Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/11

The year 1920 has come upon the Czechoslovak Republic, while it is still laboring under the severe effects of the war. Coal is scarce, food is still distributed by cards and strictly limited, all imported articles sell at terrific prices, there is a lack of housing in most of the cities. People grumble and put the blame on the capitalists or the socialists or the government in general. But after all, conditions in Czechoslovakia are so much better than in the neighboring countries. There is Poland to the east of the Czechoslovaks. Poland has been at war on almost all frontiers from the first day of its independence down to the present day; its army is exhausted and almost barefooted, its debt has grown beyond computation, its currency which was originally far more valuable than Czechoslovak currency is now worth not much over a half of what the other is quoted at; the government is not so well organized and the various districts of which the country is composed have not coalesced as readily as is the case in Czechoslovakia. The difference between the political and economic progress of Poland and Czechoslovakia is enormous, but still more striking is the contrast between the Czechoslovak Republic and the two miserable countries to the south of it, Austria and Hungary. Austria which once aspired to rule the world now contests with Armenia for the distinction of the world’s principal mendicant. It has thrown all pride to the winds and begs openly for charity as a nation. It should, however, be remembered, that it is not really Austria which is hungry and in desperate straits, hut only the city of Vienna; the four million country people of the Austrian Alpine provinces keep what food they have and let Vienna go begging for the alms of strangers. Compared with Czechoslovakia, Austria has money to burn, for the old Austro-Hungarian Bank keeps printing hundreds of million of crowns a week; but without Bohemian coal and without Bohemian food all Vienna would starve long before charitable America could come to its assistance. As for Hungary, it had to endure for six months the rule of that vain and egotistic demagogue Count Michael Karolyi, then the rule of Bela Kuhn whose bolshevism cost the country more than four years of war, then a period of Roumanian occupation during which Hungary was looted in a very thorough manner, and now a spasm of monarchistic reaction with a program of vengeance, wholesale executions and imperialism. And even as against Germany Bohemia is much better off, for among the Czechoslovaks the sentiment of patriotism has not suffered a diminution, the country has comparatively greater natural resources than crippled Germany and is less burdened with debts and foreign obligations. Even the comparison with Italy, Roumania or Jugoslavia would be greatly to the advantage of the Czechoslovak Republic, to say nothing of Russia and the new Baltic states.

And so the Czechoslovaks enter upon the New Year with confidence, even though life is still difficult for the great mass of the people. The worst is behind them. The political situation of the country is in comparison with the rest of Europe excellent, and the economic situation has greatly improved and is daily growing better.

Cabinet crisis appeared on the political horizon at the end of November. The present government of Vlastimil Tusar is based on a coalition of the social democrats, the Czechoslovak socialists with whom the small progressive party co-operates, the republicans (farmers’ party) and the Slo-