10
THE HONGKONG TELEGRAPH. MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 14, 1936.
MEN AND THINGS ABROAD
Where Slav and Teuton Meet
ROM the Austrian border to the Polish, roughly, round three sides of a square, there runs for 600 miles or so one of the most anxious frontiers in Europe.
Inside the square is democratie Czechoslovakia; outside is Nazi Germany. From Prague, the capital to the German border is only some nity miles.
Historically, this frontier line divided the "Crown-lands" of the Habsburgs from the terri- tories of Bavaria and Saxony and Prussia. From 1871 to 1910 it was the boundary between the German and Austro-Hungarian Enspires.
Then, by the Peace Trenties, Czechoslovakia was created: the Uhren Autelat provinces of Ita. Toravia and Sileska,
which the Czechs were the majority, the Slovak districts of Northern Hungary, and away to the East another bit of Austria, in which the people are Russian.
О
F the 14,700,000
cltt- zen of the Corchoslovak Re- pulite. 7,700,000 are Czechs, 2,000,000 Slovakts, 3,200,000 Germans. 700.000 Hungarians, 600,601) Ilusadans, 80,000 Poles, and 200,000 Jews.
And of thin 3,200,000 Germans (Sudeten-Deutschen, they call themselves, from the Sudete Mountains), the big inajorly live in the districts by the German border. There are, pro- portionately, just about as many Germans in Czechoslovakin as French-Swims in Switzerland. They inhabit an area nearly the size of Beiplum.
It is the biggest national minority in any European State. And a exienen la'n compl- catlag factor in the situation.
*These Sudde-Germans of Czechoslovakia were, of course, before the Pence, not "Ger-
by W.N.
EWER
mans," but "Austrians." When the treaties were made they claimed that they, as well as the Czechs, had the right to "self- determination," asked to be united with "German Austria."
But the treaty-makers rejected their claims. On historical, econo- male and atrategic grounds it was deelded that the German districts must be part and parcel of the new Czechoslovak State.
Moreover,
there was no sharp language- frontier. In the most German areas there is a Czech minority: there are, in other places, German islands entirely surrounded by Czechs.
Since then they have been a people with a grievance, . At the least, they said, they should have been treated on a footing of com- · plete equality with the Czechs: ne the French-Swiss In Switzerland,
But, they complained, the Stute. was, in fact as well as name, a Czechoslovak Republic, Czech and Slovak were its official languages, but not German. In the army, In the Civil Service, marked pre- ference was given to Czechs.
11
They were, they said, treated not in any way as equal partners, but A half-allen minority: with richts indeed
A minority Kvaranired them by the treaties: but not with the full equally to which hele numbers and their economic importance entitled : 11.
COMPLAIN
OMPLAINTS have not ben without substance. The Gumans of Czechoslovakin have never bee, treated as the Swiss french. Aid there have been dis- esanimations, the Post Omee, for example, only 12.54 per cent. of the employees are Germans.
HENLEIN
E
SILESIA
UPPER
Teschen
oPrague
BOHEMIA
MORAV
Brno
USTRIA
SLOVAKIA
Bratislava.
"Is his Parly the advance guard of an aggressive Nazism?"
on the railwaya only 12 per ceut. In the whole Slate service, the Germans claim, they have nearly 50,000 fewer posts thun their numbers warrant.
For seven years all the German parties were in opposition. Then Svchla promised that the Germans should be treated its equals arons
The equate."
German Agrarians and Social Democrats entered the Government. A new ora seemed opening.
But progress 10 equnilty, though real, was slow: and there eame the industrial depression, hitting Czechoslovakia very hard, hting the highly industrialized German districts hardest of all.
Discontent grew again, with new complaint of economic discrimina tion piled on the old Much of it -perhaps most of it--was unjus- tified. Czech supremacy took the blame for the effects of the world slump. Germen nationalist propaganda found the soli pre-
An Interrupted Holiday
"AJORÇA, the Golden Island
M
of the Mediterranean, la doomed.
Five days ago I was in the streets of Palma, her capital, when two antiquated seaplanes sounded the denth-knell.
It was not as though Palms had never been bombed before, because every day since the Spanish revo lution began a plane has flown over in the morning to drop pamphlets announcing a bombing hetore evening.
Every evening the Government leaders in Barcelóną have been as good as their word. A plane has dropped a fes ineffectual bumba.
But Thursday the tune enged. From somewhere the Air Force.
ared blalıexplosive bonibs, and for the frane Majores learned not to laugh.
I stood in the street with a handful
of rebel soldiers, smiling confidently
as they, certain that it would be duly pamphlets the planes would drop.
I Ran for Shelter
I heard the sound of a terrifle ex-
plosion three streets away.
The simile left our lips. This was no fire-cracker that had gone off.
