Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/162

try a stable government, abolished titles of nobility, carried out social and land reforms, brought some order into state finances and finally established a constitution. It will continue to sit and legislate, until the new National Assembly is ready for business. The great difference under the new order of things will be that about 30% of the membership of the next Assembly will consist of Germans and Magyars who were not represented in the revolutionary legislature which organized the Czechoslovak Republic. But as to the political complexion of the Czechoslovak deputies and senators there will be apparently little change from the last expression of public sentiment which took place in the municipal elections of June 1919. At the time social democrats received nearly 30% of the vote, agrarians over 21%, Czechoslovak socialists 16%, Catholics 10% and national democrats 9%, with the rest scattered. At the end of February, judging by municipal elections in Brno, the capital of Moravia, the sentiment of the people has changed very little. There the elections of June 15 were cancelled on account of irregularities in registration, and in the elections of February 29 the social democrats gained slightly and the bourgeois gained even more, both at the expense of the other parties. But on the whole the shifting of sentiment has been very slight. The only change of importance is the increase in the Czech vote. During the Austrian regime Brno was a German city, through an artificial franchise law. After the revolution the suburbs were annexed to the city, and in June 1919 the Czechs in a direct vote gained 59 seats out of 90 on a proportionate system of voting; a month ago they increased their gains to 61 seats in the city council. This tends to show that thousands who were nearly Germanized under the Austrian rule are reverting to their Czech nationality. Incidentally among the Germans in Brno there seems to have occurred a considerable swing in sentiment from socialists to bourgeois parties.

It is considered dangerous experiment to have the National Assembly continue in session, while a bitter election fight is going on. But there is pressing need for continued legislative activity, and the actual result seems to be not the increase of partisan bitterness in the debates of National Assembly, but rather less rancor on the hustings. One of the somewhat radical innovations in the Czechoslovak elections is the right of soldiers to vote. To obviate the dangers of an electoral campaign in the army which might be subversive of discipline all the parties agreed to refrain from electioneering in the army, while the ministry of public defense published a campaign book for soldiers in which each party presented its program and its election arguments in a non-polemical manner.

On March 19 the National Assembly adopted unanimously the army bill. Among the social democrats there was at first much opposition to a standing army, as their party had been long committed to the system of militia only. But responsibility for the state and developments in Hungary and Germany made them recede from their traditional ground. The Czechoslovak Republic has potential enemies around it, and until the League of nations is more than an ideal or an inchoate organization, the country cannot afford to disarm. The army bill, adopted in the presence of military attachés of allied states and after a powerful exposition by minister Klofáč, provides for compulsory two years service under arms during the next three years. The old privilege of one year so-called volunteer service, extended to graduates of secondary schools, has been abolished, and the obligations of all citizens have been made equal. After the first three years the length of service is to be eighteen months only for the following three years. If by that time it is not found feasible to replace the standing army by a system of militia, the length of service will be reduced to fourteen months only. Large control over the army is reserved for the parliament, as all parties fear the penetration of the old militaristic system. The strength of the standing army was left as proposed by the government at 150,000 officers and men.

Masaryk’s seventieth birthday on March 7 was celebrated by the entire nation. There were meetings in Prague and every city and village of the Republic, in which his life work was extolled. Newspapers on March 7 appeared in holiday guise and devoted most of their space to the great man. The day was observed as holiday all over the nation. Prague was resplendent in