Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol4, 1920.pdf/64

Czechoslovakia this element is lacking and a monarchist reaction is unthinkable there. But if the Hapsburgs should come back both in Hungary and Austria, with Germany an unknown factor, Czechoslovak independence would be in grave danger. It was due to these considerations that relations between Vienna and Prague have, contrary to all expectations, become friendly, if not cordial.

The hard lot of Vienna, shivering, starving, stoical, has been described fully in the American press. A number of correspondents from this country are stationed there, although there are none in Prague; they are keenly sensible to human suffering and they have tried to rouse American sympathy with poor Vienna. Apparently they succceded so well that politicians and businessmen, even as cool-headed a man as Herbert Hoover, have been betrayed by the contemplation of Vienna into passing a summary judgment on the work of the peace conference. It is now the smart thing to say that European diplomats reduced Austria to a pass, where it cannot be self-supporting, and that they expect America to keep giving money to Austria so that its population would not starve to death. That is hardly fair, for in the first place France, England, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Holland are giving Austria far more on credit than Uncle Sam is asked to do. But regardless of the loans, is it possible that Americans would prefer the alternative to Vienna’s downfall, namely the restoration of the Dual Empire, let us say under a republican regime? Vienna is freezing and starving, because it is a city of more than two million people which lived in comfort and contentment on the industry of an empire of 52 million people, but is simply impossible as the capital of a mountainous republic of six million people. Let us be clear about this matter: the trouble is not with Austria, but with Vienna. Until a half or more of iVenna’s superfluous population disperses, there can be no cure of the city’s ills, and that will be a gradual process; agriculture alone could absorb them, but the Viennese will rather starve than go to the farm, and even with the best will on the part of all concerned the displacement of a million people will take much time. Thus a little reflection will show that the statesmen in Paris cannot be charged with responsibility for Vienna’s straits. Even if they wanted to, they could not have kept the Czechoslovaks, Poles, Jugoslavs, Italians and others under the old rule, and if they had complied with the wish of a part of the Austrian population and permitted the union of the country with Germany, that would have passed the buck to Germany, but would have hardly meant more flour and potatoes and coal for Vienna.

Magyars have until February 14 to submit their observations on the peace treaty delivered to them. The terms of the treaty have not been made public, but the territorial clauses are no secret. Boundaries against Austria have been settled in the Austrian treaty; boundaries with Czechoslovakia were determined by a decision of the Supreme Council on June 12 and later ratified by the Czechoslovak National Assembly; and similarly in the case of other neighbors. Thus Magyar counts who compose the peace delegation cannot hope to bring home Hungary in its former boundaries, even though they are resolved never to agree to the mutilation of the crown of St. Stephen, and even though they spend all available francs and pounds and dollars in propaganda. The psychological state of the men who now control what is left of Hungary may be likened to the state of mind of Germany during the earlier period of the war: if they have the will to victory, they must win in spite of the whole world. So the Magyars intensify their agitation in the lost Slovak and Roumanian and Jugoslav districts and try to break into the press of the Entente countries. Occasionally they succeed. Thus at the very time, when the peace delegation reached Paris, a report was cabled to America from Budapest that the Czechoslovak government confiscated three million dollars sent by the Slovaks of America to their people in Slovakia for a campaign against Czech domination. No one among the Slovaks of America heard of any collection being made for any such purpose; the only funds sent from here to Slovakia were relief money collected by the Slovak League and a small Christmas gift sent by a Catholic Slovak organization to Catholic leaders abroad. The whole story was a lie calculated to give credence to Magyar claims that Slovaks want to get back under Magyar rule. But the ingenious foreign propa-