Calm in Czechoslovakia The problem of the minorities in Czechoslovakia
has for the moment, but not for long, receded into the background. The negotiations between the Czechoslovak Government and the Sudeten Germans are reported to be progressing favourably, and next week will enter a new and more advanced stage. But the confident reports from Prague, and the apparently conciliatory attitude of Herr Henlein's party, are much at variance with the intransigent demands that, according to reliable sources, have been put forward by the Sudeten Germans. In any case, the Czechoslovak Govern- ment is well aware that when, next month, the Nationality Statute is published and laid before Parliament, the problem will once more become acute. Certainly Reichsdeutsch statements on the conflict are less assuring than the progress of events within Czechoslovakia, and this week Dr. Goebbels, before an audience of ioo,000 in Berlin, committed himself to the threatening statement that " we saw in Austria that one race cannot be separated into two countries and we shall soon see it somewhere else." The present calm can only be temporary ; and for those who realise that the problem of Czechoslovakia cannot be treated in isolation, the most interesting aspect of this respite is the sudden recrudescence of the question of Spain. When one of the two problems is down, the other springs up ; and the see-saw swings upon the axis. So long as the axis holds, the interest of its two partners is to keep both problems alive.
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