of Hamburg. The distance from Prague to Hamburg is the same as that to Trieste; Danzig is a little further, as is also Fiume. There is the possibility of creating a cheap waterway by a Moravia-Oder-Vistula channel, of which there already exists the beginning.
Although the sea undoubtedly furnishes comparatively strong strategical frontiers, yet the development of modern navies easily counterbalances that advantage, as has been experienced in this war. Belgium, Denmark, Norway, for instance, can make little use of the sea.
Bohemia would, of course, take her share of the Austrian public debt contracted before the war; but she will decline to participate in the debt resulting from the war. The financial situation of Austria-Hungary is very precarious; the war has cost the country an enormous amount of money, and the Austro-Hungarian bank has been degraded into an institute for false coining.[1]
Independent Bohemia would have to begin her own administration with a considerable financial burden; and the leading political men of Bohemia are well aware of their serious task, and of the necessity for a solid, thoroughly balanced financial administration. It may be mentioned that after the war the financial exhaustion of all the nations will necessitate the most stringent financial administration. But it may be said without exaggeration that Bohemia will have excellent administrators in all departments of public and private service, who will be quite fit for the work of remodelling the new State.[2]
In this outline it is impossible to discuss all the social and economic problems of Bohemia. But it is of general interest to point out the peculiar position of the Bohemian landed proprietors or aristocracy, which is very similar to that of the famous East Elbian Junkers. As in East Prussia, the Germans confiscated the soil of the Slavs, so did Austria and her aristocratic accomplices in Bohemia after the battle of the White Mountain. It was as a result of these and former robberies that, in Bohemia, landed estates were created of
- ↑ The bank had only 1,300,000,000 gold crowns, but it nevertheless continues to issue new coin and new paper money; since the beginning of 1917 its gold account has not been published.
- ↑ Bohemia would introduce the franc currency, which combines the Latin and the Russian currency; 20 francs=712 roubles (40=15).
170
