THE CZECHS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLII, Issue XLII, 13 October 1922, Page 8

THE CZECHS.

ACTIVE AND CREATIVE FORCE

SOME SLAV ASPIRATIONS.

The traveller who passes from Vienna to Prague is aware of a startling change in -the mental climate, writes H. N. Brailsford in tie Nation. Outwardry there is much to remind him that the two cities once led a common; life; Prague' has the advantage in.a situation which none of, the greater cities of Europe can equal in beauty, and it has conserved what Vienna has almost lost, the- charm of its old-world streets. But the architecture of the modern quarters is> very similar. An identical civilisation had shaped both cities before the collapse of the Hapsburg realm. ■. The Czechs, moreover, though they seem a simple peasant people in comparison with the more elegant and gracious Viennese, have not the' striking physical; idiosyncrasy of ;the Serbs. But mentally j6ne< has passed a sharply | delimited frontier. Here all is optimism, self-confidence, and stubborn will. Prague has no doubt of its own capacI ity to face all that may come, and it is proud, and rightly proud, that it has made of its estate the one vigorous Agoing" concern in ">■ post-war Europe. It r was not an easy task. A people which had organised itself for a generation^ mainly for opposition and agitation was suddenly called to the responsibility of construction and. administration. It chose' to face its responsibility without asking or even tolerating -the collaboration of the big German minority,' which possessed the tradition of orderly work. Its finances were in the first months as chaotic and hopeless as those of Austria, and it, too, had felt the curse of the hungerblockade. ■■ . v ' i ' Politically it was not, and can never be, a unitary national State, and it is still somewhat doubtful ' whether the Slovaks will fuse'permanently with the Czechs to form, a racial majority. It has passed through crises in which Communism seemed to be for a moment a possible cause of disruption. This sturdy people has gone t° work, as its way is, boldly, confidently, and at times roughly, and' it has done what human will could do to deserve and achieve success. Its currency is sound, and none' the worse because its krone j has jbeen stabilised at a tenth of the nominal value. It is the accepted leader, under the /shrewd guidance of Dr. Benes, of Sue wnote Mid-European world.' It is, beside a passive Germany and a nightly Poland, the One soberly active and creative force of the middle Continent. ' , Nor do its ambitions lack a wider horizon, for the Czechs., always inclined to think of; themselves first of all as members of the Slav race, dream busily and methodically of an economic penetration of Russia,, and even, I suspect, of something little less than the leadership of the wfiple Slavonic group.