Page:The New Europe - Volume 3.djvu/291

 beyond the seas. You, gentlemen, the present and the future will regard as the spokesmen of the Czecho-Slovak nation, and there is no doubt what they require from you. The programme of our nation is founded on its history and racial unity, on its modern political life and rights and on all that gave birth to these rights and guaranteed them. The present time emphasizes this programme in its farthest consequences. If it ever seemed possible to renounce or limit this programme, to-day you are forced to develop it and to defend to the last breath before the forum of Europe as a whole, and to demand its realisation without any reservations. For the Czech people has never renounced it, and faith in its glorious realisation has never vanished from Czecho-Slovak hearts. This has been brought about by the events of the world’s war. Democratic Europe, the Europe of free and independent nations, is the Europe of to-morrow and of the future. The nation asks of you to be equal to this great historical occasion, to devote to it all your abilities, to sacrifice to it all other considerations, to act as independent men, as men without any personal obligations and interests, as men of the highest moral and national consciousness. If you cannot carry out all that the nation demands of you and charges you with, then rather resign your right to sit and appeal to the highest authority—to your nation.”

The deliberations of the Czech Parliamentary Club on this manifesto are, of course, not accessible to us. But the following statement communicated by them to the Prague Press on 20 May speaks for itself:—

“At this historic moment for the Czech nation the decisions of the Czech Club have a quite exceptional importance. It is unnecessary to point out that the entire Czech nation awaits with impatience the moment for learning the attitude adopted by its deputies. It may rest assured that the deputies, conscious of their high mission, will, above all, demand the restoration of the constitution of the kingdom of Bohemia; in other words, the convocation of the Bohemian Diet, and that they will not fail to urge before the Reichsrat our ancient programme of independence. It may also be predicted that, in view of the new situation, our deputies will put forward a programme of constitutional rights, far wider than all past programmes, and containing new claims,