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supreme jurisdiction. The situation is full of inconveniences; instead of the present customs line running through the middle of the contested territory there are now two lines, one facing Moravia, the other Poland. In one part of the now neutral district Czechoslovak crowns are legal tender, in the other Polish crowns and Polish marks. Business is disorganized, and everybody wants the plebiscite to take place as soon as possible. The commission desires to allow each side to present its arguments in a peaceful manner over the entire district, particularly over that part of it heretofore occupied by the opposite party; but intimidation and demonstrations are forbidden. So far there was a minor riot in the town of Orlová, caused by a Polish demonstration in which ten persons were slightly wounded. But as the commission takes its duties seriously and has the necessary armed force at its command, there is no reason to fear any excesses. As to the result of the vote, the Czechs feel a confidence which has been growing steadily during the past year, while the Poles feel discouraged. In connection with the Teschen plebiscite a subcommittee of the international commission is making arrangements for the taking of popular vote in the Orava and Spiš districts of Slovakia. The Poles secured this point in the peace conference by introducing a picturesque delegation of mountaineers from the territory in question to President Wilson and claiming that the people of this territory were really Poles and wanted to join Poland. While the speech of the people shows traces of Polish, the peasants call themselves Slovak and repudiate the name of Poles. No one in Slovakia has any fears that the two small mountain areas in question will declare in favor of Poland.

Conferences with Austrian representatives in Prague were resumed to settle economic questions and to liquidate financial and other problems growing out of the dissolution of the old empire. The relations between Czechoslovakia and Austria continue friendly; Vienna acknowledges that it is now getting more coal from Bohemia and Moravia. Both states look with suspicion on the developments in Hungary. The elections there at the end of January resulted, as was expected, in the victory of Christian socialists and agrarians, because the opposition was brutally terrorized. The elections were the first in Hungary under the universal franchise, but never before was intimidation at the polls, always popular with Budapest ministries, as barefaced. Magyars would now like to secure an English prince for their king, but all their suggestions to that effect are received coolly in London. On the other hand the impression widely prevails among the neighbors of the Magyars that the British have decided to make the Magyars their protégés and are inclined to favor them unduly. All the four neighbors of the reduced Hungary—Czechoslovaks, Roumanians, Jugoslavs and Austrians—distrust the present regime in Budapest. They believe that Admiral Horthy, the new regent, means aggression, and they abhor the white terror which assassinates not merely the former bolsheviks, but even good demmocrats. In the meantime the Magyars have not yet signed the peace treaty or evacuated the strip of Western Hungary which was awarded to Austria.

With the exception of uneasiness caused by reaction in Hungary the foreign relations of the Czechoslovak Republic are satisfactory. Germany respects its new neighbor on the southeast and has no cause of quarrel with it. Relations with Poland are better and with the settlement of the Teschen dispute will improve rapidly; the present government of Warsaw is more democratic, and economic causes make for closer contact. Negotiations are going on with Jugoslavia about an economic and political understanding, and the interests of Czechoslovakia and Roumania run along parallel lines. It is hardly necessary to repeat that fidelity to the Western Allies gained during the war is the cornerstone of Czechoslovak foreign policy. Russia is the riddle and the chief problem of all European foreign ministers. The address of Dr. Beneš, given elsewhere in this issue, elucidates Czechoslovak policy toward Russia. In spite of the fact that Czechoslovak soldiers in Siberia unwillingly became engaged in warfare with the bolshewiks, the government tried to maintain a neutrality toward Russian parties struggling for control. As against Dr. Kramář who wanted his country to become identified with the cause of Kolchak and Denikin, Masaryk