The Czechoslovak Review/Volume 4/The Month in Czechoslovakia (4)

THE CZECHOSLOVAK REVIEW OFFICIAL ORGAN OF THE CZECHOSLOVAK NATIONAL COUNCIL OF AMERICA
Jaroslav F. Smetanka, Editor. Published Monthly by the Bohemian Review Co., 2324 S. Central Park Ave., Chicago, Ill.
Entered as second class matter April 30, 1917 at the Post Office of Chicago, Ill., under act of Congress of March 3, 1879.
20 Cents a Copy	To Foreign Countries $2.25	$2.00 Per Year
Vol. IV	APRIL, 1920	No. 4.

 

The Month in Czechoslovakia

On February 29, at 2:30 in the morning, the National Assembly adopted the Constitution of the Czechoslovak Republic by the vote of all parties, with the exception of national democrats. On March 5 President Masaryk approved the constitution, and a few days later it was promulgated and went into effect. The constitution is the product of a committee of the National Assembly which has been at work for nearly a year. In the parliament itself the debate lasted only two days. All the parties, except the national democrats, compromised their differences in committee, and some of the provisions of the completed draft show that they are the result of a compromise; thus for instance the limited powers of the senate are a concession to the social democrats, who were opposed to a second chamber. But the national democrats, the party of the middle classes with strong national sentiments, brought into the plenum their demands that the Czechoslovak language (of which the Czech form is to be ordinarily used in the Bohemian lands and the Slovak form in Slovakia) should be made the state language, instead of the official language, as the draft had it; that all state employees must know Czechoslovak; that the Czechoslovak language should be required subject of instruction in all schools of the Republic; that voters should be free to vote for individual candidates to parliament on the various party tickets, instead of having the choice between parties only; and that the historical division of the Czechoslovak state into Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia should be retained in place of a new division into counties (župy). The fundamental difference between the governmental parties—which were joined by the Catholics also—and between the national democrats consisted in their view of the problem of German minorities. Dr. Kramář, the leader of the national democrats, defended in powerful speeches his opinion that Germans would never be won to loyalty to the Republic, that conciliation was useless and that the only way was to use the strong hand. The great majority of the National Assembly believed in conciliation and favored such fundamental laws which would give the Germans absolutely square deal. As a matter of fact German public opinion in Bohemia concedes that the constitution and the other fundamental laws are fair. Their only complaint is that Prague gets a somewhat larger number of deputies than the last census entitles it to; but this will be balanced in a very few years by the rapid growth of the capital city.

 

The makers of the constitution were greatly influenced by the American constitution. But though the spirit that pervades the document drawn at Philadelphia governed their deliberations, they borrowed more of the actual planks from the French system than from American. They were used to the machinery of parliamentary government with responsible ministries and very early decided that the presidential republic on the style of the United States would not be suitable to Bohemian conditions. But the true spirit of democracy is there. They adopted almost bodily the beautiful preamble of the constitution of the United States, and they declare at the beginning that the people are the only source of all public authority. The American division of government into three departments is followed. The legislature is by far the strongest; the National Assembly is treated as if it were in truth the assembly of the entire nation. Suffrage is universal; all men and women 21 years of age vote for members of chamber of deputies, while in the senate elections voters must be 26 years of age. The senate is meant to be principally a controlling organ, preventing hasty or loosely drawn legislation and generally saving the president the unpleasant task of returning bills with his objections. The president is elected by the joint session of the two houses for a term of seven years; he may be elected for a second term, but after that seven years must elapse, before he can be elected again. This provision does not apply to the first president, which means President Masaryk; so the constitution says explicitly. And while this undoubtedly means a life term of service at the head of the state for Prof. Masaryk, the report which appeared in the newspapers here to the effect that Masaryk was made a president for life by the new constitution was erroneous. As the president can only act through ministers responsible to the National Assembly and supported by the majority of the deputies, it seems very likely that Masaryk’s successor will not have much more power than the French president. There is a very limited provision in the constitution for use of referendum, but on the whole the document resembles the federal constitution far more than the average state constitution in that it provides for strictly representative government, rather than government by direct action of the people. It goes in this respect even beyond the federal constitution, as the Czechoslovak president is elected by parliament, and the terms of the deputies and senators (six and eight years respectively) are longer than in this country. On the whole, a political student is inclined to call the new Czechoslovak constitution a conservative document and one that ought to make for stability of government.

