106 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



have been politically inexpedient because of its length and irregularity, 

 and economically disadvantageous because the river valleys, of which 

 there are about a dozen, would have had no easy means of communi- 

 cation with one another or with the outside world. Hence the frontier 

 was carried south to the Danube, and about 1,000,000 Magyars were 

 included in the total population of 3,500,000. Nor is the prospect of 

 assimilating these Magyars particularly bright. The Germans in 

 Bohemia are cut off from the Fatherland by mountain ranges, and, as 

 we have seen, it does not appear to present any great attraction to them. 

 It is otherwise in Slovakia, where the Magyars of the lowland live in 

 close touch with those of the Alfold, and it may be long ere they 

 forget their connection with them. The danger of transferring terri- 

 tory not on geographical or ethnical, but on economic, grounds could 

 not be more strikingly illustrated. 



With regard to economic development, the future of the new State 

 would appear to be well assured. Bohemia and Moravia were the most 

 important industrial areas in the old Austrian Empire, and Slovakia, 

 in addition to much good agricultural land, contains considerable stores 

 of coal and iron. But if Czecho- Slovakia is to be knit together into a 

 political and economic unit, its communications will have to be 

 developed. We have already suggested that the geographical diversity 

 of the country offers certain compensations for its lack of unity, but 

 these cannot be taken advantage of until its different regions are more 

 closely knit together than they are at present. The north of Bohemia 

 finds its natural outlet both by rail and water through German ports. 

 The south-east of Bohemia and Moravia look towards Vienna. In 

 Slovakia the railways, with only one important exception, converge upon 

 Budapest. The people appear to be alive to the necessity of remedying 

 this state of affairs, and no fewer than fifteen new railways have been 

 projected, which, when completed, will unite Bohemia and Moravia 

 more closely to one another and Slovakia. Moreover, it is proposed 

 to develop the waterways of the country by constructing a canal from 

 the Danube at Pressburg to the Oder. From this canal another will 

 branch off at Prerau and run to Pardubitz on the Elbe, below which 

 point that river has still to be canalised. If these improvements are 

 carried out the position of Czecho-Slovakia will, for an inland State, 

 be remarkably strong. It will have through communication by water 

 Avith the Black Sea, the North Sea, and the Baltic, and some of the 

 most important land routes of the Continent already run through it. 

 On the other hand, its access to the Adriatic is handicapped by the 

 fact that in order to reach that sea its goods will have to pass through 

 the territory of two, if not of three, other States, and however well the 

 doctrine of economic rights of way may sound in theory, there are 

 undoubted drawbacks to it in practice. Even with the best intentions, 

 neighbouring States may fail to afford adequate means of transport, 

 through defective organisation, trade disputes, or various other reasons. 

 It is probable, therefore, that the development of internal communica- 

 tions will in the end be to the advantage of the German ports, and 

 more especially of Hamburg. But the other outlets of the State will 

 certainly tend lowards the pieservatiou of its economic independence. 



