CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 242, 9 July 1938, Page 3 (Supplement)

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Its Political Position

Here is the Czechoslovak picture. On the eastern boundary of Germany, between that country and Russia, stretches the Republic of Czechoslovakia, built up after the Great War out of populations stripped from Austria and Hungary. The dominating race are the Czechs, of the same family as the Yugoslavs. There is a large population of Slovaks who are racial cousins of the Czechs. There are some Ruthenians, brothers of the Russians. And, out of the total Czechoslovak" population of fourteen millions, there are-three and a half million Sudeten Germans, blood brothers of the Prussians. For nearly twenty years all the other peoples in Czechoslovakia have been subjected to the domination of the Czechs. This ruling race has occupied most of the chief departments of State, as well as many of the subsidiary offices in the republic. But this ascendency of the Cezchs has not been marked by the persecution of the minorities in the republic. Despite the accusations of other countries, it has been many years since there was any persecution in Czechoslovakia. The present Premier, Dr. Milan Hodza, is not a Czech at all, but a Slovak. He is sixty, son of a farmer and a practical farmer himself. From Dr. Hodza the”Sudeten Ger-, mans, as a result of German influence, have demanded rights and liberties extending even to self-government, on the lines of the self-government now enjoyed by the Irish Free State. But -this measure of self-government, even if conceded, would not be satisfactory to Germans on both sides of the Czechoslovak frontier, unless the Czechoslovak Government altered its foreign policy. For that policy involves a defensive alliance with Russia against German invasion from without and against the increase of German influence within the republic.