Tension in Prague Rumours :of mobilisation in _ Czechoslovakia caused
some alarm at the week-end ; but they were based. on reports, issued by the official German news-agency, which received no confirmation whatever and proved to be entirely without foundation. _ The purpose of the. reports' appear to have been to emphaise-thetension between Germany and Czecho-: slovakia and Germany's dissatisfaction at the course of the negotiations in Prague, and to discredit the Czechoslovak Government, which is accused in Berlin of " incitement to war." The tension seems likely to increase in the next few weeks and hopes that the Nationality Statute will be accepted by the Sudeten Germans are on the decline. The publication in Prague of the " 14 points " of the Sudeten Germans' proposals show what a gulf is fixed between what the Sudeten Germans demand and what the Govern- ment can concede. The " 14 points " include demands that national administrations be set up, with control of local security, that the heads of these administrations be members of the Government, with or without the support of Parlia- ment, and that the heads of local Cabinets be members of the Supreme Council of National Defence. Such demands make compromise or agreement difficult. It is urgently necessary that the French and British Governments should formulate a joint policy to prevent a recrudescence of the Czech-German conflict in its acutest form ; and particularly to meet a situation in which the Sudeten Germans may, if the Statute is rejected, raise a demand for a plebiscite.
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