Page:The Czechoslovak Review, vol3, 1919.djvu/75

 arisen from different causes in Teschen after the Polish occupation. Delegations of the miners from the Ostrava district came here almost daily, even here into the Assembly, to declare that disorder in administration and civic life prevailing in territory held by the Poles was overflowing into districts administered by us and that our public administration may succumb to those disorders. Czechs, Poles and Germans called upon our republic to help them against a disorganization in which it was impossible to live. The government is in a position to furnish official evidence of the truth of the danger that the Moravian-Ostrava district would have fallen prey to disorder.

When the government became convinced that the territory which is of vital importance to the state was in truth lacking all public authority, that it was the headquarters of Bolshevik agitators and bands that invaded territory administered by us and incited people living under our rule to disturbances, when the government saw that the production of coal in the Ostrava-Karvin coal district fell off from 6,768,912 quintals (220.46 lbs. each) a month to 3,069,120, it decided to send troops to introduce administrative order through the entire Teschen area and secure for the people all the benefits of an orderly government. This step would not have been necessary, if Teschen had not been occupied by the Poles against the agreements which we had concluded in Russia, Moscow and Kiev, in Washington and Prague, all to the effect that questions relating to Silesia would be settled by the Czechoslovak government in agreement with the Poles, or in case an agreement could not be reached by them, then by the peace conference and until then status quo should prevail.

That the entire Silesia in its historical boundaries belongs to us is confirmed by the Allied Note of January 19, 1919 to the Budapest Government and by an English Note replying to an appeal of the German-Austrian Government. The Poles cannot claim that a majority of the people are of the Polish nationality or that the right of self-determination is violated. As far as language is concerned, it is well-known that experts disagree, whether the inhabitants of Teschen speak the Czech or the Polish language.

The question of Teschen has for us the utmost economic importance and this importance is not merely local, but affects a large part of Europe. Karvin and Ostrava cannot be separated from each other, as the Poles have done by their occupation. The evil effects of the Polish occupation may be best seen from this: in two or three weeks great steel mills of Vítkovice would have to close down, and that would mean loss of employment for 17,000 mill hands and as a result of that 70,000 more workers in factories which must have steel would also be thrown out of work. We could not supply coal to Italy, Slovakia, to our own beet sugar mills and railroads. Even today we adhere to our original proposal that the dispute about Teschen should be settled by Prague and Warsaw governments with friendly offices of the peace conference. We proposed to the Government of Warsaw to create a Czech-Polish commission of experts to take up this problem. In taking the above important steps we are only doing our duty, and no one, not even the Poles can justly complain, if in our own state and on our own territory we enforce, order and peace and secure law and civic liberty.

This declaration of the acting Czechoslovak premier is supplemented by the following bulletin issued by the Czechoslovak Press Bureau: The government of the Czechoslovak Republic has followed for a long time with serious fears the developments of events in Teschen, but it refrained from every action of a political character. But when recently an English mission returning from Breslau and passing through Teschen declared the conditions prevailing there to be unsupportable and called at tention to the danger of Bolshevism which disseminates from this region into all Central Europe, representatives of the military forces of the entente stationed in Prague determined that they would immediately undertake the reforms necessary to secure the lives of the peaceful inhabitants who are in danger of being murdered and also to secure production of coal from the Karvin mines which during the present coal crisis is of immense importance.

The character of the entire action is best seen from a manifesto by which it was opened: To the inhabitants of the duchy of SiliesiaSilesia [sic]. Deplorable conditions of public safety and danger of economic catastrophe in Silesia compelled the government of the Czechoslovak Republic to send a part of Allied armies coming from France to in