 

The constitution itself is a brief document which outlines the structure of the government and contains a bill of rights. In addition to it the committee on constitution reported to the National Assembly five other measures which are to be considered as part of the constitution and can be amended only by a vote of three fifths of the entire membership of both houses. The first of these supplementary fundamental laws deals with the question of racial minorities and grants them larger rights than Czechoslovakia was bound to do by its agreement with the Allies. All districts in which any racial minority numbers more than 20% are to be considered racially mixed districts, and the members of the minority may use their language in public offices and courts, as well as have their own schools. Election law provides for large circuits with 15 or large circuits with 15 or more members each; each party nominates a full ticket, and the voter must vote for the entire ticket and not for individual candidates on it. The number of votes cast is divided by the number of members to be elected, and this quotient is applied to each party vote; if the vote cast for a party entitles it to five members, the first five names on its ticket are elected. The fractions from all the electoral districts of the entire Republic are then added together and parties with the largest fractions get one or more members. The scheme is fair to all parties and to all races, and incidentally it secures deputies who are not tied too closely to local interests, but who consider themselves first of all representatives of the entire nation. But on the other hand it overemphasizes the importance of political parties, especially as primaries in the American sense are unknown and all nominations are made by party organizations. The law defining the powers of the senate and the law creating an electoral court merely carry out the general provisions of the constitution. Of great practical importance is the law creating counties (župy) with an average population of about half a million, divided into districts (okresy); their number and boundaries are not available at the time of this writing.

 

Immediately after the proclamation of the constitution the government announced the date of elections for the new parliament. The elections for the chamber of deputies are to take place April 18 and for the senate April 25. Those dates mark the close of the revolutionary period of the Czechoslovak Republic. Up to now all public authority proceeded from the National Assembly which is a revolutionary organ constituted by Czechoslovak political parties in November 1918 without direct appeal to the people. It is thus analogous to the Continental Congress which led the fight for American independence. The National Assembly elected the president, gave the coun
The Chateau of Hluboká in Soutern Bohemia. try a stable government, abolished titles of nobility, carried out social and land reforms, brought some order into state finances and finally established a constitution. It will continue to sit and legislate, until the new National Assembly is ready for business. The great difference under the new order of things will be that about 30% of the membership of the next Assembly will consist of Germans and Magyars who were not represented in the revolutionary legislature which organized the Czechoslovak Republic. But as to the political complexion of the Czechoslovak deputies and senators there will be apparently little change from the last expression of public sentiment which took place in the municipal elections of June 1919. At the time social democrats received nearly 30% of the vote, agrarians over 21%, Czechoslovak socialists 16%, Catholics 10% and national democrats 9%, with the rest scattered. At the end of February, judging by municipal elections in Brno, the capital of Moravia, the sentiment of the people has changed very little. There the elections of June 15 were cancelled on account of irregularities in registration, and in the elections of February 29 the social democrats gained slightly and the bourgeois gained even more, both at the expense of the other parties. But on the whole the shifting of sentiment has been very slight. The only change of importance is the increase in the Czech vote. During the Austrian regime Brno was a German city, through an artificial franchise law. After the revolution the suburbs were annexed to the city, and in June 1919 the Czechs in a direct vote gained 59 seats out of 90 on a proportionate system of voting; a month ago they increased their gains to 61 seats in the city council. This tends to show that thousands who were nearly Germanized under the Austrian rule are reverting to their Czech nationality. Incidentally among the Germans in Brno there seems to have occurred a considerable swing in sentiment from socialists to bourgeois parties.

 

It is considered dangerous experiment to have the National Assembly continue in session, while a bitter election fight is going on. But there is pressing need for continued legislative activity, and the actual result seems to be not the increase of partisan bitterness in the debates of National Assembly, but rather less rancor on the hustings. One of the somewhat radical innovations in the Czechoslovak elections is the right of soldiers to vote. To obviate the dangers of an electoral campaign in the army which might be subversive of discipline all the parties agreed to refrain from electioneering in the army, while the ministry of public defense published a campaign book for soldiers in which each party presented its program and its election arguments in a non-polemical manner.

