Prager Tagblatt
- For a European Domestic Policy.
- The Economic Manifesto.
- Pilsudski and the Deputies.
The Prager Tagblatt of 30 October 1926 carried three items on Central European politics and economics. In a speech passage, the speaker welcomed the decision of "our German fellow countrymen" to work in parliament. He called it only a first step, but saw personal contact among the government parties and their administrative cooperation as a good basis for further rapprochement. In a signed column, David Lloyd George took up the manifesto of international financiers and industrialists. He endorsed its claim that the break-up of large political units and the new frontiers had dealt the international economy a heavy blow, and gave the example of former Austrian territory now divided among four states. A Warsaw report described a "conflict": Prime Minister Pilsudski handed Sejm Marshal Rataj a copy of the presidential decree convening the session and asked that the deputies stand to hear it read, which the papers said had never been done before.
Translation
For a European Domestic Policy.
"I will not list the useful and good things that have happened in the past year; but I express my satisfaction that our German fellow countrymen have resolved to take part in the work of parliament. I do not overestimate this first step, but in the personal contact among the government parties and in their administrative cooperation I see a good condition for further political rapprochement.
The Economic Manifesto.
By David Lloyd George.
The manifesto of the international leaders of finance and industry points out that the international economy has suffered a heavy blow from the tearing apart of large political units and the erection of new frontiers. We need only look at the new frontiers to grasp the compelling force of this argument. The complex in Europe that once made up Austria is now divided among four countries: Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania.
Pilsudski and the Deputies.
Conflict. Warsaw, 29 October. Prime Minister Marshal Pilsudski handed the Marshal of the Sejm, Rataj, a copy of the decree of the President of the Republic convening the budget session of the Sejm. According to the newspapers, Marshal Pilsudski asked Sejm Marshal Rataj to make arrangements so that the House would hear the reading of the President of the Republic's decree convening the autumn session standing, something that had not been practised before.
Context
What the German parties' entry into the Prague government involved
The first passage welcomes the decision of "our German fellow countrymen" to work in parliament, which places it in the moment when Sudeten German parties began to cooperate with the Czechoslovak state. Franz Spina's Farmers' League (Bund der Landwirte) was the first German party to cooperate actively with the government. It entered Prime Minister Antonín Švehla's cabinet, and Spina became the first ethnic German minister in Czechoslovakia. The German Christian Social People's Party also joined the government, and its politician Robert Mayr-Harting became Minister of Justice. The speaker grounds his hopes in personal contact and administrative cooperation among the government parties, which suits an arrangement that had only just begun and was still limited in scope. Later events show how fragile it was. The Christian Social party was dropped from the government after the 1929 election, and its deputies later joined the Sudeten German Party. Spina went on believing in Czech-German cooperation until he died in 1938, two weeks before the Munich Agreement.
Who stood behind the bankers' manifesto of October 1926
The manifesto discussed by Lloyd George was a round robin signed by more than 100 of the world's leading financiers. It called on European nations to remove the tariff barriers that hampered international trade. TIME's issue of 1 November 1926 listed among the signatories Montagu Norman, Governor of the Bank of England, and Hjalmar Schacht, President of the German Reichsbank. The people who delivered the document to the news agencies would not say who had drafted it, and editors in each country guessed at a foreign author; British editors chose Schacht. Schacht himself said the manifesto was closely connected with the recent conference of German and British industrialists in England and was the result of international negotiations. In the United States, President Coolidge answered by reminding the public that people who lend money are always eager for international free trade. The appeal therefore came from creditors and central bankers, and it immediately ran into protectionist politics.
How Lloyd George's column relates to the manifesto's own wording
Lloyd George's column closely follows the manifesto's central argument. The text quoted by TIME states that the break-up of great political units in Europe dealt a heavy blow to international trade, and that a number of new frontiers were erected and jealously guarded by customs barriers. Lloyd George adds his own illustration: the territory that once made up Austria is now divided among Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia and Romania. The parts of the manifesto that TIME printed name no countries, so this list of four states should be read as Lloyd George's own gloss. For a Prague paper, his example lands close to home, since Czechoslovakia heads his list of successor states. TIME also commented that the tariff reform businessmen wanted most was the stabilization of tariff schedules. That was a narrower goal than the free trade the manifesto called for.
Why Pilsudski's demand that the Sejm stand mattered after the May Coup
Józef Piłsudski took power in a coup carried out in Warsaw from 12 to 14 May 1926. He had declared himself ready to fight the evil of "sejmocracy", a contemptuous term for rule by the Polish parliament. After the coup Ignacy Mościcki became president, but Piłsudski held real power from then on, and he launched the Sanation regime, which claimed to restore moral fitness to public life. Piłsudski headed two governments himself, one of them in 1926–1928, which is why the report calls him Prime Minister. The paper labels the episode a "conflict" and reports, citing other newspapers, that he asked for the deputies to stand while the President's decree was read, a practice it says had not existed before. Read against that background, the request was a demand that parliament show visible deference to the head of state and the government he had installed. The report also mentions both a "budget session" and an "autumn session", referring to the same decree.
Maciej Rataj, the Sejm Marshal on the other side of the request
Maciej Rataj, to whom Piłsudski handed the decree, was Marshal of the Sejm from 1922 to 1928. He belonged to the Polish People's Party "Piast", the party that, together with the Christian Union of National Unity, had formed Wincenty Witos's government, the government the May Coup overthrew. During the coup Rataj mediated between the two sides together with Archbishop Aleksander Kakowski. After President Stanisław Wojciechowski resigned, Rataj became acting president, oversaw the special election and appointed the new government. The man Piłsudski asked to arrange the deputies' ceremonial deference was therefore a parliamentary leader from the camp the coup had removed from power, who had also presided over the constitutional transfer of power that followed it.
Original
Für europäische Innenpolitik.
" Ich werde nicht aufzählen, was im letzten Jahre Nützliches und Gutes geschehen ist; aber ich drücke darüber die Genugtuung aus, daß sich unsere deutschen Landsleute zur Mitarbeit im Parlamente entschlossen haben. Ich überschätze diesen ersten Schritt nicht, aber ich erblicke in der persönlichen Berührung der Regierungsparteien und in der administrativen Zusammenarbeit eine gute Bedingung für die weitere politische Annäherung.
Das Wirtschaftsmanifest.
Das Manifest der internationalen Finanzund Industrieführer weist darauf hin, daß die internationale Wirtschaft durch das Auseinanderreißen großer politischer Einheiten und die Errichtung neuer Grenzen einen schweren Schlag erhalten hat. Wir brauchen uns die neuen Grenzen nur anzusehen, um das Zwingende dieses Arguments zu begreifen. Der Komplex in Europa, der einst Oesterreich darstellte, ist nunmehr unter vier Länder aufgeteilt: die Tschechoslowakei, Ungarn, Jugoslawien und Rumänien.
Pilsudski und die Abgeordneten.
Konflikt. Warschau, 29. Oktober. Ministerpräsident Marschall Pilsudski überreichte dem Sejmmarschall Rataj eine Abschrift des Dekretes des Präsidenten der Republik über die Einberufung der Budgetsession des Sejm. Wie die Blätter melden, ersuchte Marschall Pilsudski den Sejmmarschall Rataj, Anordnungen zu treffen, damit das Haus die Verlesung des Dekretes des Präsidenten der Repubiik über die Einberufung der Herbstsession stehend anhöre, was bisher noch nicht praktiziert wurde.