Poland From the Inside

Introduction
  1. Historical Survey
  2. Economic Life
  3. Composition of Population
  4. The Constitution
  5. The problem of Danzig
  6. On tour in Poland
  7. A Nationality State
  8. Dreams of Empire
  9. The Poles at home
10. The influence of Napoleon
11. Famous men quoted
12. The small nationalities
13. Treatment of minorities
14. Upper Silesia's example
      Conclusions
      Illustrations and Maps
      Appendix
      Important dates in Polish history

Poland is a country which, in its present form, was founded after the Great War. In order to obtain some idea of its size, one must remember that it is almost three times as large as England.

Map showing the position of Poland

Poland is bounded on the North by Latvia, Lithuania, East Prussia, Danzig and the Baltic, on the East by Russia, and on the West by Germany, while in the South it borders Rumania, Slovakia and Hungary. The part extending to the Baltic forms a wedge between East Prussia and the rest of Germany, and is generally referred to as the Corridor.

The country comprises a part of White Russia, a part of the Ukraine, Upper Silesia, which voted in favour of a union with Germany after the Great War, and, in addition to the Corridor, several mainly non-Polish territories, while the originally Polish kernel is in the centre of the present State.

The Vistula is the main river, but its commercial importance has been reduced considerably since the War, and it is, as Polish figures show, not the main commercial highway. Poland's seaport, Gdynia, shares with Danzig the main part of overseas commerce. Gdynia has been extended of recent years.

Danzig is not part of Poland, but is called a Free  State. It has its own officials, its own postage stamps, its own currency and its own laws; but it forms with Poland a customs union, so that Poland was permitted by the terms of the peace treaty to post her customs officials there.

In former centuries, under the Polish kings, the country played an important part in European history every now and then. Later on, it was divided between the neighboring States, Russia obtaining the lion's share. There were three partitions altogether.

The Poles wished to regain their independence and struggled against the Russians. During the Great War their opportunity came, and as early as 1916 Germany promised the representatives of the Poles independence.

When the frontiers of the new Poland were fixed, vast tracts of non-Polish land were included, and there were loud protests in England when Upper Silesia was added as well. In the course of time, however, this was forgotten, and most people now believe that the provinces making up the Polish Republic have always been Polish.

The Poles are of Slavonic origin, but absolutely distinct from the Russians.

Their main occupation is agriculture, but there are also important manufacturing centres, especially in the former German part in the South-West. The people are almost all Roman Catholics.

Geographically and historically, the whole country now composing Poland belongs to no single, compact State system, but comprises a number of various sections synthetically linked up under the rule of Warsaw. Ethnographically, the South is Ukrainian, much of the West German, the extreme North also German, part of the North-East Russian, while the rest of the Republic is mainly Polish, but with no inconsiderable admixture of other nationalities. The present frontiers were mainly due to Polish claims to have owned these areas in earlier centuries.

Poland's claim to be a great realm is based upon what is said to be history. The Poles state that their country once stretched to the very centre of Europe. But the truth is that the Slavonic groups distributed thinly throughout this area were by no means all Polish. The mere fact that a few families settled for a while in this or that district does not offer a good basis for a legal claim on the part of a State.

Historically, Poland first made her mark in the 10th century, when she was a kind of vassal State linked up with the German Empire. The first actual reference to the State as such was in the year 963. Shortly afterwards, Poland became the centre of wholesale fighting between Slavonic tribes. This was really the beginning of the struggles between the Russians and the Poles, which did not end when the Czarist regime fell, but continued until the Poles drove the Bolsheviks across the frontiers at a time when peace was supposed to have succeeded the Great War.

Internal dissention was fairly general under Mieczyslav II and III, Casimir I and II, Boleslav II, III, IV and V,  and the three Vladislavs, as well as under Leszek the White, Leszek the Black and Przemyslav. The latter was murdered. But during their rule the sovereignty of the German Empire was repeatedly acknowledged. All these Polish rulers bore the title of Duke, and it was not until the 14th century that a king was crowned and a certain amount of law and order established, in place of the struggles between the rival ducal factions. Shortly after, Poland was united with Hungary, but this was purely a personal union under King Louis (1370-1382), which ceased on his death.

Peace was not, however, to last long. The nobles repeatedly tried to overawe the people, and there was later a war with Sweden. In the second half of the seventeenth century civil war broke out.

Domestic strife actually survived two partitions, the second in 1793, when most of the formerly Polish territory went to Russia, with a population of 3 millions, while Prussia received a strip with 1,100,000 inhabitants. Kosciusco tried in 1794 to unite the Poles, and many poems tell of his prowess. But shortly afterwards he was defeated at Praga (not to be confused with Prague in Bohemia), and a third partition took place, Russia, Prussia and Austria obtaining the territory. Russia again took over the largest part. During the Napoleonic wars, the Poles established a kind of independence, following the Peace of Tilsit. The Peace of Vienna added to this Polish State, and hopes were placed in Napoleon bymany Poles. But they were doomed to disappointment. All the French wished for in Poland was to raise an army to help the "petit caporal" defeat Russia. In 1812 the new State, known as the Duchy of Warsaw, came to a sudden collapse. In 1815 the Poles were promised a certain representation, with two chambers, by Czar Alexander I. The first Parliament did meet, it is true, but it had no real power, and things became still worse when Alexander died. In 1830 the Poles revolted, and drove the Russians across the borders. The Polish nobility took over the reins of government, but party strife prevented any real work of reconstruction. The nobles and people could not agree, and the way was thus paved for the return of the Russians. Chlopicki established himself as dictator, and tried to negotiate with Russia, with the object of keeping the Polish people from overruling the nobility, but the Russians demanded complete capitulation. Had the Poles remained united, they could have maintained their full independence, but when one party endeavored to make terms with Russia at the expense of the other, Poland lost her liberty. Marshal Diebitsch assembled an army of 120,000 men, and advanced on Warsaw. After brave resistance, the Poles were defeated, and their leader sought refuge in Austria. It is interesting to note that in 1831, just over a century ago, the Poles appealed for aid in London and Paris, but met with little sympathy.

Most of those known to have played a leading part in the revolt were sent to Siberia in chains, a few escaped to Austria and Prussia. The frontiers were occupied by secret police, and Poland was to all intents and purposes cut off from all connection with foreign States. For long years no Pole could attend a university, while in 1833 a law demanded that only Russian schools could be attended. In 1840 an edict declared that no person without a perfect command of the Russian language might occupy a public position.

News circulated slowly in those days, but the world was aware of these happenings. No single State offered to assist the Poles. Polish revolutionaries gathered in Germany, France and Italy, as well as, on a smaller scale, in England. The Poles under Prussia also attempted a rising, but their leaders were imprisoned. In contrast to Russia, Berlin pardoned the revolutionaries after a brief period of imprisonment, and promised the Poles a settlement in accordance with their wishes on condition that they refrained from further risings while the arrangements were being made. The Poles continued to arm, however, although their own schools, courts and administrative bodies were speedily established, and a Prussian force was dispatched to end the revolt.

One insurrection followed the other in Russian Poland. In 1867 the Czar even went so far as to refuse the Polish clergy all contact with Rome, and the property of Poles was confiscated. There was little improvement when the present century dawned, and a bitter hatred of the Russians prevails in Poland to this day, for after the Bolshevik revolution the new Moscow authorities showed no change of attitude.

The Poles and Germans lived in parts of Prussia on fairly good terms in more recent years preceding the War. Conditions improved as a result of Germany's industrial expansion, which assured ample opportunities for all. Many Poles were more than satisfied, and when the Great War came they fought solidly with the Germans and Austrians, while those compelled to serve with the Russian army deserted at the first opportunity. There were, however, exceptions, and some Poles dreamed of an Empire stretching to Berlin and Stettin. Indeed, one side of the River Havel, which almost skirts Berlin, was repeatedly quoted as Polish. The War did not fulfil their dreams. It brought them areas containing many non-Poles, but not the vast Empire they had hoped for. Lithuania was also to be included and, as a matter of fact, the Vilna district was taken from the Lithuanians by the Poles in defiance to the Allies. The most recent addition to the Polish Republic is Teschen, which was Warsaw's share in the partition of Czecho-Slovakia. Its cession to Poland resulted in new dreams of Empire.

Most people have an entirely incorrect idea of the economic structure of Poland. When the possibilities of this country are being considered, the area and the population are quoted as proof of its latent purchasing power. It is true that there are nearly 35,000,000 people in Poland, and that the area is over 150,000 square miles, but these facts cannot alone serve as evidence of its latent possibilities.

A decisive factor for the economic structure of Poland is that there are considerable economic differences between its various parts. These differences are noticeable in all fields. The new Poland is not the result of a process of evolution, but was pieced together after the Great War. The various parts were included in the economic systems of Russia, Austria or Germany, and had their own needs and peculiarities, in accordance with the States to which they previously belonged. A new State was established, but there was a lack of co-ordination, particularly from an economic point of view. There was also a great difference in the life of the people in the several parts.

Foreign capital invested in Polish limited liability companies. The foreign capital invested in limited companies in Poland totals 1,446 million zloty, the participation of the different countries being as follows (in million zloty):
France	391	America	277
Germany	251	Belgium	181
Switzerland	104	England	79
Holland	50	Sweden	39
Bohemia-Moravia	23	Other lands	51

The biggest group, which incidentally has the greatest relative density, is in Galicia, with 8,500,000 inhabitants, and a density of population quoted by Polish books of reference as varying between 110 and 132 per square kilometre. As, however, the thinly populated mountain districts are included, the actual density in the area round Cracow and Lemberg is much greater. The southern parts of the former Russian Poland have also a big surplus population.

On the other hand, the formerly German provinces of Posen and the Corridor have a population density of only 80 and 66 per square kilometre, and in purely agricultural areas a density of 40 is not uncommon. The growth of the population is, again, most marked in the parts already overpopulated, while the surplus rural population in Galicia, in the southern part of Russian Poland and in East Poland threatens to become a real danger.

For example, Polish figures show that the number of persons engaged in agricultural pursuits per 100 hectares (nearly 250 acres) of arable land is up to 150 in Galicia, but only 40 to 50 in Posen and the Corridor. Conditions in the rural parts of Galicia, as well as in some parts of East Poland and sectors of the former Russian area, can only be compared with the thickly populated land between Osaka and Kobe in Japan.

According to my calculations, which are based on reliable statistics, there are nearly 4,500,000 surplus agricultural workers in Poland, but they are restricted to the former Austrian and Russian parts. Conditions in the former German areas are much better. Of course, Upper Silesia must be excepted, being mainly industrial.

The problem of this surplus population is one of the troubles with which the Warsaw government has to deal. As yet it has been unsolved. The attempts made to settle part of the surplus population in other parts, as in the new industrial area of Sandomierz, in the limits of the so-called Agrarian Reform, could hardly affect the question to any extent. Incidentally, the transferring of a part of the agrarian population to the towns helped to sharpen the Jewish question, for most of the trade is in the hands of the Jews, who are also well represented among craftsmen and even in the professions.

