To announce reforms is all very well, and to implement them—albeit, Very. slowly—is even better; but when the" Sudeien-Deutsch of the little Village of Zinnwald, for instance, in the mountains between and Germany, see that the Czechoslovak halt of the village has a hundred unemployed. hungry, neglected, some of them Roing bootless in this spring thawing, And that on the German side noi Only is everyone in work, and well clothed, "but also enjoying motor excursions in "Strength through Joy" buses, they naturally want to become Germans, too. "That is the plain human aspect of the matter.
Herr Henlein, however, who is now the representative of all the 3,250,000 Germans. in, Czechoslovakia except a negligible "Communist, minority, has declared that the Sudeten-Deutsch Will be content with autonomy on the Swiss model; and I was told in influential quarters in Germany that the Reich does not want to absorb an industrial population that would compete with its own Saxon industries. Ail that the Germans want and it is what we ourselves would want if the French held the Isle of Wight, and imposed their officials and soldiers on the island—is that their, kinsfolk should be fairly treated. The situa lion "in Czechoslovakia, therefore although difficult and ' complicated enough, in all conscience, docs not Seem so; dangerous in Prague as it looks in/London viewed through the of those who insist that Gi is up to mischief in Central there will be, without doubt, M the Czechs will not accede to the desires of their German and other minorities; but, there is every reason especially after events in Austria, to suppose that the Czechs will come to terms, now that they know that Eurone will not fight thei battles for them. All the minorite: in Czechoslovakia:—Germans, Slovaks, Magyars, Ruthenes are discontented at their treatment by the Czechs, and all want to manage their own affairs in their own way, and to speak them own languages "under some such system of federation as exists in Switzerland.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.