YUGOSLAVIA OVERSTEPS MARK

Waikato Times, Volume 116, Issue 19451, 15 December 1934, Page 9

YUGOSLAVIA OVERSTEPS MARK

(To the Editor.) Sir, —In a leading article of Saturday, December 8, under the above heading, you have done your utmost to belittle Yugoslavia in the present controversy with the Magyar nation. Apparently you were not in possession of the facts when you made such an attack on Yugoslavia by stating, inter alia, how Yugoslavia has left the bounds of ordinary decency and adopted crude and barbarous tactics against her neighbours, the Hungarians, whom you describe as being a nation charged with dignity and sincerity. Your assertion on the above matter Is illogical. I was born under the Hungarian flag and I have a thorough knowledge of so-called Hungarian dignity and sincerity, which is divided into two — “Populus” and "Plebs." The Populus could vote only; the Plebs could pay taxes —a delightful application of the principle “Heads I win, tails you lose.” So much for the Hungarian.

The Magyars, or Hungarians, are of Asiatic origin, belonging to what it is now the fashion to describe as the Ural-Altaic or Fino-Ugric branch of the human race, claiming kinship with the Huns, Fins and Turks, and speaking an agglutinative language which bears no resemblanco to any European longue. ( Hungarians (.when guilty) are well known for moaning and groaning, even when the documentary and indisputable evidence was presented by the Yugoslavian Government to the League of Nations, pressing (rightly r so) for investigation hy that authority.

You further accused Yugoslavia of transgressing the canons of international courtesy. I would like to know how. It appears to me that your historical and present-day knowledge of Hungary and Yugoslavia is limited. One has got to live among people to find out which is the barbaric nation. Permit me to state most emphatically the Yugoslavs are NOT. —I am, etc.,

E. MANDICH, Hon. Yugoslav Trade Commissioner. Auckland, 'December 12. 1934.