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all, the Munich Agreement, which was come to in the course
of a comparatively short time, measured by hours, could not
be expected to deal in itself with every detail of the operation
which was contemplated. All that we could do at Munich was
to lay down certain general outlines, leaving to an International
Commission the task of filling in details. The right hon.
Gentleman (Mr. Attlee) criticises the International Commis-
sion in the carrying out of that task. I say again that though
we may not like the solution I would ask the right hon.
Gentleman not to forget what the alternative was, and if he
was not prepared to accept the alternative use of force—[An
HON. MEMBER : c Why not ? ']—we must recognise that we
had to accept the alternative, disagreeable though it may be
in many respects.
" The right hon. Gentleman spoke among other things
about the boundaries which are to be laid down between the
new State of Czechoslovakia and Germany. By the fourth
Article of the Munich Agreement there was imposed on the
International Commission the duty of determining the extent
of the territories outside the four zones which were to be
occupied by German troops by yth October—territories out-
side those which, being preponderantly German in 1918,
should be occupied by Germany by loth October. The time
was short, and the International Commission decided that in
order to ascertain the limits of that territory they must get as
near as they could to the position in 1918. That was in accord-
ance with the methods under the plebiscite in the Saar district*
The right hon. Gentleman says that they went back much
further than 1918, that they went back to 1910, and that no
justification has ever been given for going back to a period
so long ago as that. I do not know that there has been any
opportunity on any previous occasion of giving that justifica-
tion, but, of course, the answer is very simple. There was
no census in 1918, and as there were no reliable figures for
that date the International Commission were obliged to go
back to the last date for which there were reliable figures,
and that was 1910. That was the reason why the census of
1910 was taken as a basis."
SIR ARCHIBALD SINCLAIR : " Why were they obliged to
go back to that time and not to take later figures ? **