CZECHO-SLOVAKIA

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 136, 10 June 1932, Page 9

CZECHO-SLOVAKIA

SOME PERSONAL OBSERVATIONS.

An address on sonic aspects of Czechoslovakia was delivered yesterday before the members of the- Lyceum Club at lunch by Mrs. 11. M.-Algie, who is a keen observer and a vivid speaker. To bring before her audience some idea of this new republic, Mrs. Algie gave a brief resume of the history of its peoples. The new State is composed of the historic lands of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, and also includes Slovakia and Kuthenia, or Sub-Carpathian Russia. For a thousand years Slovakia had been under the Magyars, and for 300 years Bohemia and Moravia were ■under Austrian rule. Czecho-Slovakia has a population of between fourteen and fifteen milliciis, of which the Czechs and the Slovaks represent CO per cent. Their minorities represent German, Polish, Ruthenian, Kimuinian and Jewish peoples, and the speaker pointed out how successful the new republic was with its minorities problem. The history of the people was a

trifle vague, but about the fifth century, 8.C., a Celtic tribe known as the Bou settled there (hence the name Bohemia), and were followed by a Teutonic tribe. About the year 4.">1 the Slav tribe, called the Czechs, arrived. The empire known as Bohemia grew in Western culture and civilisation, and in spite of inroads and aggression by Germans maintained itself till the battle of the White Mountain in 1020.

Tlie speaker traced the history of the people down to the twentieth century, when there emerged a man of humble parentage, a .Slovak, the son of a coachman. Ho was apprenticed to a blacksmith, but through his own efforts rose to be a professor in the University of Vienna, and then to a "position'in the old Czech University at ..Prague. This man has been called the greatest -man in Europe to-day, and the most remarkable man of the nineteenth century. Ho is Thomas Garrique Masaryk. Mrs. Algic gave a vivid picture of his tall, upright figure, thin and keen as a sword blade, walking down a path at a great garden party which she was privileged to attend in a castle that was a thousand years old. Tho Now Zealand visitors were privileged to be introduced and to exchange a few remarks with the man who had foreseen with clear vision the disintegration of the old Austro-Hiiiigarian Empire, and had prepared his/people for it.

Mrs. Algie described in telling language incidents of her visit. They walked about the wonderful old city of Prague, went into the country districts and saw remarkable husbandry, and were struck with tho happiness and honesty of the people. She had seen women leave their handbags behind a box in the street, and they were never touched. In the country fruit trees were planted along all the roads, and the fruit was never stolen. When they tried to over-pay ■a motor car driver, who did not speak English, he became embarrassed, and returned them all the notes they proffered. So they told him to write down the fare, which he did. Professor and Mrs. Algie met the intellectual leaders in the university, but were equally struck by the brilliant linguistic ability of tho people. In complimenting 0110 man on his ability in English he explained that he was not a linguist, as ho only spoke eight languages, while others spoko fourteen. Mrs. Algie referred to the fine conditions obtaining in their factory system, where the workers seemed happy, well and contented, and closed with the opinion that tho Czech Slavonic republic motto "Pravda Vitezi," which, translated, moans, "Tho truth will prevail." was shown in the outcome of their civilisation.