CZECH & GERMAN

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 79, 30 September 1938, Page 10

CZECH & GERMAN

THE RUNCIMAN REPORT

FULL TEXT ISSUED HERE

SYMPATHETIC STUDY

An important contribution towards the understanding of the European crisis has reached "The Post" in the form of documents in connection with the dispute between Czechoslovakia and Germany, published by the Government as a White Paper. The White Paper contains the letter which Lord Runciman of Doxford, Britain's "unofficial official" emissary to investigate the situation in Czechoslovakia, wrote to the Prime Minister of Britain on September 21, the full text of the Anglo-French proposals, and the series of letters between Mr. Chamberlain and F 3rr Hitler up' to the communication which the German Chancellor sent to London by Sir Horace Wilson, adviser to the Foreign Office, on September 27, and two letters from the Czech Minister in London to the United Kingdom Government. Lord Runciman's letter, written after he had left Prague, reveals the Czechoslovak position as it was represented to Mr. Neville Chamberlain and on the basis of which his subsequent proposals have been framed. Lord Runciman declares that he had perfect freedom to obtain his own information. The problem, as he found it, was threefold, constitutional, political, and economic. He applied himself to the first matter, which at first implied the home rule of the Sudeten Germans within the Czech Republic. Familiarising himself with the Karlsbad demands of Herr Henlein and the "Eight Points" submitted by the Czech Government; he concluded that the two sets of proposals were sufficiently acceptable to both sides to form a basis for negotiation. A NEW BASIS FOUND. He formulated a new basis and communicated it to both sides, and declares that the "more responsible Sudeten leaders" recognised that this incorporated almost all their requirements. But, he says, "it is my belief that the very fact they were so favourable operated against their chance of acceptance with the more extreme members of the Sudeten German Party." He holds the opinions that an excuse^ was found for the breaking off of negotiations by the Sudetenlanders. Even though the Czech Government at once gave away, he^is .convinced that "this did not suit the j policy of the Sudeten extremists," and he believes that incidents were "provoked and instigated on September 11 and with greater effect after Herr Hitler's speech on September 12." He places the final responsibility for the break which followed on Herr Henlein and Herr Frank "and upon those of their supporters, inside and outside the country, who were urging them to extreme and unconstitutional action." By the time he left Prague on September 16, however, the riots and disturbances "which had never been more than sporadic," had died down. He dismisses exaggerated German claims about the position by saying, "I have been credibly informed that at the time of. my leaving the number killed on both sides was not more than 70." Unless the Freikorps was deliberately encouraged to cross the frontier he did riot expect any renewal of the trouble; after the extremists,had fled -to Ger T many.. .'.,-. NO LONGER INTERNAL. After Herr Hitler's Nuremberg speech and its consequences he held that the dispute ceased, to be an internal one, and that it was no part of his function to attempt mediation between Czechoslovakia and Germany. Nevertheless he makes some comments on the position. He has much sympathy with the Sudeten case. "It is a hard thing to be ruled by an alien race," and he has the impression that while the Czech regime* for the last 20 years has not been actively oppressive and "certainly not terroristic" it "has been marred by tactlessness, lack of understanding, petty intolerance, and discrimination to the point where resentment of the German population was inevitably moving in the direction of revolt." The Sudeten Germans feel that they have been given too many promises, and that little or no action has followed these promises. This experience has created an attitude, of veiled mistrust of leading Czech statesmen, though he cannot say how far the mistrust is merited. Moreover, •in the 1935 election the Sudeten German Party polled more votes than any other single party and actually formed the second largest party in the Parliament, but they could always be out-voted, and consequently some of them felt that constitutional action was useless. , -. Local irritations * were added to major grievances. Czech officials and Czech police speaking little or no German were appointed in large numbers to purely German districts. Czech agricultural colonists were encouraged to settle on land transferred under land reform in the middle of German populations; for the children of these Czech invaders schools were built on a very large scale, "there was a general belief that Czech firms were favoured against German firms in the allocation of State contracts and that the State provided work and relief for Czechs more readily than for Germans." He believes these complaints in the main justified. All these grievances were intensified by the effect of the depression on Sudeten industry and the Government was blamed for the resulting impoverishment. For many reasons, therefore, the feeling of the Sudeten Germans until about three or four years ago was one of hopelessness: But the rise of Nazi Germany gave them new hope; and he regards their turn^ towards their kinsmen as inevitable. At the time of his arrival the moderates still desired a settlement within the frontiers of the Czech State. They realised that war would make the Sudeten area a battlefield. But the effort towards this end broke down because of the extremists. PROMPT CESSION URGED. He urged that the frontier districts where the Sudeten Germans were "an important minority" should be given the right of self-determination at once. If cession was inevitable he believed that it should be done "promptly and without procrastination." There was a real danger in the continuance of a state of uncertainty. Any kind of plebiscite would be a sheer formality in predominantly German areas. But transfer of the frontier districts does not end the problem. ' There remain Germans in other areas and "economic connections are so close that an absolute separation is not only undesirable but inconceivable," and he believes that history has proved that "in times of peace these two peoples can live together on friendly terms." He recommends that Czechoslovakia should remodel her foreign policy so as to give assurances to her neighbours that 'she would in no circumstances attack them, that she should receive a guarantee of her integrity . from the principal Powers and that a commercial treaty oh preferential terms should be negotiated with Germany. The economic problem, he says, will fall to the German Government to solve if the territory is transferred. Pending any transfer he recommends that an international force should keep order in the territory.