CENTRAL EUROPE

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 59, Issue 38, 24 November 1938, Page 3

CENTRAL EUROPE

NEW ZEALANDER’S VISIT. NOT HAPPY IN GERMANY. (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, November 23. Exciting days in Central Europe during the recent- crisis were lightly dismissed by Mr A. W. Caldwell, a Wellington business man, who returned to-day by the liner West rn lin alter a tour abroad. He was in Prague at the height of tile tension, hut all lie had to say about it was: “Moll, "0 were a hit nervous.”

Mr Caldwell said he had been through Germany and had seen much of the Nazi regime. Asked what was the feeling of the people towarcl me Government, lie answerled that if they felt as happy as lie did -while he was in their country they did not led happy at all. He had been glad to cross the frontier, lie’ had not liked Germanv at all.

Mr Caldwell said that he was in Prague when Lord Runciniah was there. There was tremendous tension in the city with soldiers drilling and machine-guns commanding the principal thoroughfares. They were right on this frontier when there was a murder in the neighbourhood which it was feared might precipitate an international outbreak of hostilities.. He and his wife and an Australian friend who was travelling with them were the only visitors to the hotel where they were staying. “We felt a. hit nervous,” lie said. However, all had ended well and they had come home in peace.

There was, Mr Caldwell said, a strong feeling in Czechoslovakia that the country was well rid of a constant sore in Sudeten land. The general impression was that the trouble would be patched up and that the Germans and Czechs would come to a satisfactory agreement for the future. The Czechs had impressed him as a lino people and Prague as a dream city.