CRISIS IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 23022, 27 April 1938, Page 12

CRISIS IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA

A demand for full self-government in the preponderatingly German portion of Czechoslovakia brings to an acute stage that country's most urgent perplexity. It also creates a renewal of anxiety on the part of other Powers. To Herr Hitler's way with Austria must be attributed this sudden declaration by the Sudetendeutsche Party. Its leader, Herr Konrad Henlein, has previously been hesitant about adopting a separatist policy. Lately, however, there have been signs of his disinclination to keep in co-operative sympathy with the Government's national aims. Economic distress in the German districts —a distress mainly caused by loss of the German market through Nazi restrictions—has given him a tempting opportunity to proceed to extremes of revolt, and he knows that he will have support from Herr Hitler. The alternative now presented to the Government will tax even the intellectual resources of so clear-headed and resolute a statesman as Dr. Benes. He must either accept, on Herr Henlein's rigorous terms, a dangerous compromise within the State, or else allow these German districts to hive off. In both directions is an increased risk of lowered resistance to Nazi encroachment. Other Powers cannot. afford to be indifferent. Any loss of strength by Czechoslovakia must affect the whole of Central Europe, all the more so because of Austria's seizure by Germany. It is nob surprising that the British Minister at Prague has been recalled to London for consultation with tha Cabinet. The fact that Franco-British conversations are occupying attention there makes his presence doubly necessai-y in view of Hen- Henlein's abrupt demand. Whether Czechoslovakia be regarded as a possible corridor between Russia and France or one between Germany and the coveted Ukraine, the assertion of Nazi influence within it is to be feared.