THE A WEEKLY

VOL. 172 No. 5125

TABLET NEWSPAPER AND REVIEW

ESTABLISHED 1840 REGISTERED AS A NEWSPAPER

LONDON JULY 30th, 1938

SIXPENCE

IN T f f lS ISSUE

THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN THE U.S.A.

II.—By Douglas Jerrold

BRITAIN IN THE MEDITERRANEAN

A Study of Policy

FRANCE AFTER THE ROYAL VISIT

By Lucien Corpechot

ON PROPHETS

By Hilaire Belloc

THE AUSTRIAN CATHOLICS TODAY

An Impression

Full List o f Contents on page 132.

THE WORLD WEEK BY WEEK

Lord Runciman’s Mission

Lord Runciman, whose family traditions are maritime, said to Lord Halifax that he quite understands he is being pu t adrift in the Atlantic in a small boat, a metaphor which the Foreign Secretary fully accepted, remembering, perhaps, that one o f the scenes in “ The W in ter’s Tale” is laid on the seacoast of Bohemia. Lord Runciman goes to Prague, a t the end o f next week, with the consent of all parties, not to arbitrate, but to be available for mediation and as a go-between. He does not represent the Government. His importance lies first and foremost in his nationality. His presence is an ocular proof th a t Great Britain is actively interested in the fate o f Czechoslovakia. We claim the right to press our point o f view upon M. Benes and his government because their actions may involve the French, and French actions may involve us. The kind of advice we are giving has, in its general outlines, been repeatedly made plain. We are primarily anxious that the difficulties, which are very real, in reconciling or compromising the formulated Sudeten demands with the Czech nationalities statute, shall not be increased by the manner in which the negotiations are conducted. Above all we want—and it is one of the great services th a t a third party can render—to make sure that neither protagonist shall be confronted, as has tended to happen in the immediate past, with definite offers which those who make them then feel unable, for fear o f losing prestige, to modify. The Projected Statute

The outlines o f the nationality statute are now known. I t goes a long way in the creation o f provincial Parliaments with wide local powers. It does not meet the Sudeten demands that they shall be allowed to enthrone the Nazi ideology in their regions or that the foreign policy o f Prague shall be altered and the connection with Moscow ended. At the moment effort is being concentrated upon turning the first corner, upon getting an agreed constitutional transform ation o f Czechoslovakia from being a unitary sovereign State, to being an area with specially devised institutions, corresponding to and reflecting its outstanding characteristic as the meeting place of a group o f highly varied nationalities.

Many o f the provisions make concessions to all the minorities, but they are not concessions which reach the heart o f the present crisis. It is laid down, for instance, that no citizen is to be discriminated against for his language, race or religion, or is to be considered on their account an unreliable member o f the State. This sort o f proposal, if carried out, would prevent the Prague authorities from practising discriminations which are part and parcel of their policy today. The statute proposes fixed and generous percentages o f the posts in the ministries. The minorities are to have their own schools and in general all the five languages, Czech, German, Hungarian, Polish and Ruthenian, will be on a footing, but there is a great gulf between extending equality in a composite State and recognizing the rights o f minorities to form virtual States o f their own. The present phase turns on the willingness o f the Germans to accept concessions mainly o f the first kind. I t is thought th a t they will do so because, in fact, a State whose structure and personnel is avowedly balanced will not be able to pursue a foreign policy highly obnoxious to an important proportion of its active citizens. This has always been the argument o f the activist Germans, who by example and precept have mixed fully in Czech life as far as the Czechs would let them. Armaments Not Always for War

The note o f responsible German speakers, notably Herr Hess, speaking in Austria, is continually the German determination to avoid a war, and this should not be lightly set aside. The huge armaments o f the new Germany have paid for themselves by making the new German diplomacy possible. There would be no Czechoslovak crisis if the Germans were not now strong enough to insist upon changes, which the Sudeten Germans might have asked for endlessly in vain. Mr. Chamberlain spoke a few sentences which seemed to look beyond the immediate Anglo-German agreement on the next steps at Prague, towards a still nebulous future when other subjects could be discussed. The Germans are naturally anxious to offset the attempts