POLISH TROOPS

ON EASTERN BORDER

TO ANSWER PROVOCATION

(Received July 26, 1.15 p.m.)

WARSAW, July 25.

It is reported that about 10,000 Polish troops have been sent to the eastern border of Danzig, ready for instant action if the Nazis are provocative. "While the Polish Government is willing to settle by peaceful methods outstanding questions connected with; Danzig, that country would at once be J forced to resort to arms if Germany realised her plan of annexing it, be-1 cause <;he would know she was fight-j ing not for Danzig but for her own independence. | BRITAIN'S POSITION CLEAR. J "This view is wholly shared by the Government and people of this country. Britain has made her position quite clear, and it is unchanged. This country will give its assistance to Poland in the event of a clear threat to her independence which she considers vital to resist with her national forces. Britain is determined and at any moment ready to stand by Poland, not simply for the sake of the actual future of the seaport, but because if it were forcibly seized and militarised by Germany it would place Poland, first economically, and then politically, at the mercy of the Reich. "Both strategically ahd politically the issue reaches much further than | the allegiance of the Danzigers. They are traditionally self-governing and might well prefer, were they free to express their inmost feelings, to be left with the status and constitution allotted and willingly adopted by themselves after the war. "However that may be, the Free City was then demilitarised. Fortified, and in German hands, it would tip the balance of sea-power in the Baltic in favour of Germany, and on the land side command the approach." Government quarters emphatically deny German reports that Polish guards invaded Danzig territory yesterday.