CZECHOSLOVAKIA

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 56, 7 March 1930, Page 7

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

PRESIDENT MASARYK I

AN ARDENT PACIFIST

Masaryk—tho President of Czecho* Slovakia —whose 80th birthday falls to-day, has been professor of philosophy at tho Czech University, Prague, since 1882. He manifested Ms efforts for the sake of peace by his activities as teacher, writer, and politician. By speech arid by writing Professor; Masaryk took his stand against pessimism in ethics, against materialism, against suicidal unbelief, against superstition and empty worship of God. Masaryk is perfectly convinced of tho existence of God and of the immortality of the human soul; his humanitarian ethics are based upon the principles of wisdom, morals, and piety. To him religion is a matter of conscience and heart, a source of charity. POLITICAL VIEWS. As a politician and founder of the Czech National Party or Eealist Party, he not only did notfabandon historical rights, but rather at the same time emphasised the natural rights and the requirements of real life. Politics is' to him a science and an art; democracy is not only a political system to him; but also a moral one and a moral one above all things. Over and over again he appeals to Charles Havlicek's "reasonable and honest" policy, which requires the improvement of head and heart, that is, evolution arid by no means revolution. Nevertheless, in certain circumstances, it is necessary to defend oneself with iron and blood. THE SOCIAL QUESTION. Though Masaryk was an adversary of Marx's Historical Materialism and his idea of class-war, yet he respected his energetic endeavours on behalf of the weak. The social question is to Masaryk neither a mere question of tho labour-party', nor a question of a single class and caste, but a question of all. In Austria, Masaryk worked for the agreement and the co-operation of nations and social classes, he worked, for the international temperence movement, he worked for the emancipation, of men and women, and insisted in the Austrian Parliament on the introduction of education for peace-day into schools. THE BALKAN PROBLEM. When the, Balkan problem was about to bo solved, the independence of tho Balkans ;md a Serbian, harbour on the Adriatic were at stake, Masaryk was the direct mediator between the Australian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Count Berchtold, a7id the head of the Serbian Government, M. Pasic, and thus ho contributed to the settlement of the conflict which might have led to a war of Austria-Hungary. against Serbia. By the union- of! the South-Slavs Masaryk intended to set up a barrier against tho aggressive German policy of the East which was dangerous to the peace of Europe. The outcome of Masaryk's several, journeys to Kussia has been the work "Russia and Europe," of which may be said it carries the key of the collapse of tho Czarist dominion and of its overthrow by the Bolshevist Revolution. By tho Peace-Union at Brunn Masaryk was elected as candidate for the International Conference of Peace, but tho vortex of the war swept Masaryk'3 pacifistic plans away. Austria drove Serbia into the world-war. -' DURING THE WAR. After the outbreak of war Masaryk comprehended that a great struggle was .to be settled between the efforts of German imperialism to erect a German world-supremacy and the exertions of . modern democracy to create a world organisation of independent nations. Regardless of success or failure, only because ho defended right, Masaryk, and with him the Czechoslovak nation, took his stand on the side of the Allied Powers and proclaimed throughout tho whole world that it was necessary to shatter Austria, the main support of Prussian militarism' and oppressor of Slav nations, and that independent States were to bo established up6n the ruins of Austria according to the principles of modern freedom and progress. And thus Masaryk carried a moral maxim into the world-war and worked for his small nation, worked for the realisation of universal &nd human interests.. \ HAPPINESS SAOaiFICED. Masaryk—an old man of nearly seventy years of age, but of heroic mind—made a sacrifice of his personal and domestic happiness to his opinion. Whilst his' family were persecuted by the Austrian authorities, he himself for four years wandered from one nation to another and proceeded with Komen-.. sky's interrupted efforts. By his personal fame he gained the Allied Powers, even the great President Wilson, over, to the independent Czechoslovak State, and finally after three hundred years of serfdom, by dint of the renowned Corps of Legionaries he restored "the Government of Affairs" into the hands of the Czech nation. On tho 21st of December, 1918, he returned with a triumph never seen before to Prague as the Deliverer, the Chief of the young State, regenerated from the Sumava tothe Tatil, that he might contribute to the completion of the Czechoslovak democracy to the reconstruction of Spe and to organisation of the whole world. '