Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-03-17
BY FRANK H. SIMONDS.


solve. Nor is it less unmiStakable that
it is the supreme problem of contem.
porary Europe. the real cause of future
war, the still impossible barrier to any
real system of permanent peace.
For this problem too, there have sc
far been discoverable only two solu-
tons, both of them ironically enough
employed by the Turks. In the case OF
Armenians the Turks employed mas
sacre. in that of the Greeks they re-
sorted TO expulsion. an expulsion ball
anced by similar Greek action against
the Turkish minorities in Thrace and
Macedonia. BY these two operations
the Turks have arrived at situation
where. outside of Constantinople, they
have to deal with only one serious mi
nority. the Kurds. And the Kurds are
today bombarding the western world
with appeals containing the assertion
that. with them. the Turks are en-
ploying the Armenian method.
But applied to Western and Central
Europe, even to the eastern frontiers
of Poland. no resort to massacre or
expulsion is possible. And. as a con-
sequence, the problem of minorities re-
mains and is destined to remain.
Figures Are Impressive
When one undertakes to estimate the
numbers of these subject factions they
prove to be impressive. Thus leaving
out the case of Russia altogether, the
aggregate must reach TO something like
10000 000 Czechoslovakia, for exam
pie. has no majority race and the SEM
blance of majority is only attained by
4he more or less complete association
q 100000 of Czechs and 100000 of
Novaks. Over against this bloc stand
0250,000 OF Germans. 100000 of Mag
vars and 100000 Ruthenians. And in
The case of the Germans and Magyars,
both are obviously drawn toward the
R1asses Of their fellow race brothers liv-
Eng in Germany, Austria and Hungary
tust beyond frontiers which are fire.
Cuently lacking in any physical circum-
stance.
OF 10000 900 inhabitants of Poland.
a full third belong to subject minorities,
Germans. Ukranians, White Russians,
Lithuanians and Jews. Even France has
Sound in her recovered Alsace an OBJ
stacle born of the Teutonic character
of the mass of the people of this prov
ince. which is giving her increasing diff
f1culty, while Italy has been confronted
by more sensational opposition alike
from the Austrian Germans of the Up
per Adige and the Southern Slavs in all
the hinterland behind Trieste and Pola,
Hungarian Minorities Menace.
Most striking. perhaps. of all the
minority problems and next to the
German the gravest menace to European
stability is the case of the Hungarians.
Over DO per cent of the ten millions
belonging to this race were by the
peace treaties distributed among the
Rumanians. Czech and Jugoslav states.
AS to the Germans, not only are there
six million and a half condemned to
live in poverty and peril within the new
Austrian republic, but six or seven
millions are scattered just across new
frontiers on all sides, in Poland and
France, in Belgium and Denmark, which
now count small minorities in Eupen
and Slesvig, in Ccechoslovakia which
counts, as have said, more than three
million and quarter
Again, while it is clear that there are
certain obvious revisions of frontiers
which might reduce the minorities-
that, for example, a million Magyars
could and should be returned to their
mother country-in the main no solu-
ton is discoverable in this direction
for the simple reason that the min
critics are either hopelessly inter-
mingled with other races as, for
example, in the case of the Magyars of
the Carpathians mere enclave in an
alien sea.
Revision of frontiers, speaking in the
larger sense, would merely change the
character of the minorities, either
Poles, Czechs, Slovaks and Rumanians
must be subordinated to German and
Magyar rule, as was the case before the
World War. or the present condition
must be continued. To suppress the
Polish Corridor, obviously the gravest
peril to peace in Europe, would mean
no more than restoring some six hum
dred thousand Germans in Danzig and
West Prussia to the reich and re-
establishing direct tangency between
East Prussia and Brandenburg at the
cost of turning nearly million Poles
over to Prussian rule and depriving
Poland of an outlet on the sea. To
restore the old Hungary, even without
Croatia and Slavonia, would be to re-
turn more than three millions Of Ru-
manians and above two millions and a
half of Sloveks to rule that both alb
horred before 1919.
Subject Races Once Dominant.
But if the easy solution is lacking. if
a revision of treaties is impossible, It is
Just as clear that the existing condition
is intolerable for the minorities. And
II is intolerable for two reasons: First
of all. the minorities in the main belong
TO races which were once dominant, and
in their period of power prosecuted the
then subject and now supreme peoples
abominably The treatment of the Poles
in Posen and West Prussia, of the Ru-
manians. of the Czechs was such as to
leave bitter memories and to render
inevitable similar persecution employed
by the new masters today.
The second reason is even more COM
pelling. One might believe that Ole
rancors and surviving passions might
die down we're it not for the fact that
these minorities in most cases represent
the foundation of policies for the re-
Covery of lost lands. For Germany the
presence Of q million Germans in the
borderlands, in the Corridor, Danzil
and Upper Silesia supplies the inevi.
table bases for aspirations and purposes
to recover the lost provinces. And ex.
actly the same situation exists in the
lands taken from Hungary and in the
lands taken by Rumania.
The subject Germans and MagyarS
are. in fact, enemy forces within The
national frontiers of the new states
They constitute at once basis for the
demand for the revision Of frontier.
and force to resist the efforts of the
sclidate their national existence.
There Are Two Sides.
These minorities are responsive t.
the impulses coming from Berlin anc
Budapest. They are encouraged II
their struggle, not alone by advice, bu
by financial assistance, and their strug'
gle is to prevent the final consolida'
ton of the existing condition. They
L. .Af xfin ~
intention to become loyal and willing
citizens of their new countries.
Yet one must at the same time con
slider the situation of the German o.
Hungarian government, of Stresemanl
or Count Bethlen. Every day ant
every hour bring appalling evidence o
the unhappy condition of the ninori