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International Situation HOUSE OF COMMONS [Brigadier-General Spears.]
The Prime Minister said that the Berlin Commission were attempting to get at the conditions of 1918, and there was no census in 1918, so they went back to 1910. But why not have taken 1920, when there was a census of population? Why is there this constant weighting down of the scales against these wretched people? It is said that in later years the Czechs planted a good many of their people in the Sudetenland; it was called Czechisation." That would have been effective by the time the 1930 census was taken, but it certainly was not effective in the 1920 census. If you are going into that sort of thing, you ought to go back to the Thirty Years War, when the Sudetens first came into that country, planted there by Germany.
The Prime Minister, and I think the Leader of the Opposition also, dealt with the question of opting. That is a very important question. The Prime Minister reminded the House that there was a German-Czech Commission whose duty it would be to settle who could opt, and the indication was that the 580,000 Czechs left in the Sudetenland-I think that that is an under-estimate by at least 100,000 -could opt to go into Czechoslovakia. But I beg the House to ask themselves for a moment how is it possible for 580,000 people to opt to go into this small country which has been deprived of 40 per cent. of its industry? How can skilled workers, who have worked all their lives in the industries of the Sudetenland, go and find a living in the small, diminished, largely agricultural country which Czechoslovakia is now going to be? I think it is abso- lutely absurd.
Then the Prime Minister spoke of the readjustments that were taking place in the frontiers of Czechoslovakia. That sounded as though the readjustment of the frontiers laid down in 1919 was some- thing that was easy to do, but what is actually being done is, as we all know, that the wretched Czechoslovakia, de- prived of all defence, is simply handing over what she is told to hand over. We cannot get away from that. And I must say I feel a little humiliated when I think that, when Hungary makes a new claim on Czechoslovakia, she does not appeal to us or to France, but turns to arbitra- tion by Germany.
The Prime Minister, speaking of Munich and the criticisms that have been levelled
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at the Munich settlement, asked what was the alternative? To what was Munich the alternative? We are told that Munich was the alternative to Godesberg, and that it was a good and favourable alterna- tive as compared with Godesberg. It is quite clear, however, that from the Cezch point of view Munich is worse than Godes- berg was, and Godesberg was stated by the Prime Minister at the time to be un- acceptable. May I quote from the Prime Minister's speech on 3rd October last? Speaking of Munich he said:
"The line up to which German troops will enter into occupation is no longer the line as laid down in the map which was attached to the Godesberg Memorandum."-[OFFICIAL REPORT, 3rd October, 1938; col. 43. Vol. 339.1
But in fact the land occupied by the German troops to-day includes more purely Czech areas than were included in the Godesberg map.
There is another point that has not been referred to, I think, in the Debate. Under the Munich plan the Berlin Commission has allocated to Germany an area on the South bank of the Danube, opposite Bratislava, which was never on the Godes- berg map at all. It was never Sudeten- land. Before the War it was part of the Kingdom of Hungary. That, to my mind, shows what a puppet body that Berlin If the Commission turned out to be. frontier laid down by the Berlin Commis- sion is made permanent, according to my information, over 700,000 Czechs will be included in the German Reich, of whom 270,000 are in compact Czech districts in Moravia and Silesia containing only 30,000 Sudeten Germans. There was an assurance given by the Prime Minister in his speech on 28th September that Hitler had stated at Berchtesgaden and repeated at Godesberg that he had no wish to in- clude in the Reich people of other races than German. Will the Prime Minister make representations to Herr Hitler to obtain a rectification in the sense of Herr Hitler's declarations to him, in which the Prime Minister assured the House he be- lieved him to be sincere.
I would also ask him to make re- presentations under Clause 6 of the Munich Agreement in order to rectify economic injustices. For instance, the water supply of the town of Brno, the capital of Moravia, is just inside the new German frontier, and a very small recti- fication of the frontier would put this right. Again, in many instances districts
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he said on the subject, but, in view of what my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Co-ordination of Defence said on 4th October, that His Majesty's Govern- ment felt under a moral obligation to Czechoslovakia to see that the integrity of Czechoslovakia is preserved, I hope that the Prime Minister and the Govern- ment will take steps to carry out that pledge.
1 NOVEMBER 1938
with large Czech majorities have been taken by Germany apparently simply to allow the frontier to cut Czech main rail- way lines in a number of places. There is another point it may be said to be a small one, but my attention has been drawn to it. There is a kind of island which includes the estates which belong to Count Cinsky, a rich and powerful gentleman with Nazi tendencies. It seems a permissible surmise that that gentleman hoped by returning to Germany to get back the land which was divided by the Czechs under their Agrarian laws.
The Count has many friends in high places in many countries.
I, personally, am particularly ashamed of the way the Berlin Commission has failed so completely to secure a minimum of justice for the Czechs. It has, in fact, proved to be a more effective means of meeting unjust claims than Godesberg itself. I will give one or two examples. There is the town of Policka. It has 6,000 Czech inhabitants and 149 Germans. It has gone to Germany. The town of Breclav has 13,500 Czechs and 1,500 Germans. It has gone to Germany. But this is the record. The town of Hodslavice, with 1,900 Czechs and one German, has gone to Germany. That German cannot claim that he is going to reproduce his kind one day to form a German settlement, because there is only one of him. But this town is of industrial importance. Here is another town, Kopravnice. It has 4,000 Czech inhabitants and only 600 Germans, but it includes the Tatra automobile and aeroplane works. All hon. Members re- member what Czechoslovakia looked like -a long country with rather a thin waist. The Germans have been at pains to narrow that waist still further by taking over large territories with purely Czech majorities. They have made that waist still smaller so that they can separate Bohemia and Slovakia whenever they choose.
I am sorry to say this, but it is evident that the British representative on the Berlin Commission has been singularly unsuccessful in preventing Czechoslovakia from being carved up. If he protested at it, no rumour of that has reached the outside world. [Interruption.] I am very glad to hear it. We all know what M. Daladier, the Prime Minister of France, said on the subject. [Inter- ruption.] I would prefer not to say what
There is one point, which may seem a very small one, but which I think is important. It is now reported in the Press that the rolling stock, locomotives, etc., of Sudetenland which have been removed by the Czechs should, it is now claimed by the Germans, be paid for or returned.
This is an important point, one of the few points we can deal with in the House, because it is in contra- vention of the assurances of the Prime Minister that, in the view of the Govern- ment, installations which might be re- moved should include rolling stock. I think we are entitled to hear something on that point. I have never seen the least reference in the Press, incidentally, to the Germans either offering or being asked to pay for anything they have taken.
I listened to the Prime Minister's speech with a good deal of sadness. There seems to be a fundamental difference of opinion between him and some hon. Mem- bers on this side of the House. His I speech was one call to trust Hitler. cannot trust him, and I do not think the people of this country trust him either. I wish I could share the Prime Minister's optimism, but the whole burden of the remarks I have made merely tend to prove that certain undertakings_were given by Herr Hitler to the Prime Minister at Berchtesgaden and Munich, and that every one of them has been broken. Every one has been broken, so that really, though there may have been something to be said at first, I find it entirely impossible as a reasonable man to trust Hitler to-day.
were
The question of armaments has been touched upon already. Our one excuse for what happened was that we terribly weak. The hon. Member for East Aberdeen (Mr. Boothby) said that this House was blameless in this sense, that it had never refused supplies for arms, and that is true. Last March we were, in fact, given to understand by the
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