Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/496
is not a Czechoslovak problem alone; it is likewise an international problem. *** The “Year of Work” reviews the first year’s activity of all the Ministries of the Provisional Government, including that of the Ministry Without Portfolio for Slovakia. It will be impossible to explain here in detail the working of each Ministry and to evaluate the information which is given in its report. We must content ourselves with illustrating the character of the valuable material which is included in this publication. For the historian and the publicist the work is of first-rate importance, and it is to be regretted that it has not been translated as a whole into English or French. A small abstract of the same has appeared in English from the pen of Brož.
The report which Beneš, Minister of Foreign Affairs, made before the National Assembly (Septemher 30, 1919) forms a suitable introduction. Here the most capable of the disciples of President Masaryk sketches in broad lines the history of the revolutionary propaganda abroad, the work of the Peace Conference, and the bases of the future foreign policy of Czechoslovakia. He tells of the pledges which the Czechoslovak Peace Conference delegates had given for the protection of national minorities. “I am convinced,” he declares, “that the Czechoslovak Republic will live up to its given word to the full.”
The Ministry of National Defense admits that it began life in Czechoslovakia in 1918 with an army of 10,000 poorly disciplined men, without cannon and adequate ammunition, while thousands of excellent soldiers were kept in Siberia. The Ministry of Justice informs the reader at the outset that “the Czech at the time of the fall of old Austria was “anti-state”, there was a strong tendency in him toward anarchy.” The Ministry of Social Welfare reports that in the summer of 1919 it supported or looked after about 6 per cent. of the total population, including 210,000 war invalids, 380,000 dependents from the war, 174,655 unemployed. This was not a small feeding list for a young republic, and the desire to get down to work was not an overwhelming one, in the populace, here as elsewhere after the war.
The report written for the Ministry Without Portfolio (for Slovakia) by Dr. Ivanka is perhaps most illuminating. Here the beginnings were truly heroic. The report shows that there were only about 500 Slovak “intelligentsia” to fill something like 1,100 official positions, ranging from village natary to Governor of the country. All of which helps in part to explain the ease of the Magyar invasion in the summer of 1919. Meanwhile, the Slovaks as a whole were unable to realize that a new era had come, because so many Magyars of the old regime still clung to their posts and in secret propaganda threatened the return first of the Red, then of the White Magyar Army.
Since these publications have appeared much has happened. The treaties have been accepted, a permanent constitution adopted, a new election, which resulted favorably to the Socialists, held, and further steps taken along the road mapped out by the Sage of Hradčany.
How far President Masaryk will be able to control the advance of social reform in a calm and scientific spirit will depend largely on the schooling, the patience, and the self-sacrifice of all classes of the Czechoslovak nation.—The (N. Y.) Evening Post.
“Fallot” remarked Papa Declich with scorn. For the Italian likes to drink, but never gets drunk.
In the wash-house there was a supply of news. The night transport had taken sixty people from our jail to the military prison at Rossan, to Moellersdorf and elsewhere. There they would be “on ice”. The superintendents did not need them, they would not be called up for cross-examination, they would keep on waiting. In this place there was a lack of room. Old Gehringer, our warder, had gone with them and had not yet returned. His successor was named Schmied and was a Feuerwerker, a bombardier in the artillery.
At breakfast Hedrich brought me a dish of black coffee. He said it was from Kranz. From Kranz? Did he know me? Perhaps he was a fellow-countryman? No, a Viennese, but he had heard that I was an author, and he said he hoped that one day I would describe what I had seen and experienced here; moreover in the course of the morning he would come himself. Altogether the news had got about in the jail that I was there, and Warder Sponner was very much frightened that I should describe how he cursed and shouted. The superintendent also had recently inquired how I proposed to describe it. “The superintendent is a very decent fellow” added Hedrich in a whisper, “yesterday