The Case for a Plebiscite

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22509, 17 September 1938, Page 16

The Case for a Plebiscite

The indiscreet'member of the British House of Commons who asked in a speech in Canada the other day- why Great Britain should go to war to prevent the Sudeten Germans from bringing themselves under German sovereignty asked a question which.many of his countrymen are now asking. Throughout the greater part of the nineteenth century the British public, and more often than /not the British Government, showed a warm and practical sympathy with oppressed nationalities ans regarded acceptance of the principle of national self-determination as an essential of lasting - : peace in Europe. During the Great War, much was made by the propagandists of the Allied Powers of the need for liberating the nationalities within the Austro-Hungarian Empire; and in the peace settlement those oppressed nationalities which had been wise enough to support the Allied cause received generous" - treatment. It may reasonably be asked, then, why the British people should go to war "to deny a right they have upheld for at least a century and why a principle which, in 1918, was found applicable to Czechs, Slavs, and Poles is in 1938 being denied to Germans. The answer mentioned frequently in the cable news, that a plebiscite in Czechoslovakia is impossible in the existing state of tension, is unconvincing. If a plebiscite were accepted as desirable by the governments concerned, it could be carried through" with no greater difficulty than the Saar plebiscite. The real answer is that the dangers of the .principle, of national self-determination' Have in the past been obscured by the romantic halo which invests all national causes. The proposition that the peace of Europe can be ensured by a general application of the principle of national self-determina-tion is so far from the truth as to be almost the reverse of the truth. Jn the course of history Europe," and particularly eastern Europe and the Balkans, has become such a patchwork, of nationalities that there is not the remotest possibility of an adjustment of political boundaries, which would leave each. S.tate without substantial national minorities. Had the Allied statesmen of 1918 seen the 1 problem of Europe-in its true perspective they would have expended their ingenuity not on partitioning the Austro-Hungarian Empire but on reconstructing it on a basis of freedom and tolerance. For it is-only on the.basis of political equality and toleration of cultural differences for all national minorities that the European system can have stability. How .completely the peace settlement failed to solve the minorities problem by the policy of subdivision is shown by the population composition of such States as Czechoslovakia, Rumania, and Jugoslavia. In Czechoslovakia, Czechs comprise only 50 per cent, of the total population; 23 per - cent, are Germans, 16 per. cent, are Slovaks, and 5 per cent, are Hungarians. In Jugoslavia's 14,000,000 .inhabitants there are about 7,000,000 Serbs, 3,000,000 Croats, and 1,300,000 Slovenes; and in addition there are substantial and nationally-conscious minorities of j Macedonians,] Hungarians, Germans, and Albanians. Of Rumania's >9,400,000 inhabitants, some 12,000,000 are Rumanians; the rest are" Germans, Slavs, Hungarians, and Bulgars. Against .this .background, the .difficulty, if not the impossibility, of.deciding the Sudeten German , problem' by a plebiscite: becomes immediately apparent. Transfer the Sudeten German areas, to the Third - Reich, and there can be no good reason for refusing-to the Hungarians in Czechoslovakia the right of secession which they are now demanding. A,plebiscite would, in effecj] be 1 the first step in the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and would seriously threaten the security.of Rumania and Jugo- . slavia. If a plebiscite is possible at all, it is possible only to the accompaniment of guarantees of the new status quo by all the European Powers, Germany included. - And there

is not much reason to suppose that Germany is prepared to limit voluntarily the scope of her ambitions in the Balkans.