CATHOLIC SCHOOLS SUFFER
By a Slovak Correspondent
On September 21 Dr. Benes' London radio service announced that the Slovak National Council " at Banska Bystrica has just issued its first political decree. according to which all denominational schools in Slovakia will be abolished and taken over by the State, " in order to make mice for all an end to the division of Slovaks into Catholics and Lutherans."
In the districts still held by the partisans this decree has already been put into effect.
Should this decree come into force in the whole of Slovakia. the Slovak Catholics would be robbed of more than 1,500 primary and about II secondary schools and the Lutherans of several hundred primary and six
secondary schools. The five diocesan seminaries, the Catholic Academy and the Lutheran Theological Academy at Bratislava would also presumably be abolished.
LIQUIDATION OF CATHOLICS According to Bratislava radio, there has been liquidation of Catholics already, though this news source should be accepted with some reserve. Francis Stamen, a Catholic workers' representa live in the Slovakian Parliament, and the Rev. Anthony Sahli., a well-known Catholic priest and popular writer, who had been a Deputy first in the Czechoslovak and later Slovak Parliament and was known as a close collaborator of the late Mgr. Hlinka, are stated to have been killed by partisans in the revolt. According to the same source many other priests and pastors have been killed or imprisoned.
On the diplomatic front it is to be noted that Belies has sent his delegate, Lieut.-Colonel Svoboda, to Karol Sidor, the Slovakian Minister to the Holy Sec. with a mission to win him over for the Czechoslovak cause. Svoboda, on behalf of Benes, made to Sidor generous promises, offering an " autonomy " to Slovakia and the Governor-Generalship of Slovakia to M. Sidor. The Slovak diplomat has refused to negotiate.
Furthermore, the Government of the United States in appointing ambassadors to all the exiled Governments has so far excepted Benes' Czechoslovak Government. The White House stated, according to Reuter. that the envoy to Benes would probably be nominated later. Slovaks in this country believe that this reserve sower d, Benes is, at least partly, due to the intervention of American Slovaks.