The types of farms and holdings vary with the density of the population. For example, while com-  putatively large farms are found in the more thinly populated districts, the areas with a surplus population contain mainly small holdings. These small holdings have been repeatedly divided and subdivided, until they have reached an almost incredible smallness. In some parts of Central Poland and Galicia, holdings under five acres make up 27% of the whole arable land. Again, conditions in this respect are much better in Posen and the Corridor. Not all the peasants in the former Russian and Austrian Poland are real farmers; many have adopted farming as an occupation, and are hardly able to maintain even the most humble existence. In West Poland, farmers enjoy a much better position. But something like 540,000 acres of agricultural property have already been broken up into small holdings in the more prosperous provinces. This measure was carried out as Agrarian Reform, but was really a question of the official minority policy, directed against the German-speaking population, who own much of the arable land there.

The agrarian productivity of Poland (Based on the harvests of the main agrarian products, according to Ornicki, "Wladomosci geograficznych".)

Modern agricultural methods are noticeable mainly in the former German provinces, while more primitive means are employed in the South and East, especially the latter. The purchasers of agricultural machinery and apparatus are mainly in the German parts of the country, so far as such equipment is imported at all. According to the intensifying of cultivation the price of agricultural products also varies. Better prices are paid in the West of Poland for vegetables, flax and fat  products, partly on account of their better quality, and partly because traffic conditions are better, and sales more readily effected. But the low prices in East Poland have had a certain effect on those in the West, competitive rates being essential. The small holders in Galicia place their products on the market at a price which hardly enables them to purchase the necessities of life.

There is little industry in East Poland, with the exception of certain local undertakings and, perhaps, wood-working. Most of the industry in Central Poland is concentrated in Warsaw, but the armaments industry is domiciled chiefly in the Radom-Lublin-Kielce area, and there is also the new industrial centre of Sandomierz, already mentioned.

The textile industry of Lodz was adapted to the Russian market before the War, and has passed through many difficult phases, now mainly supplying British overseas areas, and thus displacing workers in Lancashire. The same applies to Bialystok, the second most important textile centre. Galicia has mainly ceramic factories, while the petroleum industry is also big; but the petroleum reserves of Boryslav and Drohobycz have been reduced considerably during the last twenty years, and fears are entertained that the supply will soon come to an end. Most of the industry is in West Poland, however.

The distribution of mineral wealth in Poland

Big industry lies in Upper Silesia. The ores are imported, largely from Russia and Sweden, but some of the world's richest deposits of lead and zinc are found there, while East Upper Silesia has big reserves of excellent coal.

The Sandomierz industrial centre would appear to have been established partly because Poland's other industrial areas are close to the frontiers.

Most of Poland plays a very unimportant part as customer. The best market is in the West, in the former German provinces. This is easily proved by Polish statistics. The consumption of coal per head of the population drops tremendously as one advances Eastwards. There are small holders in the East and South who practically live on their own products, or on such as they can obtain from their neighbours, being hardly able to buy even petroleum for lighting purposes. In some cases salt is actually a luxury, since it cannot be produced at home, but has to be purchased in return for cash.

While Poland is large in area, and contains a population of over 34 millions, it is not a potential market in the proper sense of the word, for only the inhabitants of the West really buy such goods as other countries have to sell. It is not only that the small holders have a low purchasing power; factory workers, minor officials, clerks, and the like, are hardly in a better position. Warsaw, a city of 1,200,000 inhabitants, and Lodz, with just half that number, are consumers of foreign products, but with those exceptions the market is in the West.

Polish industry has a fairly big capacity, while the home purchasing power is small, so that exports have to be fostered by every possible means. This applies particularly to the heavy industry and to the manufacture of textiles. The big industrial areas handed over to Poland after the War are too big for the country; their natural customers are separated from them by artificial frontiers.

To balance this, the Poles control export with the help of Government edicts, preference duties, export premiums, railway tariffs, and the like. Goods are sold far below the costs of production in many cases. This, again, is balanced by raising the price of industrial products in the home market, which, of course, makes it still harder for the people to buy. During the time when the German-Polish Agreement was in force, however, trading on the barter system was done.

The railway system also consists of patchwork, which is not surprising when one remembers that it is made up of parts of three railway systems. These three networks were only linked up at certain main points. While there are over 10 miles of railway per 100 square miles in Posen, 11.4 in the Corridor, and 18.5 in Upper Silesia, the other parts are poorly served. For example, voivodship of Warsaw has 5.2, Bialystok 4.2, and some areas even less miles of railway per 100 square miles. The Poles have built some railways since their Republic was founded, but these are mainly in connection with their newly founded port of Gdynia, while others are purely strategic.

The roads show similar contrasts. Motorisation makes little progress. In the Western part there were in 1938 3.3 cars per 1,000 of the population, while in the Eastern provinces there were no more than 0.3 cars per 1,000. There are 34.5 miles of consolidated roadway per 100 square miles of land in the West, 21.1 in Galicia, 13.5 in the former Russian provinces, and 3.2 in the East. The condition of the roads in the East is by no means good, although there are slightly better roads in Galicia. A few main highways through Central Poland are well maintained, but apart from them it is only in West Poland that good roadways are met with.

It will thus be seen that no economic improvements of importance have been made in Poland in the last 20 years. A new port has been fostered, and a certain amount of building has been done, but on the whole Poland is a backward nation. Even the rivers are neglected, very little commercial use being made of the Vistula. Conditions have not bettered since the War in what is now Poland. Certain progress has naturally been made as technique has advanced, but it is relatively slight as compared with that in other European lands.

The population of Poland is 34,900,000 (excluding foreign residents), but one must not assume that there are as many Poles in that country. The inhabitants are made up of 7 million Ukrainians, some 2 million White Russians, 3,200,000 Jews, 1,500,000 Germans, and 200,000 Lithuanians, leaving 21,000,000 Poles. The Poles dominate., however, so that it may safely be assumed that many non-Poles record their national group as Polish in order to avoid difficulties, and that there are really much bigger minorities. One might perhaps put the number of Poles at 20 million without any fear of underestimating. The Jews are a minority, according to Polish statistics. This must not be regarded as my invention. Warsaw quotes them in this category. There were originally altogether 3,200,000 Germans in the area now composing Poland, of whom 1,700,000 left after the plebiscite in Upper Silesia owing to the oppression under the Poles. I quote more precise details of this modern migration of so many people in a later chapter.

The Ukrainians, the biggest minority, are only a part of a great nation overlooked or forgotten at Versailles. They proclaimed their independence, but it was short-lived. Their representatives at Versailles attracted no attention. Most of the Ukrainians live in Russia, a few in Rumania, and the rest in Poland. They differ in race and language from the Poles, with whom, indeed, they have nothing in common. The White Russians are also Slavs, but also of a different group, while the Germans belong to the Teutonic race, and speak an absolutely different language.

The 1,500,000 Germans do not, of course, include the 400,000 in Danzig. Danzig comes in a different category, being entirely German. In fact, it is as German as Liverpool is English, and has a somewhat lower percentage of non-Germans than some English cities have of non-English.

It must not be forgotten that the German minority in Poland is only one of several. It would be a mistake to regard the German problem as the only one to be settled. Poland has never been a national State. Even in 1815, when she was divided with the express approval of France and Britain, there were non-Polish citizens within the country's boundaries, and minority problems existed.

It may safely be asserted that the repeated and long-drawn-out struggles between the minorities on the one hand, and the Poles on the other, led to the threefold partition of the country, robbing the State of its powers of resistance until the other countries had an easy task. In fact, dissolution seemed almost natural in view of the internal dissension. In each case, Russia was the driving force, so that it was interesting to learn that she was to guarantee Poland in 1939.

The Poles are not appealing to the world for the first time in history. I have already mentioned one previous example. But they forgot the lessons of history when their present State was founded.

The first official step towards the re-establishment of a new Polish State was taken by Germany, a fact often forgotten. Germany proclaimed Polish independence in 1916, and Pilsudski made a pact with the Reich before the War came to an end.

But, of course, Berlin had not intended to add such areas as Upper Silesia and the Corridor to Poland, or to found a new minority State. The Jewish minority of 3,200,000 is confessional, there being another half-million Jews of Christian religion. They thus make up ten per cent. of the entire population. In regarding them as a national minority, the Poles are not alone, for this is general in Eastern Europe, including Rumania.

The bare figure does not convey the full significance of this group, 70% of the Jews residing in the towns, particularly of Central, East and South Poland. In Warsaw, for example, there are 820,000 Christians and over 350,000 Jews, the baptised Jews being included among the Christians.

There are thus more Jews in Warsaw alone than in  the whole of Palestine. Lodz is the next biggest city with 400,000 Christians and 202,000 Jews. There are actually areas with a clear Jewish majority. In the Lublin province 44% of the inhabitants are Jewish, in the Bialystok province 38%, and in the province of Polesian, 49% are recorded as of the Hebrew faith. It is only in the towns which formerly belonged to Germany that there is a big majority of Christians.

The general standard of Jewish life is not upheld by the Jews of Poland. The Jews who left Germany and Austria were rich in comparison. Dirt and misery are the accompaniments. There are 250,000 Jewish craftsmen and 90,000 clerks, while the rest are either in business or act as agents, touts, and the like. Hundreds of thousands have no fixed occupation, but try to live on their wits. Many of them fail, presumably because the competition is too great. When a small number of citizens exercise their wits, they may be able to live comfortably, but when one-quarter of the population of a town attempts to make an existence in this manner, especially in a country where the general purchasing power is low, there is apt to be little opportunity for the individual.

The Jewish workers have a lower standard of living than their Polish colleagues, while the Jewish traders are, taken en masse, not to be compared with ordinary tradesmen elsewhere. They come into the same financial category as our street traders, and, as every police officer knows, most of these only carry a tray of wares to hide the fact that they are begging.

The streets of the Polish towns and villages are full of people with no visible means of support. Most of the Jews in this class collect rags, offer their services in an advisory capacity to any foreigners visible, carry a few pairs of bootlaces in their hands, or walk about with a little garlic which they hope to sell. In between they just hang about.

Many of the Jews go about dressed in a caftan and black cap of peculiar type. These usually live in ghettos which are of their own making, and they are the least disliked. Some are Zionists, while a fair percentage try to hide their Jewish characteristics and to pass as Poles. There are three unemployed Poles for each four at work, but statistics show that there are eight Jewish unemployed for each four with work.

The Jews welcomed the Polish State when it was founded. Pilsudski was not an anti-Semite. Some of the leading generals in the army are of Jewish origin, while not a few high officials have Jewish wives. Anti-Semites have only attained official importance since Pilsudski's death. The Poles have of late attacked the Jews wherever they could, but the Jews have parried most of the blows.

The White Russians are generally poorer than the Poles. They are Russian, but not Bolsheviks, and, although they are not satisfied with their situation in Poland, they do not desire to join Russia; that is, they are Russian in their feelings, but they do not wish to come under Soviet rule. They are mainly Greek Catholics, while the Poles are Roman Catholics. Their complaint is that they have not full facilities for teaching their children their own language. The Poles, who try to minimise the patchwork character of the country, do their best to assimilate this big minority, but they have not met with much success.

