The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 1920. THE NEW POLAND.

Far the ceiue that lock* SMtitanct, For the wrong that needs rctiitanct. For the future in the distance. And, the good that ice can <:—

The ceremonial extension of the frontier of Poland to the shores of the Baltic Sea is not only one of the most picturesque incidents of the great international conflict, but perhaps the most significant proof of the accomplishment of the purpose of the Allies that they have yet been able to offer to the world. For however defective the Polish settlement may be, however far the statesmen who presided over the Peace Conference may have deviated from their declared principles or from President Wilson's -fourteen points, the emergence of the new Poland as an independent State fulfil*! the intentions of the Great Powers in two important particulars. The resurrection of Poland is the most striking illustration that History affords of the undying strength of putriotism and nationalism; and the' restitution now so tardily offered to the Polish people is an honest and largely a disinterested attempt to make reparation for one of the worst crimes recorded in European annals. The three-fold partition of Poland during the last quarter of the eighteenth century, that "sacrament of blood" which Prussia invited Russia and Austria to share, was not only an infamous instance of premeditated treachery; it was the first and perhaps the most characteristic of all the monstrous misdeeds by which Prussia attained such wicked preeminence and on which the Empire .of the Hohenzollern* was founded.

As a result of the curiously secret and irregular fashion in which the work of the Peace Conference was done, it is still diflieult to give a complete account of the posit : on of Poland, or even of its territorial extent and its political boundaries. The most import|ant facts to 'bear in mind are that I nearly all the territory which once was Poland, before Frederick the Great and his fellow criminals laid hands upon that haplefe country, is incorporated in the new State, which includes the strictly Polish portions of Silesia, Oalicia and Posen, as well as the old Russian province; and that at the same time though the original Baltic frontier is not restored in it<3 entirety, a way hae been opened for the Poles to the sea 'by the so-called " corridor," a strip of territory running through West Prussia and separating East Prussia, the original home of the Hohenzollerns, from the rest of what -was once the German Empire. The Greater Poland which many patriots foresaw and foretold, was to stretch through the Ukraine to the Hlack Sea, and was to contain 80,000,000 inhabitants. The Xew Poland will probably include at least 3."i,floo t Coo people; and in view of the rapid increase of her population, the industry and commercial ability of the Polce, and their well-tried devotion to their country, it is extremely likely that, given fair opportunity for peaceful development, Poland will speedily become the most important State in Eastern Europe, and may play in this sphere the part so long and admirably sustained by France toward Western civilisation. Considering all that the Poles have suffered for their love of their country and of freedom, it might be expected that they would regard with enthusiastic gratitude the Powers through whose aid they have at last attained their emancipation and independence. Yet the evidence so far available seem to indicate that the relations between Poland and the Great Powers that dominated the Peace Conference are by no means bo amicable as might have been anticipated or desired. And it seems fair to suy that for the misunderstandings and differences of opinion that have produced this temporary estrangement the Poles are by no means solely to blame. For the Powers, or more correctly the statesmen who controlled the Conference—President Wilson, Lloyd George and Clemenceau —seem to have displayed a rather inadequate appreciation of the difficulties that the Poles had to face, and a eomewhat defective knowledge of the historical and economic facts on which their claims were foaeed. Poland was represented at Versailles by two men of acknowledged ability, M. Paderevvski and M. Roman Donowski. (But Mr. Jvloyd George and hie colleagues were hard to satisfy. They tried to compel the Poles to disarm so as to make peace with the Kuthenians, at a moment when Poland, exposed to the attack of the Germans on one side and the Bolsheviks on the other, was practically helpless; they warned Germany that she must allow Polish troops to pass through Danzig, and then revoked their decision; and they insisted at first on 'boundary lines which appeared to consult the wishes of Ruthenians, Austrians, Germans, in fact, everybody concerned except the Poles themselves. Unfortunately the charge that d'Amrunzio has just hurled at the Great Powers —that they tried to impose their absolute will upon all the other States—receives some confirmation from the record of Poland's treatment 'by the Conference. On the other hand, the Poles arc an unstable people, and appear unwilling to grant to all subjects of the new nation, the freedom which they claim for themselves. Their conduct in relation to the Jew£ is nioet de-

plorable. Mr. LJoyd George incurred Polish resentment through insisting on safeguards for this large section of the Polish population, and though thio fact is entirely to the British Premier's credit, it accounts for much of the criticism to which the Peace has been subjected in Eastern Europe. Moreover the Poles object to the restrictions imposed upon their sovereignty by the League of Nations, and they resent their temporary subjection in a military sense to the French Commander-in-Chief. But, after all, these are relatively minor matters compared with the fact that this great act of reparation and restitution haa at last been completed, and that the spirit of Poland —"the soul searching for its murdered body "—is now once more reincarnate and living.