DANZIG NOT WORTH WAR

Danzig represents the touchiest question in international politics to-day. The strange thing is that both protagonists, Peace Front and Axis, answer the question in the same words. They agree in saying that "Danzig is not worth a war." It is tragic that this remarkable verbal unanimity of Berlin and London, Paris and Rome, conceals a cleavage deep enough to be a cause of war. The insidious phrase is said to have been coined in the Goebbeis propaganda mint, being designed to persuade the Peace Front that Germany's claim to Danzig is not worth contesting at the price of a world war. The Peace Front also feels that the game is not worth the candle, but thinks the agreed fact should influence Berlin against trying to alter the status quo by force. It is determined to yield nothing t'9 threats and to stand for the principle of law in international dealings. If Germany will admit that principle, a peaceful settlement should not be impossible although, if Danzig is a small stake for a world war, it does occupy a key position on the Baltic and in respect to Poland. If its destiny were to be considered in isolation and on the single principle of selfdetermination, its return to the Reich could not be denied. But, if the Free City is German, it lives on Poland and by Poland. Its own prosperity, its very livelihood, depends on the Polish hinterland. On the other hand. Danzig,made into a Nazi stronghold could exercise a stranglehold on Poland, economically and militarily. Regard must be had for these two considerations as well as for tho desire of the Danzigers to return to the Reich. The solution, if Danzig's economic life is to be saved as well as the independence of 34,000,000 Poles, seems to be to constitute Danzig as a demilitarised free port, perhaps under tho formal sovereignty of Germany but in fact tied by trade to the Vistula Valley that feeds I