The Ukrainians make up the main minority. They are subjected to considerable difficulties and refuse to be assimilated. The Poles seldom give them passports if they can avoid it. Even when a Polish Ukrainian was appointed by his firm to act as representative in a big Continental capital recently, he was only given a passport valid for that one country. I examined this document myself.

The Ukrainians are the biggest nation without a country in the whole of Europe, but strangely enough their existence was unknown in Western Europe until the last half of the 19th century. Interest in them did not become general until after the Great War. An important feature of the Ukrainians is that they are settled in a compact area, largely in Russia; but the Galician districts of Stanislawow and Tarnopol are also almost entirely Ukrainian. They claim over 80,000 square miles in Poland, and in a part of this area, at least, they have resided since the fifth century. The Mongols massacred the Ukrainian inhabitants of the Eastern part of their realm, and burnt their capital, Kiev, in  1240. The Poles gained control of a part of the Ukrainian land in 1569, beginning a long series of brutal and oppressive acts. The Ukrainians were forbidden to talk of the former greatness of their people, or tell of their traditions. Many gave up their religion and nationality to avoid ruin. There were repeated revolts against the Poles, while the Tartars raided the Ukrainian areas periodically in search of booty and slaves. But the Ukrainians survived in some mysterious manner, making bows and arrows to defend themselves, and fighting with great tenacity. Autonomy and oppression alternated. What is regarded as luck for most peoples has proved a source of distress for the Ukrainians - their territory is rich, and other nations covet it, and have taken it. The Ukrainians now live in a state of subjugation in Poland, but they have their own organisation, and, seeing that they have withstood centuries of persecution, are not likely to abandon their hopes.

The German minority is equally subjected to oppressive methods, but its position is rather different. Whereas the Ukrainian and White Russian minorities lived in comparatively poor circumstances before the War, under the Czar, the Germans were prosperous. They were still the richest citizens when present Poland was founded.

There are German enclaves sprinkled all over Poland, but the main areas where they live are in the West, adjoining the Reich frontier, and in the Corridor. Their purchasing power is still relatively high, but they have been robbed of much of their land, and the process is still going on. They inhabit the richest areas which were handed to post-War Poland. Expropriation of the land is carried on with the ostensible object of assuring the landless of homes, and of adding to the extremely small holdings. In reality, however, little Polish and much German land is taken from big farmers. In Posen and the Corridor, for example, the Polish big-scale landed property has been reduced by 19% for the benefit of Polish settlers, while the German property was robbed of 63% of its area. Practically none but Poles are settled on the expropriated land. One reason for this measure is to obtain more Polish votes, and to reduce the percentage of Germans, in these areas. Despite all these measures, Posen and the Corridor are still predominantly German. In the Western provinces, some 50% of the children of Germans have no instruction in their own language, while in the Olsa district this figure is actually 88%. One school after the other has been closed by the authorities, in the hope that the coming generation will be compelled to speak only Polish, and thus be assimilated.

A fight is also waged against the Protestant Church, to which most of the Germans in Poland belong. Nearly all the Poles are Roman Catholics, but there are a few Protestants, and they have seized control of many of the German Protestant churches under various pretexts.

The Germans in the Corridor - and we must not forget that they make up the vast majority of the people there - are between two German provinces. On either side they see Germans who belong to the Reich, but they themselves are treated as second-class citizens. It is clear that they are dissatisfied. Their children often have to attend Polish schools, where they learn how Poland stretches ethnographically to Berlin. They form a solid block of Germans wedged in between the two parts of Germany, with the Baltic on the North, and the Poles in the South. But the officials who exercise control are Poles.

The Polish Constitution guarantees all citizens liberty of conscience, freedom of speech and right of assembly. This is not really allowed, of course. Newspapers are seized and speakers arrested. But the Constitution would be excellent, if only it were carried out. The Ukrainians and Germans suffer particularly owing to this. There are two chambers, the Sejm, or Diet, and the Senate. The Sejm consists of 208 deputies chosen by secret vote. The members of the Sejm are elected for a period of five years. Every citizen over the age of 21 has a vote. Taxes are fixed by the Sejm, which also legislates in general and performs the usual work of a Lower Chamber.

The Senate has 96 members, of whom 32 are nominated by the President himself; the remaining 64 are elected. The whole nation does not participate in this election. Only a select few may vote members to Senate. These include persons holding college diplomas, local government posts, and particularly privileged positions. Any person can be given the right to vote for the Senate if he is considered to be deserving. This means that the authorities exercise  considerable power, even against the will of the people. No person under the age of 30 may have a Senate vote, while candidates for the Senate must be at least 40 years of age. It is hardly surprising under such circumstances that the minorities have not so much say in government affairs as they would have if both Chambers were elected. This system is, no doubt, satisfactory to the Poles, but it reduces the rights of minorities still further.

The election of the President is not entirely democratic. The candidate is chosen by the assembly of electors. The Sejm selects fifty electors, and the Senate 25. The retiring President can, if he wishes, propose a further candidate. The new President is elected by a referendum. If, however, the retiring President does not make use of his privilege, the candidate proposed by the assembly of electors automatically takes office. The common people have thus only a very indirect say in the matter, for they have only participated in the election of the Sejm, which has only a share in the election of the President. It is clear that a mere 60% of the people would be unable to make their voices heard - if they were common people with no Senate vote. Small wonder that the minorities in Poland, which amount to "only" three-sevenths of the population, are seldom heard!

The President appoints the Premier, and also nominates the other members of the Cabinet, but this takes place on the recommendation of the Premier.  The President has full powers to declare war without any reference whatever to the people, the Sejm, the Senate, the Premier or the other members of the Cabinet. As an individual, he may declare war in Poland's name whenever he pleases. Such is the clause in the Polish Constitution. He is furthermore head of all the armed forces of the State, and has power to ratify and to conclude treaties with other States. He can, of course, consult the members of the Cabinet on such matters, and generally does. But he is under no definite obligation to do so. He is thus a Dictator, and if he does not always make full use of his powers, it is merely because he prefers not to.

The Constitution is not the original one of post-War days, but dates back only to April 23rd, 1935. That is to say, the system of government was revised as from that date. The present government methods are partly based on those of Poland of several centuries ago, but with the addition of the vote for the Sejm for all persons over the age of 21, and with certain other modernisations.

It is impossible to deal with Poland without touching on Danzig, for this city has a customs union with Poland. Its citizens also have to permit their business abroad to be watched over by the Polish consulates, although, as Danzigers have repeatedly assured me, they prefer to send their passports to Danzig, for extensions or the like, by registered post rather than visit Polish consulates. This is not surprising.

As British subjects require a visa for Poland, I had to visit a consulate and, being in Berlin on my way to Warsaw, set out for the consulate there. I was unable to enter, for a big group of people were standing outside waiting. It seemed that the consulate was only open for two hours, which was not sufficient time for the work on hand, so many had to be turned away, but they remained in the road, hoping they might be let in later. Some were Poles, desiring endorsements of some kind, others persons seeking a visa, or making some enquiries. I only succeeded in entering because I went to the Embassy and asked for advice there. An official then immediately gave me a special endorsement on my form of application, which enabled me to  obtain a Press visa, and on showing this document, I was admitted to the consulate. But if I were a Danziger, I should prefer to send my passport, since in any case the Embassy would not render me any assistance.

One of the claims of the Poles is that Danzig should not become part of Germany again on account of the Vistula. As has already been remarked on several occasions, a claim to the mouth of a river flowing through another country would mean that the Germans would have cause to quarrel with the Dutch about the Rhine. Strangely enough, the Germans never worry about the mouth of the Rhine being in Holland.

But the Vistula is not essential to Polish commerce. On the contrary, very little use is made of the river at all. Before the Great War, it was more utilised, although it was then divided between Germany and Russia, and the Russians did not foster commerce along it. In 1912, 610,286 tons of goods passed along the Vistula in either direction, as the lock figures show. That was not an exceptional year. On the contrary, in 1913 the figure was still higher, the total being 623,450 tons. But 20 years of progress in New Poland produced an astonishing result - in 1937 only 330,398 tons of merchandise passed along the Vistula. This is only a little over half the pre-War figure, so that any Polish claim to have made extensive use of the Vistula is obviously incorrect. The Poles say that the Vistula is necessary for their import and export business. Excluding transit trade, Poland had a turnover of 14,694,898 tons of merchandise which left or entered her frontiers by way of the Baltic in 1938. Of this total, only 453,851 tons passed along the Vistula!

The Poles claim that the Vistula is their main waterway, but only 453,851 tons of goods were carried along the river, or well under 10,000 tons per week, while more than 14 million tons arrived or left by way of the sea, but without touching the Vistula. No clearer proof could be wished for. The Vistula was of no great importance whatever in Poland's trade balance. In 1937 a mere total of 182,726 tons of goods were exported via the Vistula.

Of these only 30,163 tons, or 16.5 per cent. were from the interior of Poland, and not a single ton came from any place on the other side of Warsaw. Some of the goods came from East Prussia, incidentally. The Vistula has thus lost its importance as a connecting waterway between distant parts, although goods were transported along this river from much more distant areas before the War.

It was during the War that the Poles spread a statement to the effect that Danzig had a Polish majority. And the Poles made gallant attempts to realise this dream by fostering schools and associations. They established no less than 19 Polish kindergarten centres, while attempts were always made to persuade German parents to send their boys and girls there. The Association of Poles in Danzig has a membership of only 11,499, of whom no more than 7,561 are Danzig citizens, while the population of the Free City totals 407,517.

Danzig does not, of course, feel itself threatened by this small group. But, as a Free State, it is threatened by something very different. The Poles have done all in their power to foster Gdynia, and Danzig suffers accordingly. As preparations were completed in Gdynia, Danzig's trade dwindled. In 1926, 179 tons of goods were imported via Gdynia, and 640,696 tons by way of Danzig, the corresponding export figures being 413,826 and 5,659,604 tons. The total goods passing through Gdynia in 1926 were thus 414,005 tons, as compared with Danzig's 6,300,299 tons. By 1933 Gdynia's total had increased enormously to 6,105,866 tons, while Danzig's total fell to 5,152,975 tons. In 1929, to quote in percentages, 75.2% of the goods exported by way of the sea passed through Danzig and 24.8% through Gdynia; in 1933 Danzig's participation had fallen to 45.8%, and Gdynia's had risen to 54.2%.

Danzig thus sees its future threatened. Gdynia is to become, as Danzigers told me, Poland's future port, and Danzig is to have nothing. This, at least, is what the people think, and figures undoubtedly show that this is the tendency. For only less valuable goods are transported via Danzig. According to value, Danzig participated in 1938 to the tune of 7.5% of all Poland's imports, while Gdynia's share totalled 53.7%. Ores and gravel passed through Danzig.

The claim made by Marshal Rydz in a speech at Cracow on August 6th, 1939, was that Danzig was "Poland's lungs, as in one organism." This view is, however, difficult to uphold when the figures I have quoted are studied. Or, one might say, the speech should have been made before 1924, and is somewhat out of date - for the building of Gdynia made Danzig a back-number. In reality, of course, Danzig never really earned this designation, but since 1924 it is an obvious misnomer.

