DISREGARDED TREATIES

Hokitika Guardian, 19 May 1928, Page 4

DISREGARDED TREATIES

FATE OF HUNGARIAN .MINORITIES.

(By Sir Robert Donald, who lias made inquiries at first hand into conditions in territories torn from Hungary by the Treaty of Trianon).

The Peace Conference, in transferring four million Magyars to newly created States carved out of the old Austro-Hungarian monarchy, took the precaution of embodying in Minority Treaties measures for their protection. As if the peace-makers suspected that their proteges were capable of misapplying, or getting round, the treaties which they signed, each treaty led off with a preamble declaring that the first eight articles must ho recognised as:— laws, and that no law, regulation, or official action shall conflict or interfere with these stipulations. Nor shall any law, regulation. or official action prevail over tliem.”-

These “fundamental’’ articles refer to the rights of the individual, personal liberty, citizenship, ('quality of treatment, 1 and generally to the protection of Ufa and property. Tims the Minority Treaties become chartter.s with all the might—moral and material—of the Allies behind them. Reciprocally the new States agreed that not only these “fundamental laws” hut all other Stipulations in the treaty

“so far as they affect persons belonging to racial, religious, or linguistic minorities constitute obligations of international concern and shall ho placed under Dio guarantee of the League of Nations. They shall not he modified without the consent of the majority of the Council of the League of Nations.” RUTHLESS METHODS.

The succession States built chiefly, or partly, on the mins of Hungary, have broken these fundamental laws or twisted them round $0 suit tlio-r purpose, or ignored them. They have also issued orders or passed laws which “prevail over them.” The most formidable of the new States is Czeeho-Slovakia. The controlling Czechs represent a higher standard of civilsation and of political intelligence than the Jugo-Slavs or the Roumanians. Tn the treatment of tile Hungarian minority the Czechs operate on a system, and always seek to cover with a gloss oi legal technicalities their audacious infringements of treaty rights. Tn Slovakia the Czechs are satisfied with incarcerating their victims and doing them moral damage, hut" in Rouniania and in Jugo-Slavia Hie police resort to mediaeval methods of physical torture with occasional outbursts of organised rowdyism, such as those which recently occurred in the Hungarian town of Nagyvarad, where property was wantonly "destroyed, several people killed and hundreds maltreated. 700,000 REFUGEE?.Through one subterfuge or another full language rights are denied to the minorities—by means of faked census returns, the manipulation of local areas, the transfer of populations so that with the introduction of immigrants' minorities are reduced below the level at which language rights apply.

During last year more articles were censored and more newspapers suppressed in Slovakia than in any one year in that territory under old Hungary. Hungarian newspapers are only tolerated in .Jugo-Slavia and Romnnuia provided they express no opinions with regard to the grievances of minorities.

Laws in regard to citizenship are

circumvented so as to deprive the more educated professional men of the Magyar race of their nationality. leaving many thousands no alternative but to return to their own accord to Hungary, or to be forcibly expelled, losing their properly and sacrificing their career. No fewer than 700,009 refugees from the succession States have been driven back to -'attenuated Hungary. Many mon belonging to ti e middle professional, and educated classes are engaged in menial occupations or are living in dire distress. BRIBERY AND .BLACKMAIL.

The most glorious opportunity for exploiting racial minorities was found under the land reform schemes, introduced without, waiting for properly constituted 'Governments or for the Peace Treaties. Rnioinf minorities receive differential treatment. Land decrees or laws are enforced with the utmost rigour against Hungarian owners who, in

some ease-, are despoiled of 100 per cent of their property. The Czechs are the more consistent and scientific in their methods. While land reform in Oecho-Slovakia is used for political favours and corruption, in Jugoslavia and in Hungary bribery and blackmail accompany “reform.”