NO PLEBISCITES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 October 1938, Page 8

NO PLEBISCITES

IN SUDETENLAND OR OTHER AREAS DECISION OF INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION. ACCEPTANCE OF PRESENT FRONTIER. By Telegraph—Press Association— Copyright. (Received This Day, 1.25 p.m.) LONDON, October 13. It is announced definitely that there will be no plebiscites in Sudetenland or elsewhere in Czechoslovakian areas. The International Commission reached this decision in Berlin tonight. It is understood that Czech and German representatives accept the present frontier as final, subject only to such minor adjustments as may be necessary for administrative or economic reasons. The news has caused satisfaction in official circles. The'London "Daily Telegraph” says Herr von Ribbentrop (German Foreign Minister) had demanded plebiscites in certain areas containing only a small proportion of Germans, to which London was increasingly opposed as it became apparent that the Ambassadors’ Conference had conceded such large areas for immediate occupation. It was, indeed, anticipated that it would be difficult to keep the conference in operation if the German demand were pressed. In Prague it is felt that a new era has opened with the reception of M. Chvalkovsky in Berlin, combined with the fact that German troops evacuated several points on the new frontier line on finding that they were largely Czech. Several Czech newspapers now suggest that the policy which kept the two nations so estranged for twenty years must have been mistaken. The plight of refugees, caught between two fires, is tragic. Refugees from Sudetenland probably will total 20,000 to 30,000 and Reich German and old -Austrian refugees at least* ten thousand. The German frontier naturally is closed to them. Poland, Hungary and Rumia are not open to them yet. Czechoslovakia cannot afford to maintain an army of penniless refugees indefinitely. Meanwhile the Polish authorities at Teschen have ordered all Czechs settled there after November 1, 1929 to leave by January 1, 1939.