There can be no doubt regarding the German character of Danzig. The earliest human settlement on the site of the present Free City dates back tens of centuries, but it is doubtful as to who actually founded it. The Romans, at the height of their success, referred to it as a trading centre. Certainly, there is no reason to believe that the founders were Polish. They may have been Slavonic, but it is equally likely that they were Germanic. The earliest settlement of which we have ethnographical records was Germanic, but a Slavonic tribe later settled there. Those Slavs were the Pomeranes, who were not Polish. Their present descendants are the Cashubes, a West Slav people. The city of Danzig was founded by Germans in or about 1224. Danzig flourished under the Teutonic Order. At the end of the 13th century Danzig belonged to the Hanseatic League. In 1454 the city passed from the Teutonic Order to the protection of the King of Poland, but remained a free Hanse City with a German administration. Neither Poles nor Jews might become Danzig citizens in those days. The city had its own economy, and even dabbled in foreign politics independently of Poland. Under Napoleon the French occupied the city, throttling its trade. This was part of the Little Corporal's scheme to blockade England, some assert, for, having failed to sweep the seas, Napoleon set about capturing the ports of Europe to prevent supplies reaching our shores.

Danzig was for long years part of Germany until the Great War. Following Versailles, the city was forcibly separated from the Reich, and the Poles laid claim to it. Their claim was based upon alleged historical rights, and upon the assertion that they need the whole course of the Vistula. After the War, one claim was that they needed the port, but since they have built Gdynia, no more has been heard of this. The Polish "minority" in Danzig may be compared with the negro "minority" in Cardiff - one does see some Poles in the former, just as one encounters representatives of the Dark Continent in the latter.

The claims of the Poles have increased of recent date, and they have recently been asserting that considerable areas in Germany, with a population between 95% and 100% Germans, should be handed over to them. Here and there, this view has been supported  in the world Press, although it would be difficult to justify it.

But in the French Chamber, to quote one example, a very different view has often enough been taken. The session of the Paris Chamber on September 4th, 1919, is of considerable interest in this connection. The subject under discussion was the Peace Treaty and the terms implied. A report made by the Deputy, M. Charles Benoist, was being considered. Deputy Marcel Sembat made the following statement:

"It must be openly admitted, as M. Charles Benoist has established, that Danzig is a German town. In order that there may be no doubt on the question, I shall read the text of his report on page 107:
"'Poland wanted to have Danzig. Nevertheless, from the simple point of view of the population, there is no doubt but that Danzig is an undisputedly German town. It is not a German enclave in Polish territory. One goes along the coast from Danzig through purely German land to East Prussia.'

"Those are the words of the report. I do not hesitate to draw your attention clearly to the fact that there is a definite contradiction between the form in which we treat Danzig and the principles I have just mentioned. It is a question of a German town; we take it away from Germany. I know what you want to say to me, and I am of your opinion in advance.  Poland must have access to the sea. I agree, and add that Danzig formed this access, offered to Poland by necessity."

That sums up the position. Danzig was admittedly German, but as there was no other port available for Poland, she was to have it - in some shape or form. The Poles, as I have already mentioned, have since proved that Danzig is not vital to them, for they now do most of their foreign trade by way of Gdynia. But there was no great port of Gdynia in those days. The Poles have developed it since, to cut out Danzig, thus showing that the reason given by M. Marcel Sembat was invalid. Or, at least, that it is no longer valid.

The Daily Telegraph and Morning Post published on July 3rd, 1939, an article by their former chief correspondent in Berlin, Mr. Hugh Carleton Greene. This article was headed: "Why a Free Danzig is Essential to Polish Independence." Mr. Greene sought to prove that Danzig should remain separated from the Reich, but he made considerable admissions - perhaps involuntarily.

He himself quotes a statement which he regards as inconvenient for German propagandists. Remarkably enough, his words support the view that Danzig is German. His exact words are as follows:

"Danzig remained under the rule of the Knights until 1454 and was resettled by Germans. Since 1308 there has been no doubt about its 'German character.'

 "By 1454, when a union was concluded between Danzig and the Kingdom of Poland, the city was among the most prosperous ports of Northern Europe. This union lasted until the second partition of Poland in 1793 - an inconvenient fact which German propagandists are unable to explain away, although they insist, quite rightly, on Danzig's semi-independent position and control over her own affairs. Except for a short period as a Free State between 1807 and 1814, Danzig was from 1793 part of Prussia until the ratification of the Treaty of Versailles in January, 1920."

Mr. Greene's statements are correct, although he omits to mention that at the beginning of the 18th century Danzig was occupied by the French in an endeavour to throttle our trade. The main points he admits are that Danzig was German in character, and that it was "among the most prosperous ports of Northern Europe" at the time of the union with Poland in 1454. The Knights he refers to were the Teutonic Knights, and it is clear that under their control Danzig reached the prosperity Mr. Greene quotes. He does well not to mention the state of Danzig when the union with Poland came to an end, for the city was then anything but prosperous. Why German propagandists should try to explain away this union with Poland is not at all clear to me. But I agree that the union existed, but, as Mr. Greene also says, Danzig was semi-independent.

Mr. Greene also remarks in the course of his article that the solution was "not ideal" as was "shown by the conflicts between Poland and Danzig during the post-war years." This proves that the conflicts have nothing to do with the National Socialists, for there was no single Nazi in Danzig in those days. In claiming that Danzig should remain separated from the Reich, Mr. Greene still calls them "Danzig Germans."

The article in the Daily Telegraph sought to prove that Danzig is essential to Poland, and tried to stress the Polish origin of the city. It failed completely because if Mr. Greene quoted the actual facts, he drew the wrong conclusions from them. It is also mentioned that Danzig was inhabited by Slavs long centuries ago - but Mr. Greene wisely avoids the word "Poles." Slavs did live on the site of present Danzig - but they were not Poles.

To quote the 10th century to prove that Slavs lived in Danzig is, however, dangerous. Even assuming that they had been Poles (which they were not), the argument would not be nearly so good as that in favour of handing the United States of America back to the Red Indians now living in the Reserves, for they owned the country at a comparatively recent date, and there is no doubt whatever that they are the descendants of the former lords of the prairie.

The Slav claim to Danzig, even if founded (which is doubtful), dates back much further, though there is absolutely no proof (quite the contrary) that the Poles are the descendants of those Slavs.

If, however, a personal union with Poland long years ago entitles the Poles to claim Danzig, then I see no reason why we should not lay claim to Hanover - the whole province, not merely the town. Hanover and England were in a personal union from 1660 until 1837 - nearly two centuries. But I fear this proposal might work both ways. It was, after all, a Hanoverian (i.e. a German) prince, Georg-Ludwig by name, who assumed the title of George I of England, and came to London to rule over us as well as the Hanoverians. In other words, we were under German rule for well nigh two centuries. If a personal union enables the Poles to claim Danzig, the Germans might equally well claim England, Scotland and Ireland. The absurdity of such an argument must be obvious to anyone.

No such arguments as a personal union or the importance of the Vistula are valid. On the contrary, there is no reason whatever for regarding the Polish claim to Danzig as in any way tenable. Danzig can be the only judge as to whether it is German or not. The recent elections have clearly proved that the city is German in feeling, as it is in other respects.

It is true that the economic position of the Danzigers has not been bad of recent years, but this was due to the German-Polish Agreement, which assured the Free City a little business. Even so, the Poles  avoided the real issue by more or less distributing the tonnage between Danzig and Gdynia, but arranging it so that the value of the goods going and coming via Gdynia should be greater, as figures already quoted prove.

Danzig has long since had a purely National Socialist Government, while the Danzig Radio Station is usually linked up with the Reich network. The Free State is too small to be able to arrange its own broadcast programmes on a big scale. To join the system with that of Poland would no doubt be welcomed in Warsaw, but it would have the drawback that none of the Danzigers would understand what was being said. There is no parallel with other small States. The only other State of small size with its own radio is Luxembourg, whose programme is intended mainly for British consumption, rather than for the local inhabitants.

The inhabitants of Danzig walk about with passports in their pockets. Indeed, they cannot go far without reaching a frontier. It is possible to go for a long walk in places, of course, but those who own cars must either travel abroad or drive in circles. Furthermore, such a small State is never independent in an economic sense, and foreign business is essential. Danzig business men have to go abroad to attend almost any conference - unless the other parties travel to Danzig, of course.

I was sharing a railway compartment in one of the  Balkan countries with a Danziger not long ago, and we discussed the formalities necessary.

He told me that such formalities were quite impossible in Danzig, for if such forms had to be filled and so many questions were to be answered, a train would have crossed the second frontier before the formalities at the first had been settled.

As a Free State, Danzig is an artificial creation, which has no connection with earlier semi-independent or independent Free States. In earlier centuries small principalities and minute dukedoms were dotted all over Europe. Travelling was done by stage coach and it seemed to be quite a long way from one frontier to the other in any case. There were very different conditions to be dealt with. But to-day, such a small State is a nuisance to itself and others. It cannot be diplomatically represented, its currency is complicated, and the modern transport needs cannot be met. Danzig was a problem created in order to separate another group of Germans from the Reich. There was only one thing that was forgotten at Versailles - the Danzigers themselves should, in accordance with the much-vaunted principle of self-determination, have been asked to decide for themselves.

In order to show that these conclusions are not without the general support of well-informed persons and journals, I may quote the Economist of July 8th, 1939. An article endeavours to prove that the Poles are largely in the right, but the admissions made really prove the contrary. For example:

"But it would be wrong to think that the continued complaints from Danzig of Polish commercial policy and the serious effects of Gdynian competition are entirely unfounded. The structure of trade differs widely between the two ports; the predominant part played in Danzig by bulk goods of great weight but relatively small value makes total figures deceptive. Thus in 1937 Danzig exports, other than coal, which amounted to no less than 3.6 millions against 2.38 millions in 1936, decreased by nearly 200,000 tons...."

"In 1937, when the Free City was badly hit by Polish export restrictions on rye, barley and fodder, following the worst harvest in many years, it was hardly conducive to good feeling to find grain appearing in Gdynia, however modestly, as an export commodity...."

Another interesting quotation from the Economist of the same date runs:

"Danzig's losses are thus beyond dispute. The table printed below shows how strikingly the values of Poland's imports and exports through the two ports have changed."

Professor Charles Sarolea has also written in support of Danzig. The Professor is known as a friend of Poland. He predicted the resurrection of that country in an article in Everyman as far back as 1912. In 1921 he wrote a book "for the special purpose of  defending Poland against the systematic and unjust attacks of the British Press," to quote his own words. Three Polish translations were published, one by the Polish Foreign Office, which, incidentally, also published a Polish rendering of the Professor's "Impressions in Soviet Russia." Professor Sarolea prefaces his article, which appeared in the Anglo-German Review for July, 1939, with the words: "I am entitled to claim that I have always been a friend of Poland." He remarks that:

"Our policy is indeed a paradoxical one. In order to punish Germany for her dismembership of Poland and Lithuania, we have made a military pact with Poland, that is to say, with the very government which, in 1920, initiated the dismemberment of Lithuania and the annexation of Wilno (Vilna), and which, in 1938, consummated the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia."

A further interesting quotation throws a new light on the whole situation:

"Since the Polish State regained its independence, on at least five occasions it demonstrated its belief in the legitimacy of - and its allegiance to - power politics."

