DR. BENES AND DEMOCRACY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVIII, Issue 38, 14 August 1939, Page 8

DR. BENES AND DEMOCRACY

(To the Editor.)

Sir, —I wish to reply to a letter which appeared on Friday last in your columns signed by "A.8.C." Your correspondent is criticising the actions of Dr. Benes and the Czecho-Slovak State towards the minorities during his regime. To reply to "A.B.C.'s" statement I wish to state that it is definitely a fact that the minorities in Czecho-Slovakia were one of the besttreated minorities in the world. "A.8.C." seems to be of the opinion that the partitioning of Czecho-Slovakia recently was just and fair. I wonder what he has to say regarding the following extract from a letter written by a resident of Czecho-Slovakia, which was found in a case of goods from Czecho-Slovakia, and which I would like you to publish exactly as it is worded: — "Help! Whoever will find this note will learn that Creco (Czecho-Slovakia- j Bohemia) is suffering badly from the Germans, and we have to ask for help! Urgent! Urgent! Confidential." Furthermore, it is recognised through, out the world that Dr. Benes is definitely a democrat, by words and actions.— I am, etc., (To the Editor.) Sir. —No one would deny that Czechoslovakia under Masaryk and Benes made mistakes. "A.8.C." would have difficulty in producing a country or a statesman entirely free from error. He should also find it easy to produce breaches of democracy a thousandfold worse than any he can attribute to Dr. Benes. I submit that in spite of mistakes (most of which were forced upon the leaders of the gallant little country) Czecho-Slovakia was one of the truest democracies in Europe. Further, I believe that its minorities were more favourably dealt with than any other comparable minorities. It is a fair test of the democratic principles of Dr. Benes to ask whether the minorities, including the Sudeten Germans, and also the main body of the population of the now dismembered Czechoslovakia now possess a tithe of the benefits of democracy and freedom they enjoyed before the Munich "crisis."—l am, etc.,

A. C. BARRINGTON.