 

On March 19 the National Assembly adopted unanimously the army bill. Among the social democrats there was at first much opposition to a standing army, as their party had been long committed to the system of militia only. But responsibility for the state and developments in Hungary and Germany made them recede from their traditional ground. The Czechoslovak Republic has potential enemies around it, and until the League of nations is more than an ideal or an inchoate organization, the country cannot afford to disarm. The army bill, adopted in the presence of military attachés of allied states and after a powerful exposition by minister Klofáč, provides for compulsory two years service under arms during the next three years. The old privilege of one year so-called volunteer service, extended to graduates of secondary schools, has been abolished, and the obligations of all citizens have been made equal. After the first three years the length of service is to be eighteen months only for the following three years. If by that time it is not found feasible to replace the standing army by a system of militia, the length of service will be reduced to fourteen months only. Large control over the army is reserved for the parliament, as all parties fear the penetration of the old militaristic system. The strength of the standing army was left as proposed by the government at 150,000 officers and men.

 

Masaryk’s seventieth birthday on March 7 was celebrated by the entire nation. There were meetings in Prague and every city and village of the Republic, in which his life work was extolled. Newspapers on March 7 appeared in holiday guise and devoted most of their space to the great man. The day was observed as holiday all over the nation. Prague was resplendent in spring sunshine and national flags, as the members of the government and of the National Assembly, foreign diplomats, representatives of the churches and all the notables of Czechoslovakia went up to the castle to congratulate the president. President Tomášek of the National Assembly was the spokesman, and as usual his address was peculiarly appropriate, moderate, free from partisanship and unaffected. He closed by saying: “Leader of our national revolution, creator of our independence, teacher of the nation, guide in new ways, our golden, good, beloved little father,, may you be well and strong for many years, for many decades, to the well-being and success of the nation and the Republic.” President Masaryk’s address is found elsewhere in this issue. It is not a political speech, but the talk of a teacher to students, of a wise father to grown-up children. The address cannot be called popular, yet the general intelligence of Czechoslovaks is so high, their devotion to Masaryk so great and the publicity given to the speech so prominent, that undoubtedly a majority of the people read the speech and pondered upon it. Not the least of Masaryk’s many services to his people lies in this that he makes them think. Messages of congratulation were received from numerous heads of the state, among them from President Wilson and from the Pope. Masaryk’s health continues to be good, with the exception of an occasional cold; he is active and as hard-working as ever, rides daily on horseback, and everything points to it that he will be able to serve his country for a great many years. That is what every Czechoslovak earnestly hopes for.

 

There is trouble in Teschen. The plebiscite commission, composed of the French, British, Italian and Japanese representatives, is in control of the old duchy and has small military forces at its disposal. But the Poles refuse to obey its orders and by their actions have brought about a state of anarchy in the district. Foreign minister Beneš, speaking in the National Assembly on March 11, was very bitter against the behavior of Polish agitators and local authorities in Teschen. He charged that they purposely instigate riots to make plebiscite impossible; Czechs submit to the orders of the commission, Poles do not. Poles have hidden thousands of rifles and bombs, and by means of them terrorize the Silesians whose votes will decide the question—men whose dialect is more nearly related to Polish than to Bohemian, but who will not admit that they are Poles, insisting that they are Silesians, and who favor annexation to Czechoslovakia. Polish miners caused coal strikes and brought great hardship upon the neighboring steel towns of Moravia. Many Czechs and Silesians were killed in attacks by Poles. Dr. Beneš stated that he asked Paris for larger garrisons and for maintenance of order at any cost in the district that the plebiscite commission is supposed to control. The Czechoslovaks greatly regret this behavior on the part of the Poles, as friendship with Poles is desired by them, both because the two nations are nearly related, and because they would be both menaced by any future revival of German imperialism. It is stated that the vote will be taken before the middle of May, and the Czechoslovaks are supremely confident of their success. But in any case the tension will relax after that, especially as the Czechs have little inclination to blame Warsaw for the excesses of local Polish agitators in Teschen and the neighboring city of Cracow. They blame the Polish government only for its inability to control the “Rada Narodowa”, or Polish National Council which exercises authority in the name of Poland in the district in question.