Examples follow, but they are similar to those I have already quoted. The Professor goes on to say that the minorities entrusted to Poland "transformed her from a homogeneous national state into a heterogeneous conglomerate of nationalities...."

Regarding Danzig, the same writer states:

 "Danzig is a purely German town. Ninety-five per cent of the population are Germans. So homogeneous a population is, in itself, sufficient to prove that Danzig always was a purely German town.... Nor, strangely enough, did the Polish people themselves ever try to settle in any large numbers in Danzig territory, so that a Polish minority problem never had any occasion to arise. It is, indeed, a curious anomaly, as was set out by the Editor of this Review in a recent article, that after 300 years of personal union under the Polish kings and of close commercial intercourse, a much larger proportion of the Danzig population should have been of Scottish origin than of Polish origin."

This is explained by the fact, already quoted by myself, that the Poles were not allowed to become Danzig citizens during the personal union. But Professor Sarolea is unquestionably right - it is remarkable that there were more Scots than Poles in Danzig.

The Professor also deals with the question of access to the sea, and dismisses Poland's claims under this heading:

"As for the argument that Poland needs an outlet to the sea, in accordance with one of the fourteen principles of President Wilson, such an argument, which might have applied in 1918, no longer applies to-day, because the deliberate policy of the Polish Government has destroyed its validity...."

Lord Elton, speaking in the House of Lords in June, 1939, also raised doubts as to the justice of Danzig's position. His precise words were as follows:

"All I should like to ask is: Have His Majesty's Government any sort of contact with the German Government on the question of Danzig, or has that question been relegated for the moment owing to its inflammatory character, or for other reasons, to the category of the untouchable?"

This was much to the point, for the very mention of Danzig's German character has been all but ruled as out of order.

According to the Gazetta del Popolo of Turin (No. 160), "Hitler will come into possession of Danzig as surely as the sun will rise to-morrow morning." This journal was of the opinion that no Anglo-French veto would make any greater impression than in Autumn, 1938. Incidentally, Mussolini warned the Poles to moderate their attitude long years before the Axis was thought of.

The Danzig problem was created at Versailles. Dean Inge went further than this in the Church of England Newspaper (July 7th, 1939, front page), when he remarked that "the things which we hate in Germany are largely the creation of the Allies, especially France, after the peace. If we had made things easier for the Weimar Republic there might have been no Nazism."

 It would be fitting to revise these clauses which have never met with the approval of thinking Britons ever since the Treaty of Versailles has existed. But it would have been much better if we had revised this treaty, and met the just demands of the minorities, before Germany rearmed - in the days of the Weimar Republic.

The London Evening Standard (June 19th, 1939) published an article by George Malcolm Thomson, in which the terms of the Peace Treaty were sharply criticised. The heading ran: "Nobody wants to fight for Danzig." The article gives some interesting details, of which I quote a few extracts:

"Certainly, it should not be hard to make a better settlement than the Peace Treaty imposed on Danzig. By the time the negotiations were over, Danzig found itself with four separate constitutions, and five or six different ruling authorities. It became a Free City under the League. Its domestic affairs were controlled by the Danzig Senate, its foreign relations by the Polish Government. But there were complications.

"If you boarded a train in Danzig, you came under the jurisdiction of the Poles. For the railways were Polish. If you got on a tramcar, on the other hand, you were looked after by the Free City.... If you had business to do in Danzig harbour, you came under the Harbour Board. And that was a half-and-half body, partly Danzig, partly Polish, with a Swiss chairman.... When a Danzig citizen wanted a  passport, he had to apply to Warsaw. When the city proposed to raise a loan, again it had to apply for permission to Warsaw. The Poles generally gave the passport, but they did not always consent to the loan.

"At any rate, for a whole year they held up a loan for harbour improvements. And during that year, the Danzigers allege, the Poles pushed ahead with the construction of their new port of Gdynia, on the Baltic....

"...to make the financial tangle worse, the Free City was cursed with two currencies. The Danzig gulden and the Polish zloty. Both were legal tender. You could use either... on the tram. But when you took the train you had to pay for your ticket in Polish currency."

In the same article, Poland is warned not to regard Danzig as "a flag which, if hauled down, would damage Poland's prestige and inflict injury on the nations acting in support of Poland."

The description of the complications may serve to explain why Danzigers were against having a "Free City" from the start. Other States have one central government, but the "Free" part of Danzig consisted of having several authorities and other complications. Mr. Thomson's article also makes it clear that Danzig is not a military basis, as so many people wrongly believe. He writes, "...Danzig is not a military objective that wise generals would choose to fight for." He also says that "if the Poles, defying Hitler, marched into Danzig, they would pay dearly for their rashness."

As regards the High Commissioner, the same article remarks that he cost £44,000 per annum at first, but that he "does not appear often in the city" nowadays.

The concluding paragraph of this article also deserves quotation. It runs:

"But the sensible plan would be to recognise the national spirit of the German population and, on that basis, to make a new accommodation between Polish and German claims. The Poles have much less to fear from a Danzig where the citizens dwell in contentment than from a city whose people feel themselves deprived of a national right and subject to form of administration which they find irksome."

The statements regarding Danzig and Gdynia are proved by official Polish figures. Each year after 1924, the new port was extended or improved, and it is obvious that the right to refuse the Free City permission to raise a loan to improve the harbour was to the advantage of Gdynia. It is such matters that have made the Danzigers regard the Poles as their competitors, and not as their friends and helpers.

It has been authoritatively asserted in England that Danzig was not included in the Reich when the peace treaties were made because a foreign Power holding the delta of the Vistula could blockade Poland and economically strangle that country. Now if this is so, the argument I have already quoted regarding the Rhine might be pressed by Germany as meaning that the independence of the Reich was in danger because the mouth of the Rhine is in Holland. The Danube question might be similarly dealt with. The argument sounds outwardly feasible to those who have never left Britain's shores, and who only know their rivers as entirely British. But such blessings are enjoyed by few other lands. The Danube is shared by numerous countries, including Germany and Hungary, and its tributaries extend through wide tracks of S. E. Europe. But certain East Prussian villages were included in Polish territory, and not allowed to participate in a plebiscite, so as to make the Vistula all-Polish. This was probably the first time in Europe that villages were handed over to a foreign Power merely in order to keep the banks of a river in one State. It created a very dangerous precedent.

As at that time Germany's army was restricted to 100,000 men, and no heavy arms were permitted her, it is difficult to see how she could have blockaded Poland, especially since the warships to accomplish such a task had been sunk at Scapa Flow. But to-day Germany could blockade Poland. The Polish coast is some 50 miles in length, and a small part of the German navy could accomplish this task with ease, as every strategist will admit. We thus see that the possession of Danzig is not necessary for a blockade.

I have quoted figures to show how the Poles have gradually withdrawn their trade from Danzig, and have shown that the value of the merchandise is sinking from year to year. A further example may help to make the situation clearer. The value per ton of the goods passing through Danzig in 1938 was 62.8 zloty, that of goods entering or leaving Gdynia totalled 116.7 zloty per ton. It must also be remembered that Danzig depreciated its currency largely with the object of coming into line with the zloty (in 1935). But trade only enjoyed a brief benefit as a result. That Danzig retained a part of its export trade was mainly due to foreign firms, who preferred dealing with Danzigers. Communication was easier, for example. In fact, imports via Danzig actually increased between 1934 and 1938 to a much greater degree than those going through Gdynia. In the same period, exports through Gdynia grew tremendously, mainly because the Polish authorities, in granting licences, favoured the port they had built. Imports in 1934 via Danzig totalled 655,763 tons, via Gdynia, 991,544 tons; by 1938 Danzig was responsible for 1,547,866 tons, and Gdynia for 1,526,536 tons. And yet Danzig's total trade was only 7,131,752 tons, against Gdynia's 9,173,438 tons.

Those who allotted Danzig to Poland's customs union naturally believed that the Free City would remain Poland's sole port. Indeed, the Poles had claimed it because they needed a port. Wilson and Lloyd George would never have agreed to this if the Poles had announced their intention of building a rival port to undermine Danzig's trade. It is true that Warsaw accorded Danzig a comparatively recent agreement, assuring the Free City of a full share in trade. But there was no improvement in the situation - on the contrary, immediately afterwards Danzig's share in the trade fell again, this time from 26 to 24% (in 1937).

Danzig developed industries to balance the growing loss of trade, but Poland placed a high duty on machines and machine parts. This was a purely one-sided arrangement. There was a time when the number of unemployed in Danzig totalled 40,000, which is a figure corresponding to nearly four and a half million registered unemployed in Great Britain. Danzig cannot be said to be extremely prosperous to-day, but what the city has is due to orders from Germany. The shipyard, especially, is kept busy with German orders, while Zoppot and the spas live mainly on German visitors.

The Vistula is one of the five great streams of Europe, and might reasonably be expected to have proved the pride of Poland. But the river loses in importance from year to year.

All this, so long as it applies to the Vistula in Polish territory, is, of course, the business of the Poles alone. If they prefer to neglect their great river, it is not for us to complain. But it is unjust for German land to be included in Poland, and for Danzig to remain outside the Reich, in order to assure the Poles an all-  Polish river which they themselves neglect, and which is not, as generally assumed, their main artery of commerce at all.

Danzig has its own Senate, a High Commissioner appointed by the League of Nations, and a Polish High Commissioner in residence. The members of the Senate are elected by the adult population of these 750 square miles of territory forming the Free City.

But the High Commissioner appointed by the League takes no active part nowadays, while, according to Mr. George Bilainkin, the author of "Poland's Destiny," "the resident Polish High Commissioner is also ignored." Bilainkin, in the Sunday Press (July 16th, 1939) wrote that "Danzig's German citizens - and they are admittedly in a vast majority - have every possible opportunity of exercising complete Germanism." Bilainkin also writes of Danzig that "already Nazi flags fly from all houses." And his article aims at proving that Danzig must remain outside the Reich. Yet he cannot avoid making these important admissions

Travelling in Poland is extremely interesting. But it is not like visiting one single country. The tourist who sees Poland is experiencing a tour through a number of lands, and this was what one Englishman I met in Gdynia liked most. In the Polish Corridor, in Upper Silesia, and, to a slightly lesser extent, in the Province of Posen, it is like visiting Germany - but with the difference that it is rather old-world, and that the officials are Polish. In Warsaw, as well as in the broad territory East of the capital, it is like pre-War Russia to some extent; in the South-West it is like pre-War Austria with some variations. There are also other different territories, but these are the three most notable. One could trace the former map of Europe by 'taste,' strange as that may seem. For example, we may take three cities - Posen, Warsaw and Cracow. In Posen, the food is much the same as in Berlin to this day. Even the vegetables are cooked with flour (a method I detest), just as in Prussia. This, of course, is a matter of taste - but the tastes of Posen and Berlin agree. Warsaw has very good cooking. One must go to a good restaurant, the smaller ones being none too clean. But the cuisine is good. There is the excellent cooking of Czarist Russia in the main. Cracow has good pastries, like Vienna, and the coffee is served with a big portion of whipped cream, as customary in Austria.