Tho utile machine-guns were pat- tering now, ns I ran for shelter, count ing the seconda as I went. Some Instinct warned me to Ring myself to earth in a bronil ditch. A deafening false blotted out my sight, my sound. my feeling.
Toppling Walls
Bits of stone and mortar were failing all · around. .... I. Birizgled to my knees and strove to see through the thick dust.
Down by the Puerto, not a hundred yards from where I brouched, stands The Almudaina barracks. The dust cleared in time for me to see one ancient Moorinit wall of those barracks crumble and topple into the broad street, burying the shattered bodies of a machine-gun crew.
I did not walt for more. Iran. The plaucs would be back in a moment. You could hear them banking in the distance.
Screaming Woman
An I ran a taxt vereeched in a stop hehide me and a woman I know actennial to me to get in. 'She was
by
PAUL MORTON
A Canadian zournalist who was taken of Maioren by the Depute.
On the ofiskiria of Majorca,
near hysteria. Ter Ince and hands were bloody and her frock torn.. In her hand she clutched a bundle of banknotes
As the taxi tore along the boulevard to the safety of the suburbs, she told me how she had been in the Banca Reensons drawing out enougli ta leave the island when a 'bomb scored a direct hit. Two doors of the big building crashed down about her ents, burying many people.
She had had a miraculous exenpe. The shock of the expiesion had thrown her under the overhang of the counter and the debris had missed her by Jaches.
Companion Shot
A couple of hours Inter I was obey- ing the command of the Pro-Vice-Con- zul, Mr. Grorge Baward, and was raz- ing in a nuval pinnace out to #MS. Repulse.
Epeeding to Ezzely on the aceit of the Mary's second largest battleship, I looked back on the sun-klased city-of Palina. It was, with difeulty that I' realised
changea ปาง **Ceping
that had taken place within Engle week.
靄
On Monday I had bathed with young Juan on the beach at El Terreno, was teaching him to do a back-ditve.
Tuesday morning 1 was to have re- peated the lesson, Instead I sat in the Plaza Gomila and watched his funeral procession pass slowly down the street. He had been shot by the rebels.
That night An English frleuki sounded what is entled "Razzberry" at a sqund of the little boy soldiers. ite. was arrested and spent the night in prison.
Vierina
The Governor was pained, and said. he hoped the habit would not become. general.
Buried Revolver
The following day all civilian weapons were confiscated. With a sign of regret Major Charles Gilson aurret- .dered his sword to the authorities. A15- other ex-officer burled his service revol ver in his yard, hoping to retrieve it nt n inter unte
Late Wednesday afternoon an officer In Pollenza naked Palma to cend food. A truck was sent out with four zoldiers. The officer shot the soldiers as they turned over the food, and raced for the open sea in a speed boat.
Near Porto-pl I saw an execution. Three little boy soldiers were taken out and shot. They tried to be brave, and succeeded. But their obvious fright was horrible to watch.
16 Bombs
Just before the Repulse 'weighed anchor in Palma Bay, I watched two more planes drop sixteen heavy bombs in the city. This attack completely broke the morale of the elvilian popu- Intion of the city. In thousands they ned to the hills.
Through my glasses I watched the Blow evacuation of Palma, and as the Government bombers disappeared over the mountains towards Barceloun, I suddenly realized that I was ace ing the Palma I knew for the salt time.
For there can be no doubt that whichever way the tide of war goes, before the revolution ta ended, the Golden Island of the Mediterraneani will have been bombed off the shap of 'Bpain.
·To-day's Thought- THE magle of the tongue is the most dangerous, of all apollo. -BULWER-LYTTON,
apest
Germans ut
C:Slovakia. Magyars (da)
Ruthenians (do)
Chief Coal &
Industrial Districts
D
PATHIANS
E. SLOVAKTÀ
HUNGARY
200
400
RULMANTA
600 Miles
Map from "The Atlas of Current Affairs," by J. F. Horrabı.
rared: especially Among the young. At the General Election t May of last year the new Sudeten Deutsche Partel, hended by Con- rad Henkel, a former bank clerk who had become organiser of. German athletic associations, won startling victories, sweeping the German areas..
It is a new and a dangerous phenomenon, for the Henlein party-though feulein vehemently denies that it in either Nazi or dis- guised Nnal, or that it is in touch with the Nazis and the Reich-has marked Nazi characteristics.
It Is vehemently anti-Socialist, and anti-Liberal. It in totalitarian, in that I claims that the one party with its one leader should repre- sent all the Germans of Czecho- slovakin, that within the commun- ity parties and class condlets must vanish. It is, though less vehem- ently, anti-Semitic.
BUT
UT above all there is the other question. Are Henlein and his party toyal to the State? Are they Oghting merely for full equality for the Germans of Czechoslovakia? Or are they the advance guard of an aggressive Nazism, planning to break the State from within, to prepare the way for a new German conquest of the Czech lands?
