TESCHEN'S FUTURE.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 209, 3 September 1919, Page 7

TESCHEN'S FUTURE.

CESSION TO THE POLES.

INDIGNATION AMONG CZECHS. A THREAT OF WAR. {By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright.) VIENNA, September 2. The cession of the Teschen coalfields to tho Poles by the Peace Conference is causing indignation among the Czechoslovaks, who threaten to occupy the district as soon as the Czech prisoners of war in Russia return. —(A. And N.Z.)

Teschen, a district of which little was known before the war, assumed an international importance during the peace discussions. The principality of Teschen measured only 900 square miles, and had a population of 437,000 in 1910. Of this number, 125,000 are Czechs, 75,000 are Germans, 00,000 are people commonly known as Wasserpoles or people of Polish stock swayed by German influence; and then there are 54,000 Corals, Slav mountaineers in the southern part of the district, and finally about 100,000 Poles, mostly recent Immigrants from Galicia, who came to work in the coal mines and iron mills of this district. For more than five centuries Teschen belonged to the Bohemian Crown, and up to about 40 years ago Czech language and Czech schools alone struggled against the attempts of the Austrian Government to make the land German.

An official statement issued recently in Washington said: —"When the Peace Conference Commission visited the district in February, both the Germans and the so-called Wasserpoles and Corals asked for union with the Czecho-Slovak Republic; so did the Mayor of the city of Teschen. Only the Galician immigrants wanted Polish rule. The importance of this small district for the Czecho-Slovak Republic is two-fold. In the first place, the main railroad connecting the Czech half of the republic with the Slovak half passes through the very centre of Teschen between Oderburg and the Pass of Jablunkov. To replace this railroad would be a very difficult undertaking by reason of the mountains senarating Moravia from Slovakia. Of "still greater importance are the coal mines located in the northwestern and northern end of the district. These mines produce the only coal suitable for coking, without which the great Czecho-Slovak steel industry cannot ! exist. In the past nearly all of the coal j produced around Oderburg was passed in Czecho-Slovak factories, very little going into lands now Polish. Besides, the Poles will receive even more important cod mines located in the Polishspeaking districts of Prussian Silesia, and they have other coal areas in what used to be Russian Poland. The feeling in Bohemia is absolutely unanimous as to Teschen, and •if Premier Kramar and Foreign Minister Benes come home from Paris without Teschen, the Ministry is sure to fall."