The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1944 CZECH ANNIVERSARY

New Zealand Herald, Volume 81, Issue 25036, 28 October 1944, Page 6

The New Zealand Herald AUCKLAND, SATURDAY, OCTOBER 28, 1944 CZECH ANNIVERSARY

Today is the National Day of the Czechoslovak Republic. It is seven years since that festival was kept in integrity and independence. Six years ago it fell on the morrow of Munich. The Germans, who twelve months later were killing the student rebels of Prague, had won their first great victory. It was a bloodless triumph! The only guns which sounded were fired in practice at abandoned Czech defences in the Sudeten Mountains. The convoys moved in along undefended roads to frontiers drawn in good faith by Czechoslovakia's friends, but those who read events aright knew that war had begun, and that Britain and France had made a great withdrawal. Indeed, there is a strong argument that in 1938 Britain and France could have fought more successfully for Czechoslovakia than in 1939 for Poland. "It is not Czechoslovakia alone which is menaced," said Mr Churchill on September 21, "but also the freedom and democracy of all nations." lludolf Kircher was equally frank. "It is evident to any well-informed person," he wrote in the Frankfurter Zeitung, "that no English or French, and even more, no American rearmament, can compensate for this reversal of the strategic situation." It was more than a great salient which was lost that autumn. It is the magnitude of the moral defeat which has become clearer with the years. The fall of Czechoslovakia unnerved democracy. Within, the shock of those bitter months brought apathy. The resistance movements of conquered Europe arose from the heat of battle. Czechoslovakia fell in cold blood, aud with a deep sense of betrayal. The thoroughness of German tyranny took swift advantage of despair, and when the mood was past there were no weapons for a Czech Tito, no leaders for a Czech Maquis. The Czechoslovaks are nevertheless our allies. Only Switzerland could be more geographically isolated in a German continent, but in spite of such helplessness Czechoslovakia has taken sides. In spite of Hacha, in spite of Tiso, she has made the choice of which Edouard Benes speaks in his book on democracy. "Every man," he writes, "must have the courage to declare whefher he is, and wishes to be. a man of brute force, or a man of the spirit." If life, as Benes says, is an eternal contradiction between materialism and spiritualism, the verdict of the historian must be that the Slavs of central Europe have as consistently chosen the good as the Prussians have chosen the bad. The triumph with which the Czechs emerged spiritually intact on October 28, 1918, from no less than three centuries of German and Hungarian oppression is one witness to the fact. In the days of earlier independence the Bohemians and Moravians were an island of enlightenment. They played a noble part in Europe's awakening, and their people have written some of the brightest pages in the religious history of the continent. John Hus is not the only Czech name which lives among those of the liberators of mankind and the interpreters of faith. A religious bond which goes back to Wycliffe bound England to the Czechs of this period, a bond which was snapped by James Stuart. Czech Protestantism looked to James for championship. James was anxious for royal friendships and a Spanish marriage for his son. "At no period," writes Count Lutzow, "was the prestige of English diplomacy so low." Bohemia fell before Austria and Spain, deserted by her friends. Some would draw odd parallels. Today will think more of to-mor-row. Hitler's empire of a thousand years is falling short of seven. The Czechs, like their allies, face reconstruction. It is abundantly clear that they face, too, reorientation. Looking westward, in a spirit of realism, they sense a remoteness bred of geography from the democracies of the west. North they see little to bind them to Germany. Benes, indeed, advocates the drastic solution of the German problem. "A nation," he writes, "which has been responsible for two such abominable evils merits the desolation which shall fall upon it and deserves to undergo a great national decline for centuries." Yugoslavia's destiny is linked with the Balkans. Russia remains and, as a writer in the Economist points out, the logic of events is drawing Russia and Czechoslovakia together. The Czechs approach such a partnership boldly. They remain in outlook an orthodox democracy and envisage no exclusive Russian hegemony, nor political Anschluss. Their movements will be watched with interest. Meanwhile an interna] problem remains. Slovakia is attached to her sisterprovinces by bonds looser than those which bind England, Scotland and Wales. On the other hand, in spite of the artificial Nazi independence, th.i most backward of Czechoslovakia's federation seems to have no Irish determination to be free. The situation contains a problem in law and politics which more than one federated State will watch curiously. Meanwhile, on this her anniversary, an ally has New Zealand's respect and deep good will. MR FRASER TEMPORISES Temporising is the besetting sin of the present Prime Minister. Requested by the Mayor to restore Victoria Park for its original recreational purpose by clearing the ground of unoccupied buildings, Mr Fraser says he has arranged with the Minister of Defence to look into the matter immediately. In fact he postpones decision. His admired predecessor, Mr Savage, would not have procrastinated over such a matter. He was wont to say, "We're the Government, aren't we?" and prove it by making a decision on the spot. In this case, realising that the children were being deprived of most of their playing area for no Rood or pressing reason, he would have sent the lagging departments about their business. None knew better than Mr Savage the urban desert called Freeman's Bay., He

would not have allowed weeks and months to pass before restoring to the district its one precious amenity. Neither would he have permitted the overlong occupation of the Training College and its drawn-out evacuation, not yet complete. He had a way of speeding up the 'dilly-dally of officialdom, of governing the bureaucratic governors. As witness, his drive over every official and actuarial obstacle to the goal of social security by April 1, 1939, is still well and affectionately remembered. And what would he have done about an Air Force formation that, having been provided with alternative accommodation, proceeded to occupy both Fraser Reserve and Hobson Park, while disabled soldiers were compelled for extra months to make do with makeshift buildings for their vocational training ? These veterans have enough handicaps to overcome without being fobbed off indefinitely. It is high time 'Mr Fraser stopped asking easy-going Ministers to look into things and tried to regain the executive gift that distinguished Mr Savage. A GREAT MAN PASSES The Anglican Church, Christian society generally and, indeed, the whole body of temporal life in Britain should not be the poorer for the call to higher service of William Temple, Archbishop of Canterbury and Primate of All England. He will be missed and he will be mourned. That is natural. But his years of strenuous study and work J for the good of the nation will perish j only if the sense of loss is permitted j to overshadow the rich legacy he I has left the people and those whose duty it will be to carry on the tasks from the point at which he has had to lay them down. Mourning really has no place in Dr Temple's passing. Rather is it an! occasion for thankfulness for his; life and witness to the Master who inspired him in all things. There was always a sense of largeness, as well as of greatness, in his career. He could see that many of the conditions of the modern social structure militated against the development of a full Christian life. He firmly believed the Church, in its widest sense, had a duty to interest itself in the problems of the day. Where business, political or any other practice conflicted with Christian ethics he was foremost in i denunciation ; charitable where the ! breaches were those of ignorance,j trenchant where there was blatant' error. Detailed remedies he preferred to leave to experts but his knowledge of social, political and economic history and his vision were wide enough to give weight to his own suggestions. Although his tenure of the See of Canterbury was brief in time, it was rich in l fruits.