Henlein himself insists that his movement is neither disruptive nor pan-German.
"We do not want to work against the State. We wish to work loyally with the State. We want to be treated as citizens having equal rights with the others, and to find within the State security for our nationality!
He insists that internationally.he is working for peace and recon- elliation.
"Our rent mission lies in acting as mediator between our great German mother nation and the Czech people. That is our great task in the 'cause
H
of prace."
..
The Cinel pear. that they are not er. d. They frankly dia- trust In nad his assitanera, They new in his moventent a double threat: an internal threat to demo-" cracy and external threat from ever the frontier.
"Distrust," they cam, "will only vanish when I benutes glear that Henlein's words arc Renuinely meant."
Abroad, they say, he talks of loyalty and reconciliation. But at home his party does not indulge in positive and loyal criticism, but in criticism at all costs and in pro- voking racial animosity."
It la o diflicult and dangerous situation for the Ccehis.. A large, organised, discontented national minority is a serious problem for any State. It is a huvired tlates more serious when that minority Is Inked by language and national feeling to a prople of a great and militant Power just Over border.
tin
A polley conelllation lavolves
the risk of strengthening and bringing into key positions in the State inchiue elements which would work from within to weaken and destroy it. -
A polley of repression might easily lead to open revolt and an appeal for nid from across the border: It might play straight into the hands of pan-Germanism. It must certainly aggravate and mnke worse relations betwein Czechoslovakia and her powerful neighbour: a dangerous thing in itself.
·T.
HE
choice is not casy. But there are signs that President Benes and Premier Hadza are trying quietly, the possibilities_of_ conciliation. If Henlein responds: if he can satisfy them that the Germans will be loyal, a settlement should not be impossible.
And then from this most anxious of Europe's borderlands some at least of the anxiety should vanish.
ROUNDABOUT
-by The Showman
OLIDAY makers are finding much to interest them in the House of Commons. There is, for example, the magic wand used by Mr. Walter Elliot when he makes his periodical entrances dressed as the fairy queen of agri- cultural prosperity.
There is the famous cow from Burma, whose voracious exploits you and I have noticed before. She arrived in this country a fortnight ngo, und is now stabled at Westminster. Her task la to eat Minsters' words-50 45 to save them the trouble-before Par- lament reassembles.
Chamberlain's And there is Mr. comlo dickey, preserved in a case just inside the door to the right. It is worn only at full-dress debates, and is so contrived that it files up and hita hi a smock on the nose whenever laughter. is needed to ease the tension.
Elut visitors " anxious to see the seat on which their local M.P. sits" will be disappointed, I fear. The M.P. usually takes it with him.
Or have I been vulgar?
The Old Red Cow
HAVING talked of a cow, I am re-
minded that our Fascist friends are now all equipping their trains of thought with Moscow catchers.
When the Brass Band Goes...
A glad to read that Mr. O'Donnell, conductor of the B.RO, Military "Band, thinks that musicians must ba brought to the studios "since the broadcasting of band music in the open air can be seriously magred by adverse weather conditions."
A friend of mine used to play one of those vast funnel-shaped instruments that go" pomp, comp" once, ar at most twice, in the course of a piece. In be tween times he would do his knitting, or read a book, or talk to his wife, or have a cup of tea... well, anyhow, one day, just after his first "pomp," there was a heavy shower of rain..
IL was a long-pire, and, when it entre to his eitt "okup." the day had cleared and the rain was forgotten.
Well, he blew. There was no "comp." Instead there was a violent water-spout that fell on the audience.
The conductor simply loved it. Or have I got things mixed up?
"ONE FINE DAY"
It has already been pointed out to me that we have had It
Camouflage
NAID & woman competitor. in the
Olymple Games: When you are running before a great crowd you naturally want to feclus ile self- Conscious as passible, so, of course. I Use my cosmetics."
Here is a useful tip for welshing bookmakers, next Derby Day..
Chinese Scene
THE venerable sage Wang Puk, was altting beneath à mulberry tree drinking tea with his silk-worm. All was serene. Not a spoon stirred. The distant peaks of the mountains of Hal blushed at the approach of night.
Master," said the silk-worm, "tell me: may. a-man marry his widow's niece?
"May a man...?" began the sage; and Wien, auddenly checked tumseit. He turned a grim gazo on his com- panion....
The silk-worm dropped his eyes, and wriggled uneasily. It went down very well with us worms," he stum- mered.
But when he looked up again, the sage had gone. A atur foll. An army deserted. He began to collect the ten things.
Wags' Corner
THE new minister was talking to the
oldest inhabitant. "I be ninety-seven years ok!, sir,” said the ancient, 'and I haven't an enemy in the world."
"That's a fine thought, saki - the minister approvingly.
"I'm Yes, alr" was the reply," thankful to say, I've outlived them.pil.”
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