Papers and Documents relating to the Foreign Relations of Hungary, Volume 1, 1919–1920 (Budapest, 1939)

Appendix III. Parliamentary debates

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3 Mr. Karafiáth : The Czechs also prohibited the wearing of the Hungarian national costume ... and the display of the Hungarian flag . . . Hungarian labor is everywhere dismissed and replaced by Czech labour. From the iooo employees of the railway factory at Ruttka, 378 Hungarians ; and at Zsolna, from 1200 employees, 614 Hungarians were dismissed ... Since the facts I have enumerated are not isolated, I deemed it to be my duty to bring them before the House, if for no other reason than in order to demonstrate to our fellow-nationals separated from us that we do think of them. I realize that we do not have at our disposal the appropriate means ; yet I wish we could help them in some way in their terrible situation . . . I beg to address the following interpellation : „Does the Prime Minister and the Minister for Foreign Affairs know that on Hungarian territories under Czechoslovak administration, the Czechs commit serious atrocities against the Hungarian population ; that they prohibit the use of the Magyar language and the wearing of the Hungarian national costume ; that Magyar schools are everywhere suppressed ? „Has the Prime Minister or the Minister for Foreign Affairs taken any steps — and, if so, what steps — to bring to an end these intolerable conditions ; if no such steps have been taken, what steps are contemplated to secure for the terrorized Hungarian population of the occupied territories at least the same degree of protection which Hungary is bound to extend by virtue of the peace treaty to national minorities in Hungary ?" The Speaker : The Minister for Foreign Affairs desires to speak. Count Emeric Csáky, Minister for Foreign Affairs : I should like to reply briefly on behalf of the Government to the preceding interpellation. I should like to say that the Government has knowledge of the regrettable incidents occurring day by day on the territories occupied by the Czechs as well as on other occupied territories. These incidents are in flagrant contradiction to the treaty obligations of the Governments of neighbouring States — obligations identical with those which Hungary assumed under the peace treaty with respect to the non-Magyar population of Hungary. It is indeed regrettable that these Governments — specifically the Government at Prague — does not deem it necessary to