Of course, the cuisine is not conclusive. I merely mention it by the way. But the character of each part of Poland varies in the same manner. To abide by these three cities as examples, Posen is clearly German by origin. The Exhibition Building of which the Poles are so proud was built by Germans - but the Poles told me that they had kept it in repair and added to it. They agreed that the main building was German, however. The main hospital is German - but they hastened to inform me that they had added a wing to it. The famous Poznan (Posen) Fair is held in a building mainly built by the Germans. In fact, a drive in a cab through the town of Posen will convince anyone who knows Germany that the architecture is the same. The flats are much the same as in towns of corresponding size in all parts of Germany. The people speak as much German as Polish. In fact, I failed to discover a single adult civilian who did not speak German, and I purposely addressed scores of people in the streets, asking the way or the time. Children, however, did not understand in many cases, and several officials were unable to grasp what I meant. One hears more Polish than German in the streets, but many of these people speak German when alone.  I know this because, once they had chatted with me and seen my British passport, they told me openly that they found it better not to speak German in public in view of the trouble which might result. Most remarkable of all was a purely Polish cab-driver who told me with tears in his eyes of what the town was like before it became Polish. He spoke fairly good German, had enthusiastically greeted the establishment of modern Poland, but has been disappointed. "It is not as it was," he repeated again and again. The hotels were empty. I could choose rooms of any desired size and on any floor. These hotels were built when the city was German, and were to accommodate more guests than ever arrive nowadays, excluding the time of the Fair.

Warsaw has what I consider to be a real Polish atmosphere, but with a close resemblance to pre-War Russia as I remember it as a child, when my father once took me there. The streets are full of horse-drawn cabs. True, many taxis have also appeared, but they have less custom. In Warsaw there are also minorities, of course, but the Poles really predominate. It is mainly Russian-built, but the population is chiefly Polish. The Jewish minority is large. The Jews do not, as a rule, mix much with the Poles (there are naturally numerous exceptions to this rule) but live in a ghetto. This ghetto must not be compared with Whitechapel, for the latter is modest in contrast. Warsaw's ghetto is a pre-War Russian ghetto in character. The men are to be seen with beards, the youths never appear to begin shaving at all, both wear long black coats (even in the hottest weather) and black skull-caps. They speak more Yiddish than Polish, and I discussed different topics with a group of them at one street-corner, using the best Yiddish at my command. I may remark that I understand this jargon well, but speak it haltingly. I cannot, however, read it when it is written by hand. It is read from right to left, and is inscribed in Hebrew characters. It contains very little Hebrew, beyond the religious expressions, contrary to popular belief.

Religious ceremonies are not only held in the many synagogues, but also in make-shift rooms, often in the basement, but with the windows open. From the narrow lanes one can often see the Oriental ceremonies. I watched two such ceremonies from outside the windows.

There are many splendid buildings dating back to the days of the old kings of Poland. In former days the Poles clearly erected excellent monuments to their age, but it is remarkable that little has been accomplished in this respect since new Poland has existed. The very presence of these old buildings lends Warsaw a real Polish atmosphere, which differs so much from the Corridor, Upper Silesia, Vilna, Posen, White Russia and Olsa. For the real Poland was of moderate size, while the present State is the fifth largest country in Europe.

Cracow was once the capital of Poland, and is the oldest and most beautiful city in the country. Most of the people know German, and there are several big minorities. One can accost any passer-by in German and the chances are ten to one that he answers in the same language. But when I went into the official Polish Tourist Bureau at Cracow, I found no one spoke a single word of English or German, and only one girl knew French. A guide speaking any one of these languages could not, I was told regretfully, be obtained, no matter how much I paid. Of course, I was informed, in another month, or a week later, something might be done, but not on that day. As there was no object in engaging a Polish-speaking guide (for if I had to use my bad Polish I could talk with the keepers and watchmen just as well), I made my tour alone. But it was strange in a town formerly part of Austria, and where thousands of unemployed are seen in the streets, that no one speaking any language but Polish could be found as a guide. I am unable to believe that this is really the case. My belief was later confirmed at Kattowitz, where I went into the Polish travel bureau, and no one was, even after I showed my passport, prepared to speak anything but Polish, while in the streets more people understand German than Polish. Indeed, the town is almost entirely German - but officially only Polish is understood.

Wieliczka is an especially good example. This is a small town about 10 miles from Cracow, and contains what are probably the largest salt mines in Europe. It is true that tradition says that the mines were started on the initiative of a Hungarian princess, but this town is now mainly Polish, and in no case Hungarian. The salt mine is much advertised. In any Polish travel bureau, whether in London, Paris or New York, one obtains booklets on it in English. But on arrival, one finds that not a single guide there will speak any language but Polish. I tried every guide present. Only Polish answers were given. In this respect Poland is unique. No other country in Europe advertises its sights in several languages but provides no interpreter-guides. Only a minority complex could lead to such a state of affairs. Incidentally, the mines contain vast halls with salt floors, walls and roofs, with carved salt figures, mainly of religious subjects. One chamber is over two centuries old, while another, named after the late Marshal Pilsudski, is nearly 450 feet below the earth.

Gdynia contains mainly Polish edifices. This was a small place in 1920, but the Poles have turned it into a port, apparently in order to prevent their trade from passing through Danzig. This is the one city of Polish and modern design. If the Poles intended to adhere to their customs union with Danzig, it was unnecessary to build this new port at all. Obviously they considered that this customs union would cease to exist sooner or later. It is interesting to note that  this city was built by the Poles long before the National Socialists came to power in Germany, so that they obviously had nothing to do with it. Gdynia's population, according to "Poland," a booklet published in 1937 by the Liga Popierania Turystyki (League for Promotion of Tourism) at Warsaw, increased from 2,000 to 110,000 in the course of the ten years preceding the issue of this booklet. Most of the 108,000 new inhabitants are 100 per cent. Poles. Almost all the 2,000 were Germans. The building of a port here thus served a second purpose - it provided a majority of Poles in the town previously all German, and it increased the percentage of Poles in the Corridor artificially. To balance this, other building has been sadly neglected in Poland. The Corridor is still predominantly German, and even such big-scale attempts to settle Poles there have had little effect on the general position. But the experiment is interesting and enables Poland to point to one Polish-built town on the Baltic.

I saw little evidence of big shipping. Indeed, the Poles are not enthusiastic seamen, which one readily understands. They have always been an agricultural nation, all through history. They have some industries, mainly intended for supplying the home market or their immediate neighbours, but agriculture is their main stand-by. Unlike the British, Dutch, Germans and Spaniards, to mention but a few, they never participated in overseas trade. Who has not read in books - or learnt at school of the Spanish merchant ships or the Dutch fleet, or the vessels which set out from Hamburg and Bremen? Who has not also heard of French, Portuguese, Norwegian, and other ships in early days? But no one can find a single trace of any Polish seafaring activities. The reason is that there were none. Polish seafaring began after the Great War, and has developed very little since. The Polish navy is one of the smallest in Europe.

On paper, the Poles have everything. But I soon discovered that it was only on paper. For example, I was told I could conveniently fly from Warsaw to Gdynia in about 1¼ hours. One can, there is no doubt, when one has an aeroplane at one's disposal. But when I went to Cook's, they said I should have to wait till the next day. I could, however, fly the next morning. They noted my name, my hotel, worked the price out for me in English money, and I began to pay. The clerk then had an idea. He said he would just phone to make sure that accommodation was free. It was not. We changed the time. I was to fly on Sunday afternoon. After all details were arranged, he had another idea, and consulted the timetable, only to discover that there was no service on Sunday afternoons. We fixed Monday, but the seats proved to be sold out. I ultimately reached Gdynia, but it was only by good luck.

This is not an isolated example. I could quote dozens. There is the famous Torpedo, the railcar between Warsaw and Cracow, which travels 362 kilometres (some 225 miles) in four hours. It seats between 50 and 60 people, and has several stops on the way. I was told I should have to pay extra for a reserved seat. I did so, but when I got in I found there was no seat at all, reserved or otherwise. On the contrary, everyone had such a ticket, and dozens of people were standing, particularly ladies and older people. On another occasion I watched this train start. There was what might almost be described as a free fight to get in. Porters blocked one door putting the luggage in the small compartment in front, while men and women fought to get in first. The weaker had to step back and the stronger reserved seats for themselves.

The aeroplanes exist, so do the railcars, but it is the exception rather than the rule if one is able to make use of them.

The Warsaw authorities are trying to abolish the one really adequate and interesting means of locomotion in the city, the old-fashioned cab. The people oppose this strongly.

In summer, 1939, I found the Poles had very little change; this came to my notice on my first day in Warsaw, when 12 zloty were handed to me when I paid a bill for 8 zloty. I received 24 small coins. The Poles asserted that the Jewish minority had collected all the silver coins, especially the 5- and 10-zloty pieces, so that they had no coins except those of the lowest denomination. I was told that the best way to deal with this hoarding would be to withdraw all silver coins from circulation, and some said that this was already planned, and that 10-zloty notes were to be printed. Rumors of various kinds were rife, and there was talk in the middle of July of inflation.

While tourists are invited by prospectus to visit Poland, they are taxed when they arrive. A visa costs 25 zloty, and there is a daily tax. Motorists are taxed 1 zloty per day for the upkeep of the roads, although certain motoring associations have secured exceptions for their members. I met a Scotsman and his wife in Warsaw, and their car had suffered considerably, they told me, owing to the bad state of the roads. Between Gdynia and Warsaw, and around Plock, they assured me the roads were among the worst they had ever seen in their lives.

I saw no signs of any foreign tourists in any of the smaller towns, not even in Cracow, where the ancient buildings and city walls might be expected to attract visitors from all parts of the world.

There is no doubt that Poland is a State of nationalities, as the Poles themselves readily admitted until this summer. This view is also expressed in the Polish publication Poland Old and New by Joseph Statkowski (Arct, Warsaw, 1938), intended for English consumption, and printed in English. On page 107 M. Statkowski says that the "largest national minorities in Poland are the Ukrainians," and he quotes some figures to show what a big percentage they form.

The writer admits that there are 70% Ukrainians in the voyvodship of Stanislawow, and the same number in that of Volhynia. Actually, the percentage is much higher; the object of Poland Old and New is to defend Greater Poland. The book is prefaced by a map showing the Slav tribes as formerly extending as far as the present Danish-German frontier. But the author also admits that the Ukrainians form a compact minority, for he remarks that "the majority of the Ukrainians inhabit the south-eastern provinces of Poland." Even in Tarnopol, he adds, 46% of the inhabitants are Ukrainian. He estimates the natural increase of the Jews in Poland at 50,000 a year, and admits that "the excess Jewish population is finding it gradually more and more difficult to get a livelihood," while the "economic problems of the peasants" and the "continued crisis in agriculture" have "brought the Jewish question in the villages into a greater prominence than ever."

In one week I saw five cases of Jews being arrested in Warsaw, and it must be remembered that most Jews live in their own districts, where I only spent a matter of some hours.

