Boycotted

When the members of the Narodni Vybor, or Cabinet, took their seats on the Government bench in the National Assembly at Prague, capital of Czechoslovakia, they noticed that many a bench on the floor of the Assembly was conspicuously empty. The Ministers nodded comprehendingly one to the other; for they were aware that the minority races (Slovaks, Germans, Magyars, Ruthenians) had carried out their oft-declared intention of boycotting the Parliament. Later, the minority Deputies delivered a solemn protest to the world demanding their "fundamental rights." * Thus, debate on the financial situation (most concerned with an unbalanced budget) went on minus the minority Deputies. That did not mean that the Opposition was not present. The Opposition was there, very much there, loudly protesting that per capita taxation was considerably higher than in Britain and France and that more money was being spent on the Army than on education. Then someone suggested that the country should call in an international financial controller./- Raucous ranting filled the Assembly; indignation, even ire, was on every side; the Deputies had considered the suggestion an insult to their national sovereignty.

* Autonomy was promised to the minority races when the Czecho-Slovak Nation came into existence in 1918--in the case of the Slovaks, as early as the Pittsburgh meeting of 1917. For reasons ascribable to conditions in Central Europe and to the youth of the Republic, none of these promises has been honored. By the Constitution of 1920, the Czecho-Slovak State is a single and indivisible unity. Hence, as a protest, the minority Deputies declined to attend Parliament. /- Austria and Hungary, states contiguous to Czecho-Slovakia, have financial controllers acting under the authority of the League of Nations.