NEW CZECH CABINET

Southland Times, Issue 25642, 9 April 1945, Page 5

NEW CZECH CABINET

Government In Exile Resigns (Rec. 9 p.m.) LONDON, April 7. The Czechoslovak Government in exile has resigned, and the first Czechoslovak Combined Government has been formed on home soil, six years after the occupation of Prague. The President, Dr Edouard Benes, who has returned to his native country after six yeai-s and a-half in exile, received members of the Government and accepted their resignations.

The new Government has been formed by M. Zdenek Fierlinger, the 55-year-old Czechosolvak Ambassador to Moscow. It is a coalition “National Front,” with the Left prevailing. Communists are strongly represented. In the Cabinet, consisting of 22 members, three seats each have been allotted to the Czech Communists, the Slovak Communists, the Social Democrats, the Czech Socialists (formerly Dr Edouard Benes’s party), the Czech Catholic Party and the Slovak Democrat Party. There are four non-party members. Sixteen ministers are Czechs and the rest Slovaks. Five of the 10 Ministers from the London “exile” Government have been given portfolios. M. Jan Masaryk remains Foreign Minister and General Svoboda (commander of the Czech troops fighting in Russia) takes over National Defence. The portfolio of the Interior goes to M. Vaclav Nosek, a Communist, who has lived in London during the war. M. Ripka, formerly the Minister of State, takes over the new Department of Foreign Trade. M. Masaryk has arrived in London en route to San Francisco.