An Attack on the Czechs
The Tragedy of Trianon. By Sir Robert Donald. (Butter- worth. 7s. 6d.) THERE is a great deal that is wrong in Central Europe to-day. Anyone who travels through that region looking for grievances will find them poured out at his feet by the sackful. Old. frontiers have been destroyed and thousands of miles of new frontiers created, involving obstructions to commerce at every turn. Populations have been transferred- from one sovereignty to another, and cinnPlaint is made, With equal justice, of the tyranny of Governments over racial minorities and of the disruptive machinations against their Governments. The conquered, of course, have suffered. When do they not ? The treaties were imposed on them by the victors and often they went well beyond the bounds of equity. Hungary in particular had hard measure dealt to her, and there is no doubt a case for some adjustment if adjustment can be peacefully effected.
The main criticism to be made of Lord Rothermere's and Sir Robert Donald's methods is that they may postpone quite definitely the hope of changes in the Treaty, for they are calculated to fan hatreds and stir animosities at a moment when the great hope of revision lies in the substitution of stability for permanence. Judicial studies of the European situation by men ready to see the faults and the virtues of each State and reach measured conclusions on the evidence can be of the highest value. Unfortunately Sir Robert Donald's volume cannot be described as impartial. It is doing him no injustice to say that as a whole his advocacy is hardly distinguishable from that mass of purely national propaganda with which Europe has been drenched since the Peace Conference. Everything is either pure white—Hungav —or unrelieved black—Czechoslovakia. Hardly an inter- mediate shade of grey discloses itself anywhere.
Of course, by a judicious selection of facts any case can be made for or against any country. Let us admit that land- reform schemes have not been administered with perfect equity in Czechoslovakia (though Sir Robert Donald must be challenged on his interpretation of international law on that point) ; let us admit that not all Czech policemen and porters speak German ; let us admit, with regret, that there is a Press censorship in Czechoslovakia (but why does Sir Robert Donald quote in that connexion an obsolete provision, since amended, in the Constitution ?). Yet the way to make a had situation worse is to encourage minorities in hostility to the Government of the country where they live.
And, in fact, there is no ground for assuming the situation to be as bad as Sir Robert Donald suggests. He has compiled a long list of hard cases which it is, of course, impossible to check since they relate for the most part to quite unknown individuals, and it is to be noted that in one case quoted some months ago in the English Press, that of a Mrs. Whitehead,. the Czechoslovak authorities furnished what seemed to most people a satisfactory explanation. Where they can be more easily tested, as in a superficial chapter on the Hungarian Optants question, Sir Robert's statements are found to be both inadequate and inaccurate. Only one or two examples orthe method pursued can be cited here. You cannot at the same time charge the Czechs with rigging elections by intimidation and corruption and admit that in Ruthenia "the Province returns to the Prague Parliament nine members, of whom five are Communists, one represents the Russian Labour Party and one is an Autonomist who supports the Hungarian Christian Social Party." You cannot upbraid• Czechoslovakia for trying to eitablish 'one official language and then mention that "six of the seven languages are represented on the banknotes." May no attempt be made to simplify this Babel ? You do not really help your own argument by observing that " Hungary is effectively disarmed and is the only country in Europe, with the exception of Austria, which is leading civilization in this respect," when Hungary, on the author's own figures, has one soldier to every three hundred and fifty of her population, while Germany has only one to every six hundred.
Two more significant quotations must suffice. "The desertion of a few regiments," writes Sir Robert of the Czechs, "the murder of -a few officers and the recruiting of Czechs abroad, the gathering of a force in Siberia at a later stage, who '- never went to the frsut, were not in themselves great military contributions towards winning the war. Their effective political weapon was not the sword, but the pen—not a fiery arena of battlefield, but cold columns of print." That torrent—quite inaccurate as a statement of fact—well illustrates the general temper in which Sir Robert Donald writes of Czechoslovakia. And finally this : "I was taken out of my route a good many miles in order to see this act of vandalism." The author would seem to have been taken to a .good many places to see a good many things (he does not mention whether he speaks Hungarian or Magyar or Czech), and with hardly an exception he has apparently accepted the anti-Czech view without any attempt to see the other side.
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