WATCH CZECHOSLOVAKIA By Richard Freund
Mr. Freund has written an admirable little book (Nelson, zs. 6d.) on a sub- ject on which it is highly important for the public of this country to be well- informed. Czechoslovakia is a true democracy, the only true democracy east of the Rhine, and for that reason, as well as on strategic grounds, it must live in constant apprehension of attack by Ger- many. That danger is, of course, accen- tuated by the discontents of part of Czechoslovakia's large German popula- tion. Mr. Freund deals with great fair- ness and objectivity with the grievances of the Sudetendeutsch and the claims of the Henlein Party through which they are expressed, though he might perhaps have made it rather clearer than he does that of the 31 million Germans in Czechoslovakia a full million support the Government of the country and are radically opposed to the totalitarianism of Germany. But he rightly insists that genuine grievances do exist, and no less rightly emphasises the necessity for firm action by the Cabinet against local Czech officials who endeavour to curtail German rights. But that having been said it is well to remember—and Mr. Freund does not fail to stress the fact—that the Henlein Party, avowed and bitter oppon-
ents of the Government, exercise a liberty to attack that Government in speech and print which, if they lived in a totalitarian State, would drive them wholesale into prison, concentration camps or exile. The problem of Czecho- slovakia, for problem there is, and it is an international problem of cardinal importance, could hardly be better represented than it is in these hundred pages.
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