The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 1919. CZECHO-SLOVAKIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 April 1919, Page 4

The Daily News. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 1919. CZECHO-SLOVAKIA.

Events of such great and farreaching, import have been transpiring of late at the Paris Conference, that although much has been heard of the Czecho-Slovaks, it is quite likely little heed has been given to the part this new Eepublic is likely to play in the future. This Republic consists of Bohemia proper, Moravia, Silesia and Sloavakia, a territory of nearly 140.000 square kilometres, with thirteen million population. It has natural frontiers—in the south-west the Bohemian forest, in the north-west the Ei'z mountains, in the north the Giant mountains. Sudetes mountains and Carpathian mountains, and in the south the Matra mountains and the Danube. Possessing "rich natural resources in coal, iron and other ores, the industrial strength of the new nation may be judged from the fact that of all the Austrian taxes. Moravia, Bohemia and Silesia paid 62.9 per cent., although the population consisted of only ten million people tinder Austrian rule. This does not include Slovakia, which was under Hungarian sway, but the possibilities of the latter can best be judged by a recent article in the organ of the Magyar Premier (Count Karolyi) wherein | it is stated that in a short time the industry of Slovakia would develop to such a degree that it would supply a great portion of

the needs of all Hungary (the Magyars still retaining the illusion that they could keep Slovakia). The economic opportunities of Sloyakia, says the journal, are so ■ great that its industries would give employment to several million people (Slovakia has but about three million) In the highlands are found water power, coal and iron fields, and.it is there that factories will be bum,, and it is there a new America _will arise. Bohemia represented thirty per cent, of all the cultivated lands of Austria, while fifty; per cent, of the annual harvests of Austria came from Czecho-Slovak lands. There is therefore no room for doubt as to the economic prosperity of the Eepublic being assured, and as the nation is striving to be in as close a,commercial contact as possible with the Western Powers, it is necessary that it should have an outlet to the Baltic and Adriatic, while it is even more essential that it should be protected from German economic influence, for there is a fear that, though Germany has been defeated, her arrogance has still to be reckoned with. Such, then, are the future possibilities of this new Republic that it would seem to be in the interest of Britain to render all necessary aid in securing absolute independence for Czecho-Slovakia —a nation which the war may be said to have discovered, or rather rescued from oblivion and given a new start in life, although the nation has written some brilliant pages in the past annals of European history. In these democratic days when individual freedom is an established right, we _ little think of how many years it has taken to secure the highest freedom that man possesses—the freedom of conscience. Yet it was at Prague, the capital of the new Eepublic, that John Huss, in the fourteenth century, dared to look all Europe in the face and declare that no being in the world had the right to bind the conscience of man. This first champion of freedom paid for his courage and conviction with his life, being burned alive at Contance. It was the ■ Czech nation that sustained John 1 Huss—a small nation, but great in | soul and courage. When the Turks \ invaded Central Europe in 15261 ■ the Czechs united with the Hapsburgs to defend their soil, only to find they had attached themselves i to as great an enemy as the Turks A revolt followed, but was suppressed, and the accession of the Habsburgs to the reign over Bohemia marked the beginning of the struggle of the Czechs against the dynasty, a struggle that ended in a period of oppression ttiat lasted from that time till a few months ago. The leaders of the revolt were executed and 80,000 Czech families exiled and scatter- ' ed all over the world. In twentyeight years the Czechs in Bohemia dwindled from three millions to, eight hundred Ihousand, and then began the colonisation of Bohemia i by the Germans; that is how the Germans got into Bohemia. Thv recent war broke the power of the tyrants of Middle Europe and ; gave the Czecho-Slovaks the opportunity for which they had for . centuries been yearning. The darkest pages of their history have been turned and they are now full of hope and aspirations for the future. We can only faintly realise ; their feelings upon entering into their new born freedom, though it is easy to understand their desire to cut adrift from their oppressors and to have close association with the Powers which have liberated them and opened up a new era of ' development and prosperity. Hith- » crto the income derived from their b lands has been spent on the devel . opment of German Austria, but henceforth it will be in their own bands and it is obligatory on them to see it is used wisely and well.