 

Kapp’s coup d’état was an unpleasant surprise for Bohemia. The Czechs saw in him the advance guard of militarism and monarchism, and they did not like the prospects, should his revolution manage to maintain itself in power. With reaction dominant in Germany the Magyars would no longer hesitate to call back the Hapsburgs, and the weak republican government of Austria would soon give way to monarchist reaction. Czechoslovakia would then be almost surrounded by militaristic and monarchistic neighbors. There is absolutely no danger of a monarchistic movement in Bohemia itself, no traditional loyalty to a dynasty, no memories of greatness under former emperors. But danger of foreign aggression there would be, if reaction got hold of Germans and Magyars. So there was a genuine relief, when Ebert came back. The opinion prevailing in Prague is that Kapp’s rebellion and the subsequent civil war in Germany will prove extremely costly and that disorganization will prevail a long time and retard Germany’s recovery.

 

The relations with the Magyars are not improving. As long as the Council of Ambassadors is delaying the signing of the Magyar peace treaty and Signor Nitti openly advocates concessions to the Magyars at the cost of Czechoslovaks, Jugoslavs and Roumanians, Magyar agitation and jingoism will not abate. Dr. Beneš in a recent speech in the National Assembly declared that the Magyar government was not acting loyally toward the Czechoslovak Republic. There was absolute proof that Budapest officials were sending bolshevik agitators into Slovakia to stir up discontent, that they were hiring prostitutes and sending them north to spy and to corrupt officials. The Magyars make much of the fact that half a million of their people live on territory assigned to the Czechoslovak Republic; but they say nothing of 300,000 Slovaks who are left in Magyaria. The mixture of races in old Hungary was such, that a better division of its territory was not possible. And while in Czechoslovakia the Magyar minorities receive absolute equality and justice, non-Magyar minorities in Hungary are persecuted. Even Dr. Jehlička, the renegade Slovak who became the chief propagandist for the return of Slovakia to Budapest, is now in disgrace, because his predictions of a revolt in Slovakia before the handing of the treaty to the Magyar delegation failed absolutely. No Slovak was elected to the new Budapest parliament, although Slovak minorities should have several deputies, and although it would have been in the interest of Magyar plans to put forward such Slovak deputies as elected spokesmen of the Slovak people. But even where it would be to their interest, the Magyars cannot bring themselves to it to admit a member of an “inferior” race to their parliament. However, abroad the Magyars carry on a strenuous propaganda for integral Hungary and shout about their imaginary injuries. Their latest plan is to use the Magyar Reformed churches to appeal to the sympathy of Protestants in Holland, Great Britain and America; the campaign is purely political and is designed to create sympathy for Magyar territorial claims.

 

The bolshevik foreign minister Chicherin addressed a wireless message to minister Beneš on February 2, offering formally to negotiate a peace treaty and a commercial treaty with Czechoslovakia and asking Beneš to suggest the place and time for the meeting of delegates. Chicherin no longer speaks bitterly against the Czechoslovaks in Siberia, blaming their intervention in Russian affairs on foreign pressure. The fact of course is that the fight broke out, because the bulk of the Czechoslovak army were convinced that the bolsheviks intended to turn them over to the Germans, and Allied military attaches with the Czechoslovaks were at first horrified at the temerity of 40,000 men who in their opinion signed their own death sentence, when they broke with the bolsheviks. Dr. Beneš stated in parliament with reference to Chicherin’s offer that after verifying the genuineness of the message he would ascertain the attitude of the Western Allies toward the proposed negotiation and later advise the Assembly what action the Czechoslovak government would take.

 

The land reform is now practically carried out. The great estates, belonging mostly to former noblemen, partly to the old imperial family and the Church, have been taken over by the state. No man can own more than 150 hectares (about 380 acres) of agricultural land or more than 100 hectares of forest. The land was not socialized, but parcelled out to small cultivators on state credit. The principle of compensation to former owners has been formally adopted, but a controversy is going on as to the basis of valuation. The former noblemen ask for present sales value or twenty times the average rent of last three years, while public opinion on the whole is willing to pay only pre-war prices.

 

The plans for the Bank of Czechoslovak Republic provide for a capital of 75 million francs in gold, divided into 75,000 shares of 1000 francs each. The government will take 25,000 shares and will have three representatives on the board of directors, while the stockholders will elect six. The governor of the bank will be appointed by the president for a term of five years. The bank will receive a charter for 20 years, and it will issue its notes which must be covered up to 35% by gold. It is expected that most of the stockholders will be foreigners, as the capital must be paid in gold.