Wairarapa Daily Times [Established 44 Years.] TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 1919. CZECHOSLOVAKIA.

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 45, Issue 13850, 5 June 1919, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established 44 Years.] TUESDAY, JUNE 5, 1919. CZECHOSLOVAKIA.

o The new Czech State embraces the f«rincr Austrian Crown lands of Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, and a section oi' the upper part of Hungary. it is an area-niore than four times as large as Belgium, and is thus the eighth in size among the European nations. Over 62 per cent of the Austrian taxation was borne by the Czech provinces, which, agriculturally and industrially, are numbered among the richest parts of western Europe. Austria got S.i per cent of her coal and 60 per cent of her iron from Bohemia, and 90 per cent of her sugar from the Czccho-Slovak districts. The Czechs inhabit Bohemia, Moravia and Austrian Silesia, and the Slovaks the northern parts of Hungary, and the two peoples are of the same race. Their language has only slight dialectical differences. Of the 12,000,----000 people in the new State 8,000,000 are Czechs and 2,000,000 are Slovaks, tho remainder being minorities —mostly Germans. The Czechs are people of the highest grade of civilisation; the Slovaks have been held back by Magyar oppression, but display a natural capacity almost equal to that of the Czechs. The Czechs have always fought the Germans, and Imperial Germany hated them. When they were dragged into the war by Austria, they promptly walked across the battlefields and joined the Russians and Servians. Some 50,000 were fight ing tho Austrians on the east front when tho Bolshevist madness seized Eussia. Thereupon they withdrew into Siberia, where, through many hopeless months, they barred the eastward march of Bolshevism. Like the Poles, the Czechs have fought the Germans for their lost freedom for a thousand years. Dr. Edward Benes, a famous professor of sociology in University, tells the story: —"In the sixteenth century this bitter Ktruggle came to a climax. We were defeated, wiped out, annihilated. Nothing was left of us but a few peasants. Our aristocracy was executed; our midlie classes driven into exile; our working classes slaughtered. Nothing was [eft but those few peasants —nothing. [t was tho destruction of a nation. And >n tho north of those peasants there ;vere Germans; on the south, Germans; >n the west, Germans; and on the east,

enemies just as deadly to those peasants, the brutal Magyars, But our peasants had something in their hearts no German could destroy. There was no aristocracy to inspire them; no middle claes to load them; they wcro like sheep without a shepherd. Ah, but listen. In'the hearts of those peasants was the undying flame of freedom. Yes; and in their souls tho undying fire of national consciousness. They tilled the earth, they patiently earned their hard living, and in their homes the mother told her babe of the days that were past and of the days that would surely come again; and these people, these poor peasants, with all the might of the German crushing them to tho earth, never bowed to the tyrant, never accepted the Catholic Church, nover despaired. The mother sang to her baby tho Kong of yesterday and to-morrow. It is true to say this: At the end of the eighteenth century the Czechs of Bohemia had ceased to exist as a nation; and yet, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, that nation began to rise from the dead. . . What could thoso peasants do? I will tell you. They said to themselves, We have no physical force, wherewith to achieve freedom; very well, then, we will fashion an intellectual force—with our minds we will destroy Austria, with our brains we will achieve the ideals of the revolution. It was like the sun rising over the hills. They set up national schools; they cultivated the national literature; they taught their children that to have brains was a part of patriotism. They were only peasants, but they created a nation. Out of those little HchooLs, out of those humble homes, came a new Czech aristocracy— doctors, professors, engineers, merchants, bankers—all of them the sons of peasants. 1 myself am the son of a peasant. I have four brothers—all of them are intellectuals. We said to ourselves, We will make a nation; we will be free, we will be independent, we will be powerful. And from that moment began a boycott of the Gorman which has lasted for nearly a hundred years. We buy no German goods. We havo no dealing with the German. We have our own national banks. The German banker says to our people, Bring mo your savings and I will give you 5 percent. Tho Czech says, I lend my money to my national bank for 3 per cent. For years wo have been economically and industrially free. We are a self-sup-porting nation, advanced in our industry, advancing in our culture, nowhere in all Bohemia, an illiterate. . . This fight has ben 10,000,000 against 50,000,----000. To-morrow the odds will be even. We Czechs are allying ourselves with the Poles, the Jugo-Slavs. . . Always we have had one enemy—the German! And he has hated us because we have loved freedom." It is not too much to say that out of the horror and desolation of 10.14-]S a great new nation has been born.