Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/159

On February 29, at 2:30 in the morning, the National Assembly adopted the Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic by the vote of all parties, with the exception of national democrats. On March 5 President Masaryk approved the constitution, and a few days later it was promulgated and went into effect. The constitution is the product of a committee of the National Assembly which has been at work for nearly a year. In the parliament itself the debate lasted only two days. All the parties, except the national democrats, compromised their differences in committee, and some of the provisions of the completed draft show that they are the result of a compromise; thus for instance the limited powers of the senate are a concession to the social democrats, who were opposed to a second chamber. But the national democrats, the party of the middle classes with strong national sentiments, brought into the plenum their demands that the Czechoslovak language (of which the Czech form is to be ordinarily used in the Bohemian lands and the Slovak form in Slovakia) should be made the state language, instead of the official language, as the draft had it; that all state employees must know Czechoslovak; that the Czechoslovak language should be required subject of instruction in all schools of the Republic; that voters should be free to vote for individual candidates to parliament on the various party tickets, instead of having the choice between parties only; and that the historical division of the Czechoslovak state into Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia should be retained in place of a new division into counties (župy). The fundamental difference between the governmental parties—which were joined by the Catholics also—and between the national democrats consisted in their view of the problem of German minorities. Dr. Kramář, the leader of the national democrats, defended in powerful speeches his opinion that Germans would never be won to loyalty to the Republic, that conciliation was useless and that the only way was to use the strong hand. The great majority of the National Assembly believed in conciliation and favored such fundamental laws which would give the Germans absolutely square deal. As a matter of fact German public opinion in Bohemia concedes that the constitution and the other fundamental laws are fair. Their only complaint is that Prague gets a somewhat larger number of deputies than the last census entitles it to; but this will be balanced in a very few years by the rapid growth of the capital city.

The makers of the constitution were greatly influenced by the American constitution. But though the spirit that pervades the document drawn at Philadelphia governed their deliberations, they borrowed more of the actual planks from the French system than from American. They were used to the machinery of parliamentary government with responsible ministries and very early decided that the presidential republic on the style of the United States would not be suitable to Bohemian conditions. But the true spirit of democracy is there. They adopted almost bodily the beautiful preamble of the constitution of the United States, and they declare at the beginning that the people are the only source of all public authority. The American division of government into three departments is followed. The legislature is by far the strongest; the National Assembly is treated as if it were in truth the assembly of the entire nation. Suffrage is universal;