WORLD'S YOUNGEST PORT.

GROWTH OF GDYNIA.

The entire length of Poland's eea frontage fa. only about eighty miles. This coastline, which forms the northern boundary of the long-coveted Polish Corridor, is dotted with many flailing hamlets and several fashionable seaside reports. But the key point to the whole littoral is the modern port of Gdynia, Poland's chief doorway to the outer world.

This strategic and commercial centre offers to an invading army a prize of incalculable value. Its capture by the Germans would enable them not only to cut oflf all Poland's sea-borne traffic, but also to link up Germany proper with the ostensibly Free (but actually thoroughly Nazi) City of Danzig, Gdynia's close neighbour and keen rival.

With their rear thus secure, the Germans could then sweep down the Corridor, and execute a flank attack on Lodz, Foeen and other vital industrial centres. Quite apart from ite military importance, there is much to justify the assertion of Hilaire Belloc that "Gdynia, is among the most remarkable things in the Europe of our time."

Fifteen years ago it wa« nothing but a fishing village, sot amidst eand dunes and sciub pine. To-day it is the largest port on the Baltic, with a population of over 120.000. and the most modern handling appliances and docking facilities. Last year nearly 10,000,000 tons, of goods were unloaded on its wharves. It is, in -short, the most modern city in all Europe, the youngest port of any size in the world, and during the great economic depression of eight or nine years ago it was probably the only town in existence which throve, and grew prosperous.

As contrasted with the storied pa«t of the medieval Hanseatie seaport of Danzig. Odynia is a town devoid of history. The only objectof non-com?iierc:nj interest which it possc«-s;-s are the little church of Oksywie built in 120(1. thus manifesting the ancient tradition* of Poland on the Baltic, and the lighthouse of Kozcwie. in which Stefan one of the greatest, writers of modern I'oland, lived an 1 wrote his famous work. "Wind From the Sea."

Despite it-< youthful modernity, the Poles have for tin- city of Cdynia a very deep affection. !",-r it fcts>."-l« to them as a 'symbol of a new IVl.uul reborn after a century and a half of oppression, testifying by its rapid growth to the vitality and constructive energy of the iiiitinii.