CZECH FRONTIERS

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 6, 7 July 1938, Page 17

CZECH FRONTIERS

HOW THEY WERE^ FIXED

SIR JOSEPH COOK'S MEMORY]

Sir Joseph Cook, who is the last sur«» viving British member of the Peaca Conference committee which drew the frontiers of Czechoslovakia, declared, in an interview with the "Sydney Morning Herald," that the present trouble over the Sudeten Germans was of so recent an origin that he could only, surmise that Herr Hitler's motives were not derived from solicitude foe what w^s formerly a reasonably con* tented minority, but front expansionist ' ambitions. ■■ -. "My two nearest colleagues on- tha committee," said Sir Joseph, "were Sir Eyre" Crowe, probably the best-in-formed man on European affairs of his time, and M. Cambon, the French representative. Both are now dead, as are several other members who sat with us." The committee, he explained, had set out to- draw' ethnographic boundaries for the new nation, but had quickly encountered difficulties. One of these centred upon the Teschen coalfields im the north, where some 250,000 Poles were employed. "To have deprived Czechoslovakia of these coalfields," said Sir Joseph Cook, "would hava been to.deny her the means of economic sustenance." We .therefore brought them within the frontier. "When we :came to consider th« north-west boundary, which is the pre* sent ssource of trouble, we resolved to make the long chain of mountains there the frontier, not only because it provided a natural barrier, • but be«* cause all the railheads were-concen-trated in that area. To have decided! otherwise would- have left part of the railway system in alien territory. These mountains, I may say, have since been mined, and are heavily fortified. If the Germans should march in this area they will find themselves up against a formidable obstacle." . THE WAY TO THE SEA. On the south, he continued, the com* mittee had included about 400,000 Hungarians in the new nation, for tha reason that, had it not done so, they; would have been robbed of their established market in the. interior. Even more weighty was the consideration that Czechoslovakia would have to be provided with a waterway to the sea. by way of the Danube. By fixing tha 'frontier where it did, the committee gave her this necessary-.facility. "As topthe claims of minorities," said Sir* Joseph, ."it is almost a practical impossibility to fix rigid boundaries on an ethnological basis in Europe. Tha best that can be done is to arrive at . a reasonable compromise as between various nations and their civilisations. In the case of Czechoslovakia there was created a nation which, under the masterly guidance of Masafyk andi Benes, was politically, economically, '. and industrially, a great success from the beginning, until Nazi propaganda, began to make itself felt among ther German minority. "The country has been prosperous for nearly twenty years,.-and is singu- > larly well governed-.and--progressive. Under the system of proportional representation, the . German--., element, which composes "bhly^^aWßrflflii of th» population, returned as "many members to the national Parliament, in proportion to numbers- as the Czechs and; Slovaks. - -And' it should be borne i» mind that relatively -few complaints were heard from, that • qtiarter until, comparatively recently."