GERMAN TREATMENT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23966, 16 May 1941, Page 4

GERMAN TREATMENT

CZECHOSLOVAK PIMPLE STATE CONTROL BY FORCE ADDRESS BY MR. R. M. ALGIE "The people of (V,cc|io-Slova,k ia have had about I wo and n-half years of praetical experience of the so-called New Order propositi for the whole world by Hitler's Germany, and they loatSie it,'' said Mr. 11. M. Algie in an address to members of the Victoria Leagute yesti I'flay morning. They had discovered that State control of everything whether labelled as Nazism or Socialismrested ultimately upon force. The Nazi creed differed from the milder doctrine of the Socialist mainly in the fact, that the Nazi did not even liretend to attach any importance to the ballot box. Since the complete occupation of Czccho-Slovakia in March, ] O.'i'.), the Germans had systematically and ruthlesslv plundered the resources of a onetime prosperous country. From the military stores and equipment of a land which they had sworn to protect, they had been able to fit out at least three German armoured and mechanised divisions and perhaps as many as :i5 or 40 infantry divisions. They had acquired by the usual Germanic methods all the resources of the great Skoda works, together with those of similar but smaller concerns. Nazi Control of Administration Many of the people of German descent who lived near the north-west frontiers of Czecho-Slo\ akia, and who had complained through their lenders about their sufferings under the Czech administration, had already discovered that they were better off as Czech citizens than they now were under Nazis. The speaker went on to describe the Nazi control of State and local administration, the closing of schools for either fixed periods or else 'for good, the efforts to stamp out the use of the! Czech language in official, educational and business circles, and the persecution ot university professors, teachers and students. The Gestapo was every-j where, said Mr. Algie. and the stories of brutality and persecution found their parallel only in the case of Poland. Bitter Disappointment It was only natural that the Czechoslovak people should have felt bitterly disappointed and even resentful over the agreement of Munich, but their leading state-men and writers had shown that, notwithstanding their own feelings in the matter, they could appreciate the difficulties that confronted France and especially Great Britain. It was true that, for the time being the Czeeho-Slovak people could no longer speak to the world as a nation A silence created by ruthless oppression had fallen upon their country, but their people looked eagerly and hopefully for the day of deliverance. They looked to il as a day of reckoning, and when that day came the voice of C"7,echo-Slovakia would be heard and its accents would be crvstal clear.