CZECHO-SLOVAKIA

Evening Star, Issue 23370, 13 September 1939, Page 16

CZECHO-SLOVAKIA

A GERMAN COLONY RUTHLESS PLUNDERING Slovakia has been so plundered by the Germans that Jess than five months after she was “ liberated ” from Czech “domination” the country is ruined, wrote the-diplomatic correspondent of the ‘ Manchester Guardian ’ on August 3. Under Czech “ domination ” the “ races,” religions, and political parties of Slovakia had rights and liberties such .as they never had before, and the Slovak Budget was balanced with tho help 6f : subsidies granted b.y the Government in Praguo. The rights and liberties arc’gone, expenditure amounts to 1.535,000.000 crowns, and the revenue to 1,229.000.000, so that there is a deficit of 300.000,000, a huge sum for a poverty-stricken population of only ‘2,656.000, The Germans have_ lobbed Slovakia of all her war material; they are do pletuig her forests and even her timber vUids j they have taken away, foodstuffs

in great quantities, the stocks of entire factories, and a vast amount of machinery and industrial plant. The resulting scarcity has raised the cost of living and thus spread distress throughout the country. Slovak workmen have been sent to Germany in multitudes —most of them are now employed in the neighbourhood of Hanover. A GERMAN MARKET. Slovakia is becoming ah exclusively German market. Germany alone is supplying tho country with industrial products, Slovak firms that cannot compete with the German firms arc doomed; those that can compete are taken over —whether directly or indirectly—by the Germans, Tue German minority (about 150.(WO in all) behave as though they were masters of the country. The region bounded by the borders of Moravia and Poland and by a line extending from Bratislava to Pistyany and along the lliver Waag and the crests of the Tatra has been declared a special area by tho Germans. It is officially known as “ the region occupied by Gorman troops and under German sovereignty." These words are printed on the permits issued to persons who wish to enter the area, the existence of which is n violation of tho statute under which Home Rule was granted to Slovakia by the ilcich.

TWO COLONIES. Slovak “ homo rule ” is a fiction. _ It is untrue that Germany has no colonics. Both 1 the “protectorate of BohemiaMoravia and the “ autonomous ” Slovak Slate are colonies in the full, or rather in the worst, sense of the word. Monsignor Tiso, the Slovak Premier, is Hitler’s lieutenant, without a will or policy of his own. while the Slovak people are like cattle who have to accept the decisions arranged between the Premier and tho Fullrer, or rather the orders of the Fuhrer as carried out by Monsignor Tiso. though these orders are sometimes proceeded by: discussions, for which Monsignor Tiso is summoned to Berlin. The Germans take no interest in Slovakia except as an. object of economic exploitation, ns a source of cheap labour, and as a military base for further conquests. Slovakia is in fact not governed at all, but administered despotically by the Fuhrer and his lieutenant, by the Gestapo, and by the German military authorities.