PRAGUE DURING CRISIS

Evening Star, Issue 23123, 24 November 1938, Page 20

PRAGUE DURING CRISIS

NEW ZEALANDER RETURNS GLAD TO LEAVE GERMANY [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, November 23. The exciting days in Central Europe during the recent crisis wore lightly dismissed by Mr A. W. Caldwell, a Wellington business man, who returned to-day by the liner Westralia after a tour abroad. He was in Prague at the height of the tension, but all he had to say about it was: “ Well, we were a bit nervous.” Mr Caldwell 'said he had been through Germany and had seen much of the Nazi regime. Asked what was the feeling of the people toward the Government, he answered that if they felt as happy as he did while he was in their country they didn’t feel happy at all. He had been glad to cross the frontier. He had not liked Germany at ail. Air Caldwell said he was in Prague when Lord Hunciinnn was there. There was tremendous tension in the city, with soldiers drilling and machine guns commanding the principal thoroughfares. They were right on the frontier when there was a murder in the neighbourhood which it was feared might precipitate an international outbreak of hostilities. He and his wife and an Australian friend travelling with them were the only visitors to the hotel where they were staying. “ We felt a bit nervous.” Mr Caldwell said. All had ended well, howevery, and they had come home in peace. There was, ho said, a strong feeling in Czechoslovakia that the country was well rid of the constant sore in the Sudetenland. The general impression was that the trouble would be patched up, and that the Germans and Czechs would come to a satisfactory agreement for the future. The Czechs had impressed him as a fine people, and Prague as a dream city.