a size equal to some of the small German States. These proprietors, for the most part, are Austrian in sentiment, and would perhaps form a dangerous element. Bohemia might, in that case, follow the methods of land purchase and parcelling out adopted in Ireland: as indeed, all the liberal parties demand.
5. The National Minorities in Bohemia.—As it is not my intention to hide the difficulties which face the establishment of a free Bohemia, reference must be made to the question of national minorities.
The Bohemian State would be composed, in round figures, of 9,000,000 Czechs and Slovaks, 230,000 Poles in Silesia, 3,000,000 Germans, and 150,000 Magyars in Slovakia.
Though we advocate the principle of nationality we wish to retain our minorities. That seems a paradox, but it is on the very principle of nationality that we wish to retain them. Bohemia is a unique example of a nationally mixed country. Between the Italians and Germans, the ethnographical frontier is simple and sharply defined. Not so in Bohemia; in a great many places, and in all the cities, there are considerable German or Czech minorities. The Germans object that the Czech minorities in North Bohemia, etc., are “only” working men—people who live on German bread; but this antisocial argument is obviously false, and it is inconsistent with the process of the industrialisation of Bohemia, which, of course, needs factory “hands”; moreover, it was the Germans themselves who invited the Czechs to immigrate.
The question of national minorities is of capital significance not only in Bohemia, but in almost all countries, almost all States being nationally mixed. Even if the new Europe cannot be remodelled on a strictly nationalist basis, the national rights of the minorities must be assured. This will be done in Bohemia. The Bohemians have always claimed equal, not superior, nights. Owing to her central position it will be to Bohemia’s interest to grant full rights to the Germans and the two smaller minorities. Commonsense will demand it. Nor would it be contrary to the spirit of the proposal that the rights of national minorities should be granted and secured by an International Court.
So far as the German minority is concerned, I should not be opposed to a rectification of the political frontier; parts
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