* * * * Croats and Serbs The favourable reports
of the progress of the negotiations between the Yugoslav Prime Minister, M. Tsvetkovitch, and the Croat leader, Dr. Matchek, are of good omen for the peace of South-East Europe. United, Yugoslavia may be strong enough to resist external aggression and help other States to resist it. Divided, she is in the same position as Czecho-Slovakia was, a discontented minority being in itself an invitation to some outside Power to intervene and create disruption. Since the murder of the Croat leader, Stefan Radirch, in the Skupschtina in 1928, there has been no effec- tive political co-operation between Croats and their Serbian and Slovene fellow-citizens, and the late Prime Minister, Dr. Stoyadinovitch, was conspicuously unsuccessful in imparting cordiality into their relations. Some form of federalism is inevitable, for the Croats will be content with nothing less, but given goodwill the three partners in the triune State should be no less capable of effecting and maintaining unity at the centre than are the three constituent peoples of Switzerland. If that is achieved Yugoslavia herself and the Balkan Entente will be strengthened, and the prospects of creating a powerful peace-bloc in Europe sensibly improved. * * * *
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