the conference began to discuss the protection of minorities, to be guaranteed by treaty. On that occasion I was expressly asked by the proper commission, what legislation for the protection of national minorities, Germans and others, we would be ready to adopt. In connection with that we took up the problem of Rusins of Hungary and it was declared: The Czechoslovak state is a national state, containing ten million Czechoslovaks and somewhat over three million of other nationalities, national minorities. Rusin territory has a special character and must be specially regulated. On this occasion the Czechoslovak delegation presented to the conference with reference to the Rusins and to all national minorities in the Czechoslovak Republic such declarations that they were received by the peace conference with much gratitude; it was stated that they were extremely liberal, that more could not be asked; on the contrary, the general principles for the protection of minorities to be imposed upon states which arose on the ruins of Austria-Hungary could only provide for a minimum, and that certain declarations made by the Czechoslovak delegation were in excess of the proposed principles . . . The peace conference even agreed that clauses protecting the rights of Jews need not be inserted in the treaty with us, even though Poland and Roumania had to agree to them. Here also the conference manifested complete confidence in us, and I believe that in all nationalist questions our republic must so act as to deserve this confidence of the Great Powers and of the League of Nations. I again emphasize that the League of Nations and the Great Powers have confidence that we shall give to our minorities all that a civilized nation needs and is entitled to. We signed the special treaty as to minorities, and I am persuaded that the Czechoslovak Republic will keep its word fully . . .
It is my duty to declare what the president of the republic has already declared on another occasion that we owe all we have gained in this war and in the peace conference to a very large extent to our Allies, France, England, Italy and the United States, and the other countries that remained our friends even when as to a particular question they were of different views. . .
It remains to say a few words about the direction of our future foreign policy. The peace treaties determine first of all our relations to the Allied states. In addition to the treaties with Germany, Austria and Hungary by which indirectly our relations to our Allies are expressed, we sign a number of other treaties, partly political and commercial, partly conventions relating to certain financial, commercial and nationality issues which will contain the details of our relations to our Allies. If we recall further that the general direction of our policy toward the Allies is given by our relations toward them during the war and by our traditions which grew up and developed during the war and during the Paris negotiations, and if we remember also that sentimental relations between us and France, England, America and Italy have been largely strengthened and that we have also acquired new and frinedly ties with other nations, especially the Jugoslavs and Roumanians, we get thereby our future policy toward the Allies. Our foreign policy will act in harmony and friendship with those that have been heretofore our Allies. We shall remain faithful to the program and the aims and traditions of our revolutionary period. That does not mean that we shall be in tutelage or that we shall become the tool of someone of the great powers of the Entente. Our unity with the Entente rests above all in this that we are guided by the same democratic spirit, by the same principles of general policy by which these states were guided during the war, that ideas that we preached and they professed will remain with us and with them the ruling ideas. . . .
We have been loyal and faithful to our Allies, we shall be fair and honest even to those of our neighbors who have been our enemies. If any one menaces us, we shall defend ourselves with the utmost energy, as we have done in the revolutionary period.
Beside the great Allied block we see two others—German and Russian. To declare in detail our future policy toward these two blocks is impossible, because their future course is so uncertain. We can only declare more or less clearly our wishes and our tendencies.
Our relations to Germany constitute a' vital problem for our young republic, and we must therefore examine them with the utmost care. I have already indicated that the legal basis of these relations is given in the peace treaties. But besides this legal basis we have politics and diplomacy which partake of the nature of art. Germany as it is today, is unfinished; for several years it will be busy with internal crises, and while it will make attempts to play a foreign policy and participate in decisions on world questions, it will be unable to dictate to a neighbor, even though much weaker, as the Czechoslovak Republic. It is in our interest to act fairly and correctly toward Germany, but at the same time create at once a tradition for our foreign policy, namely that it shall never be a weapon in the hands of our neighbor, never lose freedom of action or political, military and financial strength by becoming dependent on our powerful neighbor. We need to be reserved in diplomatic relations and in all questions of foreign policy. That means seriousness, circumspectness in our relations to this big neighbor, guarded action that could be interpreted neither as provocation nor as fear. It is unnecessary to say that any attempt to renew the Pan-German policy will be fought by us with the utmost vigor.
