“CROWN OF THORNS”

Wairarapa Times-Age, 3 October 1938, Page 5

“CROWN OF THORNS”

CZECH PROTEST AGAINST INJUSTICE PRAGUE PLUNGED IN GLOOM. ALLIANCES DISREGARDED. PRAGUE, October 1. The city is plunged in gloom and depression, the military fervour animating last week having evaporated. The Cabinet has nominated General Sirovy as leader of the special committee to work with the international delimitation commission. The Government has called off airraid precautions and other military measures.

An official broadcast today declared that the agreement was a great injustice against a nation which had always served the cause of peace and for peace had gone to 'extremes in selfdenial. “The leaders at Munich have gone home to be welcomed as the saviours of peace. Not a glance was given to their treaties of alliance. There was no recognition of Czechoslovakia’s alliances and obligations from them. “All Prague received was a crown of thorns. The life of the republic, however, is not yet closed.”

APPEAL TO BRITAIN URGENT ECONOMIC PROBLEMS RAISED. PEACE COUNCIL ESTABLISHING FUND. LONDON, October. The Czech Government has appealed to the British Government to give its urgent attention to the economic difficulties bound almost immediately to ensue from the Munich agreement for the remainder of Czechoslovakia.

The appeal also points out that the Munich agreement insists on the release of all the Sudeten German political prisoners, but that not one word is said regarding the Czech Customs officers and other civil servants kidnapped to Germany, nor regarding the prominent Czechs who were arrested and are being held as hostages. The Council of Action for Peace Reconstruction is organising a Czechoslovakian thanksgiving fund to alleviate at least some of the suffering and losses experienced by large numbers of, Czech refugees who were transferred from their homes at short notices. The council points out that the fund affords an opportunity of tangibly expressing gratitude to the Czechs for the enormous sacrifices which they made 1 with dignity, calmness and fortitude, in accepting a surrender equivalent to defeat in war in order that millions of men, women and children throughout Europe should not perish. The Prague correspondent of the “Daily Telegraph” says that it is impossible to convey the bitterness and despair with which Czechoslovakia learned of the terms of the agreement. To the bitterness of this humiliation was added resentment at the manner in which the agreement was carried out by the Powers who, it is felt, imposed Herr Hitler’s will on Czechoslovakia.

It is learned from official circles that Dr Mastny, Czech Minister in Berlin, endeavoured to see the Anglo-French delegation before the final terms we* drawn up, but they refused to see him. When everything was over Dr Mastny was summoned into the presence of the Anglo-French delegation to learn the decisions. When Dr Mastny said that he wished to make some observations he was told that the dele-, gation did not wish to hear them. The correspondent adds that although it is complained that Mr Chamberlain played a clever hand against Czechoslovakia, the most bitter loathing is reserved for France, which, it is declared, was responsible for a betrayal unexampled in history.

THANKSGIVING FUND. DEPRECATED BY PRIME MINISTER. (Received This Day, 9.30 a.m.) LONDON, October 2. The Lord Mayor, Sir Harry Twyford, has disclosed that Mr Chamberlain deprecates the launching of a national thanksgiving fund.