M. Statkowski agrees that there is a "White Ruthenian" national minority (referred to by me as White Russians, to prevent confusion with the Ukrainians, who are also called Ruthenians, but without the prefix "White"), but he estimates it as only 1,500,000, and adds that there are "less than 90,000 Lithuanians." It will thus be seen that even nationalist Polish writers (I have quoted a typical example) do not deny the existence of large minorities, although they do try to minimise their importance. The same writer says that most of the Germans "left Poland of their own free will when this country regained her independence," and that there are at present "about 200,000 Germans in Poznania (Posen)." This number is well underestimated, but the admission that most of the Germans left when the provinces fell under Polish rule is illuminating.

There were actually some 2,500,000 Germans in the former German provinces awarded to Poland, but a  big percentage left. A few, no doubt, did so of their own free will, rather than become Polish citizens, but the majority left because they were subjected to petty annoyances, in some cases, and actual persecution, in others. Their land was taken in the manner already described, many of their schools were closed; their organizations were declared illegal, and they were debarred from working in many walks of life. Official positions were practically impossible to obtain. Often enough, it was considered an offence for Germans to chat in the streets in their own language.

I gave special attention to this point in Kattowitz, which is mainly German to this day. Walking quickly through the streets, I heard Polish being spoken here and there, but not a sound of German reached my ears. I then strolled slowly along, listening attentively, and I heard German being spoken in undertones. Whilst the Poles chatted loudly, the Germans spoke in undertones. I approached a group of four people talking German quietly and their conversation ceased. Again, on one of the squares, where there are many seats, I sat down, and the conversation ceased. One young couple exchanged a few words of - broken Polish. I turned to three young men on the other side of my seat and asked them in German the name of the square, adding that I was English. Smiles of relief were noticeable, nods exchanged, and low voices began talking German again. My new friends explained that talking German led to trouble; they would be asked questions, perhaps even arrested. One of them had a German novel - absolutely non-political - with him, but it was in a Polish paper cover, so that no one might notice he was reading German. In 1938 there were 107 German periodicals published in Poland, and the number is still round about a hundred, all of which sell reasonably well, but one seldom sees people reading them - unless it is in their own homes.

There were no less than 122 Ukrainian publications in Poland in the same year and the figure remains steady.

Poland Old and New is a semi-official Polish publication, and when even such a book had to admit that Poland is a "nationality State," it would be difficult for others to deny it.

Other German towns include Königshütte and Oderberg, while the Olsa area is Slovakian. This was, for some reason which I am unable to explain, awarded to the Poles, but was included in Czecho-Slovakia when the latter was founded after the War. The population is not Polish but Slovak. Possibly the mistake arose owing to the fact that the population is not Czech, so that it was supposed to be Polish. This, of course, affects only that part of Poland added to the realm in 1938.

A glance at the historical maps of almost any encyclopedia shows that Poland had never had a coast-line. In the middle of the 14th century, for  instance, Thorn was a northern frontier town of Poland, the Corridor belonging to the Teutonic Knights, who were, as the Poles themselves admit, German. Upper Silesia was even then German. Pomerania, however, was once under Polish sovereignty, but only for a brief period.

General statements about the Polish Corridor, and Danzig in particular, seem only to be made by those who have never been there. Those who have visited these areas speak very differently. Sir Arnold Wilson, M.P., in The Times of July 7th, 1939, referred to his tour of Danzig and the Sudetenland as follows:

"Some of your readers may care to hear something of the impressions left on my mind by a recent visit to parts of the Sudeten district of Germany and (last Sunday) to Danzig; there is calm at the centre of the cyclone and after a day spent there in the company of well-informed foreign as well as German residents, I scarcely recognise the picture painted in certain London Sunday and other newspapers which any Berliner can buy and whose lurid contents sufficiently explain the widespread belief abroad that Londoners are a prey to vain fears spread by occult influences."

The Daily Sketch recently stated that "no credence can be attached" to the rumours regarding Germany and Danzig. Dean Inge has written some interesting facts in the Church of England Newspaper, one quotation being as follows:

"Versailles had to be revised, with or without war. Hitler is trying to do it without war. He cannot be allowed to have everything his own way; but are we going to fight about Danzig, a thoroughly German town, which never ought to have been separated from the Reich?... Let us cease from the childish habit of personifying other nations as monsters."

According to The Times (July 12th, 1939), the Deutsche diplomatisch-politische Korrespondenz, official mouthpiece of the German Foreign Office, wrote that "The German solution to the Danzig question has always been regarded by the Reich as a peaceful solution in which the interests of the harbour as well as of its hinterland would be secured to mutual advantage. So far as a possible danger to the Polish access to the sea in case of conflict is concerned, nobody, and least of all in England - where claim is still made to some understanding about blockades - will seriously accept that with or without Danzig Germany would not then be in a position to shut Poland off hermetically from the sea. The settlement of the Danzig question, however, should, in the German view, have excluded such eventualities for ever."

In a leading article of the same date The Times clearly stated that "British interests are not the least involved in the local issue, and neither in Great Britain nor France could it possibly be a popular battle-cry to 'fight for Danzig.'"

Years ago British attacks on Polish chauvinism were  the order of the day. H. G. Wells in The Shape of Things to Come wrote of the restoration of Poland, but regretted that "instead of a fine, spirited and generous people there appeared a narrowly patriotic government which presently developed into an aggressive, vindictive and pitiless dictatorship." These are hard words, but Mr. Wells went on to say that the "most disastrous of all the follies of Versailles was the creation of the Free City of Danzig and what was called the Polish Corridor."

Marshal Foch, too, interested himself in this problem, claiming that the "Corridor area will be the cause of the next war."

Sir Arnold Wilson has been in Danzig three times during the last four years. I have already quoted the opening of his letter to The Times. This letter contains some further passages worthy of attention. For example, writing of progress in Danzig, he says:

"...I have watched the slow but natural process of 'reversion to type' which is now complete. It is once more what it was in 1919, a microcosm of that part of Prussia to which it belongs geographically and racially. The will to revert to Germany is, for whatever reason, as strong as it was in the Saarland before the plebiscite. Whatever the merits of the status quo of 1919, its moral basis has disappeared. The principle employment is not transit trade but shipbuilding, which is very active. Some yards are working three shifts; all slips are full. All orders come from or through Germany. But the importance of Danzig to Poland remains; Danzig can be blown to pieces from Gdynia, and vice versa. The treatymakers of Versailles intended that Danzig should be Poland's only outlet to the Baltic; Gdynia was made only because Danzigers in 1922, actively encouraged in every possible way by the British Labour Party, prevented the transit of arms needed by Poland to resist Russian aggression which they not merely condoned but applauded.

"Herr Hitler stated on April 18 that he had proposed to Poland that Danzig should be incorporated within the Reich as a Free State (Staat). The phrase implies the continued existence of the Free Port in Danzig harbour (such as exists in Hamburg and Trieste); it also implies the absence of guns and fortifications on this sector of the Polish frontier.

"Here is the basis of a settlement, if Germany could satisfy Poland that the natural desire for a corridor across Pomorze is not the precursor of a demand for Pomorze and Posen.... In Danzig at the moment there is more fear of a Polish than of a German coup. Memories of the very recent Polish descent on Teschen and Oderberg, of the Vilna coup, and of the exploits of Korfanty are as vivid as Tannenberg...."

On April 2nd, 1917, the late President Wilson made his celebrated speech before Congress. Almost everything he said is a complete refutation of the idea of including German areas in a non-German country. For example, towards the end of his speech, he solemnly stated:

"We are glad, now that we see the facts with no veil of false pretence about them, to fight thus for the ultimate peace of the world and for the liberation of its peoples, the German peoples included: for the rights of nations great and small and the privilege of men everywhere to choose their way of life and of obedience. The world must be made safe for democracy. Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty...."

This is directly opposed to the principle of handing over areas predominantly German or Ukrainian to the Poles. Lloyd George opposed the idea of handing over so many Germans to the Poles, pointing out that the Poles had a different religion, and that they had never proved in history that they were capable of ruling themselves. He expressed the view that such an action would sooner or later lead to a new war in East Europe. Woodrow Wilson, on the other hand, abandoned his principle of self-determination, and once remarked that he was for the Poles and against the Germans when there was anything to decide upon. No one has, apparently, ever troubled about the rights of self-determination in Poland since then. The minorities have fought alone - a losing fight against the Poles.

The Poles say that they are the outposts of Europe, and once saved civilization from Asiatic hordes. Now in their own Polish areas the Poles did build up a State which was excellent in many respects, but which failed to survive as a result of internal strife. The nobles constantly fought against each other, and did not unite until they found themselves under the domination of Czarist Russia. The Russians treated the Poles badly, and it was a good thing when the Poles regained their independence. Unluckily for all concerned, however, the Poles were also given non-Polish districts, and they, in their turn, have ruled over their own minorities badly.

History should have taught us better, for the Ukrainians had once before lived under Polish rule - and it was then that the Asiatic hordes, under Jenghiz Khan, were first defeated. Only there is a slight error here. It was the Ukrainian people and their volunteer guards, the Cossacks, who saved Europe from the Mongols, and not the Poles. As, however, Poland claimed sovereignty over Ukraine at the time, many Poles do, no doubt, genuinely believe it was their ancestors who fought. But that is a mistake.

The Ukraine was formerly known as the Grand Duchy of Kiev and was the first Slav country to make its mark in history. In the 11th and 12th centuries Kiev was at the height of its power, but later internal strife and dynastic quarrels weakened the nation. As a result, Jenghiz Khan and his hordes found them an easy prey - or, at least, a comparatively easy one. The Ukrainians made an effort to unite, and resisted the attack made at the beginning of the 13th century. In 1224 the army of the Grand Duchy of Kiev was routed, but guerrilla warfare continued with such desperation that it was not until 16 years later that the Asiatics succeeded in capturing and destroying the capital. After this, the guerrilla war did not entirely cease, but the power of the Ukrainians was broken. They have never been entirely independent since, but have never lost their dream of independence. I am personally acquainted with many Ukrainians, most of them exiles, and they all hope and believe that their nation will again become independent and powerful. They are mainly to be found in Russia, while some are included in Rumania, but they also form Poland's greatest minority. Their language is distinct from all others. Several Ukrainian newspapers appear in Canada and U.S.A.

The Ukrainians were next under the control of Lithuania, then a powerful State, but in 1569 the Poles obtained control of the whole of Lithuania, including the Ukraine. This was the origin of the Polish claim to part of the Ukraine, granted them at Versailles, and to Vilna, which they seized against the wishes of the Allies.

One of the worst chapters in European history followed. Ukrainians were ruthlessly massacred on occasion; they were robbed of the last vestige of semi-independence. Even their religion was forbidden them, and they were ordered to leave the Orthodox Church for the Church of Rome. Polish was introduced as the only permissible language.

In the towns the Polish policy was fairly successful. Rich Ukrainians - outwardly at least - came to terms in order to retain their worldly goods, but the main body of the people, engaged in agriculture, hunting and fishing, rejected all Polish measures whether peaceable or forcible. Many of them were killed, but in those days it was comparatively easy for groups of people to escape the Polish punitive expeditions. Serfdom, however, was widely introduced. The Ukrainians answered by attacking Poles and "converts", i.e. Ukrainians who submitted to the Poles, on sight. A period of lawlessness followed. The Poles were brutal in their methods, but their control was mainly confined to the Western Ukraine. Eastwards, on the other hand, raiding parties of Tartars harassed the Ukrainians, and here they were compelled to form volunteer forces for defense.

