CZECH TENSION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23502, 17 May 1938, Page 9

CZECH TENSION

MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS FREQUENT MINOR CLASHES POSSIBILITY OF GRAVER INCIDENTS STORM TROOPERS BANNED (United Press Association) (By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) LONDON, May 15. The Prague correspondent of The Times says that frequent minor clashes between Germans and Czechs in the municipal election campaign indicate the possibility of grayer incidents. The poltical parties are tendenciously exaggerating the importance of the scuffles, in the biggest of which 250 German men, women, and children carried out a march in Moravia, allegedly in an attempt to molest Czechs. The police, barring the road, used stones and rubber truncheons, injuring six persons. Soldiers were involved in other disorders, including an attack by German boys, five of whom were injured. The police arrested a number of Germans distributing pamphlets, inciting Czechs to hostilities against the Government. Great demonstrations are being held throughout the country in favour of Czech independence. The Ministry of the Interior has banned the Storm Troopers’ battalion on the grounds that the recruiting appeal has overstepped the liberties allowed associations. ASSURANCE GIVEN REPRESENTATIONS OF BRITAIN AND FRANCE PRAGUE, May 15. The Government replied to the British and French representations promising to do everything possible to satisfy the Sudeten Germans. It is reported that the Czech-Ger-man trade negotiations are proceeding satisfactorily. SUBSTANTIAL MINORITIES BANK NOTES IN SIX LANGUAGES SITUATION IN CZECHOSLOVAKIA Dealing with minorities in Czechoslovakia, the Foreign Minister, M. Krofta, said: “We are making every concession demanded, except any which would in the smallest degree endanger the security of the State or its present frontiers.” The country of the Czechs and Slovaks runs in an east-west direction athwart a network of railroads that carries most of the commerce of Central Europe. It is bordered by five nations, of which three (Rumania, Poland, and Germany) touch seas, and of which two (Austria and Hungary) are, like itself, landlocked States bordering the Danube River. Of its 14,000,000 inhabitants 35 per cent, are neither Czechs nor Slovaks; about 3,200,000 Germans, of whom 1,700,000 are in West Bohemia, other large groups lining in Silesia, Moravia, and the larger cities; 750,000 Magyars in Slovakia; 460,000 Ruthenians in the eastern districts bordering the Carpathians: and 75,000 Poles. The printer matter upon the bank notes of Czechoslovakia is in six languages—Czech, Slovak, German, Magyar, Polish and Ruthenian —an acknowledgment of the existence and rights of substantial minorities. The State is a peninsula of Slavdom thrust westward into the heart of Europe, a long and very narrow strip impossible to defend in its entirety against powerful neighbours should it ever come to blows with them. Two long pincers of German population press upon it, the Germans of Silesia and the GermanAustrians north-east of Vienna. Magyars long pressed upon it from the south in like degree. Five nations, all at one time or another hostile, stand about its borders. It has no seaport, and its people own no railroad to the sea, from which it is distant more than 200 miles (Bohemia to Trieste or Stettin). Its central part is only from 50 to 125 miles across from north to south, yet from east to west the country extends 600 miles. Its area is 55,000 square miles. The welfare of Czechoslovakia is to an extraordinary degree dependent upon its international relationships.