OPTIMISTS’ CLUB

Evening Star, Issue 20779, 29 April 1931, Page 12

OPTIMISTS’ CLUB

THE MANGE OF GZEGHO SLOVAKIA At the Y.M.C.A. Optimists' luncheon yesterday Dr Marshall Macdonald delivered "a most interesting address. Speaking on the above subject, the doctor said: Czecho Slovakia is just a new and ugly name for the ancient kingdom of Bohemia, which was joined up with four other States at the Treaty ol Versailles. We learn the name of Bohemia quite early in our schooldays when we are told about the Battle of Crecy, where the Black Prince slew the King of Bohemia after a fight extending to many rounds, plucked' the three feathers from his crest, and placed them in his own helmet, adopting at the same timo the motto " lch dien " for . future Princes of Wales. Later on at school we read Shakespeare and find him making Auligonons say: " Our ships have touched upon the deserts of Bohemia," showing that he would have had some difficulty in getting a pass in geography. Then in one ot Marion Crawford's novels you get an excellent description nf the capital of Bohemia, Prague, which is famous as being: the possessor of the only street in Europe that can vie in picturesque beauty with Princes street, Edinburgh—and, of course, it can only vio with it. Bohemia, like Belgium, has been one of the principal battlefields of Europe, and if you wish to get an account of how this country was soaked in blood and how Prague was besieged and taken and sacked and retaken, how it served as a pivot for the struggles of Eustavas Adolphus and Wallenstein, Turenne and Conde, with the great figure of Richelieu always looming in the- background, you will find a most interesting one in Schiller's ' History of the Thirty Years War.' Bohemia was often reduced to the point of ruin in this and other wars, but she rendered three great services to Europe. She repelled successive Tartan invasions, she resisted German domination for 1,000 years, and she preserved liberty of conscience for the Western nations.

This little country lies in the Slav belt, a comparatively narrow strip stretching across Central Europe from Dantzic on the Baltic to the mouth of the Danube in the Black Sea. This narrow, strip of country has always been' a storm centre for Europe. It was peopled by successive invasions of Slavs from Western and Northern Russia, and the Czechs arrived in Bohemia and settled there in the fifth century A.n.—i e., just at the period when the Goths were sacking Rome, and that great empire was splitting up into eastern and western portions, and Constantino, the first Christian Emporor, was colonising Britain with Roman legionaries. The first king was Premsyl and the Premsyl dynasty ruled for GOO years. When Charlenagne re-established the Roman Empire the kingdom of Bohemia was incorporated in it, and so again a century later when Otto founded tiie Holy Roman Empire. As early as 1348 the University of Prague was founded, in the long _ struggle against Teutonic domination, tho nobles were pro-German, but the peasants carried on the fight for civil and religious liberty, and the preservation of the national language. These wars were called tho Hussite Wars after the leader, John Huss, who was a friend and pupil of John WyclifFc, the translator of tho English Bible. Bohemian independence was almost destroyed at the battle of the White Mountain, and then came the terrible struggle of tho Thirty Years War. Bohemia was incorporated in the dual monarchy in 1866, but when war broke out in 1914 the Czech 'regiments refused to march with the Austrian colours. Many were shot down and many deserted to Russia and joined once more in > their old struggle against German domination. When Russia laid down arms at Brest Litovsk in 1916, the Czechoslovakian legion set out for _ Vladivostock and finally succeeded in reaching France, and forming tho three Czech o-Slovakian Armies. Lloyd George described this feat at the time as one of the epics of history. Franklin Lane, a member of Mr Wilson’s Cabinet wrote.: “The advance of the Czecho-Slovakian Legion, across 5,000 miles of Russian Asia, on foreign territory, without any Government and holding not one foot of land, yet recognised as a nation ,is tho greatest romance of tho war. Great Britain formally recognised Czecho-Slovakia as an allied nation and her three armies as allied and belligerent armies waging regular war on Germany and AustroHungary. Tho United States followed suit. This nation is now a republic with two Houses of Parliament, and a President to he elected annually after the death of President Masanyk who is President for life in recognition of tho great inspiration his leadership gave to tho nation after ho escaped to Paris in tho outbreak of war. The Republic consists of Bohemia, and four other States:—lt is half industrial and half agricultural and pastoral. The chief industries are glass, soft goods —o.g., hats, ties, and gloves—sugar, steel, hams, and beer, tho famous Pilsener Beer being called after tho town Pilson in Bohemia. It has the great advantage of producing much of its own raw material—o.g., sugar, starch, glass, porcelain, timber, iron, etc. It has the richest radium mines in tho ■ world. Its production of gnpphito is sebmed only too true of England, and it produces very fine kaolin and cement. Tho health resorts such as Marienbad and Branyensbad attract many tourists to this country._ Although it is completely land-locked it has access to tho sea at Hamburg and Slettin by tho rivers Elbe and Oder which have been internationalised, and to the Black Sea by the Danube. And what of tho future? Czechoslovakia is tho most highly industrialised of all central European States, much more so than Bulgaria. Poland, Jugoslavia, and Rumania. But it is surrounded on three sides by Germany and Austria. The political combination of tho Little Entente (Czecho-Slovakia, Jujoslavia, and Rumania) has no stability as it leaves out important States. In its place lias been formed what is called tho “ Agrarian Bloc ” of all the central States. A very interesting book was published last year called ‘ Les Deux Europe,’ by Francis do Laisy who showed that there are really two separate Europes, a central industrial one which can bo included in a line drawn from Stockholm to Danzig, Bnda Pest, Florence, Barcelona, across tho north of Spain, and up the coast of Franco and England to Glasgow, across to Bergen and back to Stockholm. Inside this area tho standard of living is high and even the agriculture is to an extent industrialised. Outside lies the other Europe with its lack of education, horsepower, intercommunication, electricity, and its low standard of living, tho people being content to subsist on what they grow and make locally. Delaisy holds that if agriculture in these States could bo intensified and industrialised, so that they would cam more money and if their standard of living could bo correspondingly improved, so that _ they want more luxuries, then an interchange of goods on tho ono hand and food on the other would bo brought about and so much of tho present distress and unemployment in western

Europe would disappear. But one immediate result would be a further shrinkage in our dominion markets, and if the process were carried to its ultimate logical conclusion the Kalmucks and Eskimos and Andaman Islanders would he entitled to some participation"- in the industrial benefits.