 The Tartars might have overrun wide areas of Europe had it not been for the Ukrainians, to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude. Ukrainian Cossacks kept the raiders at bay, and finally a Cossack Republic was established. A leader was elected, to hold supreme power in time of war. The Ukrainians welcomed the establishment of this republic, which though not entirely independent, made certain agreements with other countries. The power of the Cossacks only extended to the South-Eastern parts of the Ukraine. In the other parts, meantime, the struggle went on, religious persecution being the main cause, for the Ukrainians cling to their Orthodox faith.

Little notice was taken by the world at large of these gallant struggles carried on by the Ukrainians, though Oliver Cromwell felt a good deal of sympathy for the brave people. He once referred to his contemporary, the Ukrainian statesman Bohdan Chmelnyckyj, as the uncrowned king of the Ukraine. Later the Poles conquered again, and when, afterwards, Russia seized both the Ukraine and Poland, both nations became fellow-sufferers so to speak.

This makes the present position all the harder to understand. Poles and Ukrainians went side by side in chains to Siberia in pre-War days in the cause of their independence; but when, after the War, the Poles gained their independence and, at the same time, control over a part of the Ukraine, they applied the same methods as of yore. The Ukrainians were forgotten at Versailles, although they were represented there.

In Warsaw, Poles told me that they had a powerful army and were united. Perhaps the Poles themselves are, but the inhabitants of Poland as a whole are definitely not united. It would be a mistake to believe that the Ukrainians, White Russians, Jews and Germans, the Lithuanians and the Slovaks in Poland are united to those who oppress them. The Ukrainians and Germans are only longing to escape. The Poles are not really united either, for the poor among them are very dissatisfied. I have seen hundreds of men and women sleeping in the open in meadows adjoining the Vistula. Beggars in rags approached me as I walked along the streets of Lemberg; dozens of hotel touts tried to persuade me to visit their hotels in Warsaw. Sitting on the terrace of one of Cracow's biggest cafes, adjoining the park, I was accosted by dozens of beggars, including many children, who stopped in front of my table to ask for alms. One small boy, thin and poorly clad, begged for bits of bread and lumps of sugar, which he took away in a dirty, torn bag.

The workers earn about 150 zloty per month on an average, or some six pounds. That amounts to precisely 28 shillings per week in a month of 30 days. Few civil servants earn more than about double this sum, even in Warsaw. But rents are high. I saw small self-contained flats in Warsaw fetching more than the average flat would in Maida Vale. Even the most simple flats (all Warsaw lives in flats) are expensive in proportion to the family income. Quite often, half the earnings will be spent on rent. Taxes and insurance contributions are high, and are deducted from the wages and salaries.

It is quite a mistake to suppose that 28 shillings will buy more in Poland than in England. True, if one moved from Mayfair to Posen, the latter would appear to be cheap; one must compare the West End of London with the fashionable quarter of Warsaw. Comparing the cost of living in English and Polish towns and villages generally, we find that a shilling buys at least as much in England as in Poland, while our workers pay no taxes on small wages as the Poles do. In the country, of course, wages are even lower and, as in England, prices are not so high as in the towns. Poverty in Poland is widespread, especially in the South-East. First-class hotel charges are on the general European scale.

All the minorities are subjected to certain restrictions. They have schools of their own, which they run themselves, but the Poles constantly find fault with their management, closing them down under one pretext or other. Their newspapers are also banned from time to time.

The seizing of newspapers is not confined to the journals of the minorities, however, and I repeatedly saw Polish papers seized. Policemen stroll about until they see a newsboy, and then look through his papers. The newsboy stands aside with a broad smile on his lips. The seized papers are counted and the policeman gives the newsvendor a receipt. No crowd collects. One becomes accustomed to such things. One can imagine what excitement there would be if the police seized papers in London and strolled around with their arms full of dailies. In Warsaw it is quite commonplace.

The Polish Press is not united in support of the idea of an alliance with Moscow, and not all Poles agree with it. In fact it is not so long since the Gazeta Polska, one of the leading dailies, stated (12. 11. 1937) that "the population of Danzig is German by a vast majority.... No one can contradict this." I met Poles who did contradict it, claiming that Danzig really had a Polish population. Needless to say, none of them had ever been there. Those who had, admitted that the people were German, but declared that the town was "historically Polish."

Though the Poles are not all of the same opinion, many of them have unfortunately misunderstood things, and believe that England is willing to help them "regain" wide areas in Central Europe. I well remember when the Labour Party protested loudly against the Polish attack on Russia in 1920. It is true that the Russians afterwards threatened to occupy the whole of Poland, but it was the Poles who began it. In 1921 the attack on Lithuania, and the seizure of Vilna, took place, In the same year the Poles attacked Upper Silesia, against all the peace terms. In 1930 the Ukraine was pacified with a brutality fortunately seldom known in our days. In 1938 the Poles annexed a corner of Czecho-Slovakia, including parts with a German majority and one district that was mainly populated by Slovaks. At present the Danzigers are wondering if they will come next. And during all this time, hundreds of thousands of Germans have been forced to emigrate by the Polish terror.

One might ask why particularly the Germans, and not, say, the Ukrainians, should have emigrated if they are both persecuted. The answer is, of course, that whilst the Germans have crossed the frontier to the Reich, the Ukrainians have no country of their own. Incidentally, the Poles have tried particularly hard to drive the Germans out of Upper Silesia, due to the fact that the area is industrialised and hence thickly populated. In the Corridor, the building of Gdynia as a port has enabled Poles to settle there, but as there is little scope in Upper Silesia, the only way to make more room is to force the Germans to emigrate if possible. (It may be safely assumed that hundreds of thousands of people do not leave their homes en masse without some very good reason, and, as already mentioned, the Poles themselves admit that the Germans have left in large numbers.)

Very naturally their fellow-countrymen across the frontier feel indignant, and it is not probable that the Russians are pleased with Poland, either. After all, a big White Russian minority still exists in Poland and some Russians consider the idea of an Anschluss to be good.

There seems no good reason to believe that in the event of war the Russians would really assist the Poles to any great extent. General Sikorski, writing in the Svenska Dagbladet (April 5th, 1939), expressed the opinion that benevolent neutrality was all that could be expected of Russia, and he expressly added that the most which could possibly be given (the maximum help, he called it) would be the assistance of the Russian Air Force. "Any further aid," he went on, "is not desired," the reason given being that the States bordering U.S.S.R. do not want "to expose themselves to the danger of being overrun by the Bolsheviks." Another sentence in the General's article was that "the situation would have to be really desperate, and Poland completely overrun by an enemy, before the acceptance of Russian help could be considered."

This attitude of the Poles is hardly surprising. At present, visitors from abroad are not admitted until they have paid 25 zloty for a visa, and even then the control is so strict that actually the number of the hotel bedroom occupied by a guest is included in the details to be given immediately on arrival to the police. I have never heard of any other country going to these extremes. But it is easy to understand that a people with such an attitude towards foreigners is not likely to welcome the idea of admitting hundreds of thousands of Russians in their midst.

The Poles do not wish anyone to occupy their country. On the contrary, they are anxious to occupy areas outside their own present borders.

It is interesting to note that Poland once considered the Corridor to be worthless if she could not also have East Prussia, an idea never completely abandoned. Roman Dmowski, in his memorandum to President Wilson, dated October 8th, 1918, clearly pointed this out. He remarked that if East Prussia were to remain German territory, the Corridor should also be retained. The Corridor, he went on, was of no value to Poland without East Prussia, for it would never cease to be a bone of contention between Poland and Germany. Germany would always hanker after a linking bridge at the expense of Poland.

A prominent Pole recently suggested to me that the solution for Germany, if she did not like the idea of having an isolated province, was to exchange East Prussia for the Corridor. As East Prussia is 100% German, this proposal would hardly lead to a settlement, but it was proposed to me in all seriousness.

When the Corridor was established, Sforza said that "no serious politician had believed in the long existence of the Corridor emergency solution." In a book written afterwards, Sforza made the following statement:

 "These Poles were terribly logical and obstinate with the result that everyone felt troubled about their perpetual claims. If they were to be believed, half Europe was once Polish and should have become Polish again. Thus it came about, for example, that diplomatic Europe, when Dmowski demanded the cession of East Prussia to Poland, in order, as he logically said, to avoid the contradiction of the Danzig Corridor, was so embittered that, if only Lloyd George had had his way, we might perhaps have experienced a fourth division of Poland in the end."

Dmowski angrily accused Lloyd George of playing into the hands of the Germans, and made this remarkable statement in his memoirs:

"If it had not been for Lloyd George, our Western frontiers would have been very different. Only a man who was under a direct obligation to the Germans or the Jews would protect the interests of the Germans with such zeal.

"The work of destroying the findings of the Territorial Commission began with less important matters, and then passed on to more ponderous affairs. First of all he prevented the four German districts near Marienburg from being handed to Poland, then he saw that a plebiscite was held. In the Danzig question, too, he was victorious in the struggle against Wilson and Clemenceau and the 'Free State' was finally agreed upon."

Incidentally, Tomasini called the Polish Corridor an "incurable wound in Germany's flesh," and it was only owing to Clemenceau's urgency that this area was ever given to Poland at all. I well remember how everyone in London was against it at the time. Woodrow Wilson was not pleased about it either, for, as he pointed out to R. St. Baker in April, 1919, France's only real interest in Poland was to weaken Germany by giving the Poles areas to which they had no claim. The Poles have always considered that the Corridor question was bound to lead to a war, but to a war which would widen their own frontiers. There have been dozens of clear, unmistakable statements to that effect in various publications, and I select the following from the Mocarstwowiec because it appeared in 1930, i.e. before Hitler became Chancellor:

"We are aware that war between Poland and Germany cannot be avoided. We must systematically and energetically prepare ourselves for this war. The present generation will see that a new victory at Grunwald will be inscribed in the pages of history. But we shall fight this Grunwald in the suburbs of Berlin. Our ideal is to round Poland off with frontiers on the Oder in the West and the Neisse in Lausatia, and to reincorporate Prussia, from the Pregel to the Spree. In this war no prisoners will be taken, there will be no room for humanitarian feelings. We shall surprise the whole world in our war with Germany."

Such boasts and threats as these have not, of course, been made by the whole Polish people. On the contrary, the ordinary man in the street in Poland definitely opposes the idea of fighting for a new frontier and is all for peace. But there is an element in Poland which demands that Germany should be partitioned. A bank clerk when I changed a five-pound note in a small Polish town, asked me if I knew that there was a suburb called Nowawes in Berlin, adding that the "Nazis were changing its name to hide the fact that it was really Polish!" A hotel porter in a larger town told me that Wannsee, Berlin's bathing beach, was once Polish, and that the Berliners thus sunned themselves on true Polish soil. I heard many other similar claims, all absurd, and most of them contradictory.

The Poles have an exaggerated idea of their own importance. It was this in part which led to the extended frontiers which the Labour Party used to attack so strongly. The Labour Speakers' Handbook (1922-3) remarked under the heading "Poland&q