soviet troops in Czecho- slovakia can only be a nightmare to President Belies, looking over the lovely vista of Prague from his windows in the Hradschin among the painted Ilabsburgs. 13ut Czechoslovakia will not abandon this pact save . in exchange for some comprehensive undertaking, with Germany a party, to preserve the peace.
It is equally vain to lecture Czechoslovakia about the treatment of-her German minority. All minorities have wrongs. The German minority in Czechoslovakia has substantial rights—its own schools, newspapers, parties and representation in Parliament. The German minority in South Tirol, under Italian rule, has none of these things, yet no word is ever heard about that question, and Germany and Italy are apparently bosom com- panions.
Czechoslovakia has some 8,000,000 Germans. About a million of them support three anti-Hitlerist German parties—Socialists, Farmers and Clericals—and these parties are represented by three MinisterS in the Govern- ment. The remainder support the Henlcin Party, and the bulk of them would like to belong to Germany. The Henlein Party affirms loyalty to the Czechoslovak State and claims loCal self-government on the Swiss Cantonal model for the Sudetendeutsehen. The Czechoslovaks do not believe in its loyalty to the State. They point out that it sprang into existence overnight when the frankly -Nazi Party was banned as subversive and in- herited the supporters of that party en masse ; and they believe that the reason for the affirmation of loyalty is the desire to avoid a similar ban. They are convinced that the Henlein Party is a Hitlerist and anti-democratic Party in receipt of funds and instructions from Germany, and for that reason will not negotiate with it about the 'grievances of the Henlein Germans. They will not consider a cantonal system and claim that the minority provisions of the Czechoslovak Constitution are perfect, thoUgh they admit discrimination against Germans, arising from fears for the Czechoslovak State, in public employment, allotment of contracts and the like. The Czechoslovak Government is now engaged in drafting, in co-operation with the three German coalition parties, proposals to remedy these grievances.
Czechoslovakia, when the brief period of liberation is considered, is a surprisingly well-found State. Industry is on a level equal with the German. A democratic system has, in spite of everything, been preserved— with some qualifications imposed by contemporary uncertainties, it is true, such as an over-riding military control reaching far down into civilian life in the frontier districts. A more bourgeois State would be difficult to find, and the man who detected any trace of " Bolshevisa- tion " would deserve a prize. Left to herself; Czechoslovakia should in coming years progressively improve the relation- ship with her Germans, a thing which President Benes himself has much at heart. The Czechoslovaks are not popular among foreigners : they lack the social graces and take no pains to ingratiate themselves. But they work hard and have solid merits. They are building as good an arnif as they can and will fight hard if they are attacked. Brit they do not believe they will be attacked. The result is the business activity and unconcern which you see everywhere in CzechoslOvakia today.
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