POLES FIRM

THE DANZIG QUESTION NEW ZEALANDER'S TRAVELS THE CZECHS AND-GERMANY The opinion that the Poles were very firm over the Danzig and Polish Cprridor questions and that they would certainly resist any active aggression even without the assistance of Britain and France was expressed by Mr. T. D. Scott, first assistant at the Dannevirke High School, who returned by the Monterey yesterday, after spending 15 months abroad travelling under a Car-' negie Educational Fellowship. In that time he visited 11 countries in Europe. "Danzig is everywhere regarded as a knotty problem," said Mr. Scott. "On the one hand, 80 per cent of the people are German and on the other hand the mouth of the River Vistula, which runs through Polish country, is at Danzig. Germans, however, contend that they do not control the mouth of the Rhine. Already Gydnia, the Polish .artificially-built port, has taken 75 per cent of Danzig's trade, and German merchants from Danzig expressed the opinion that, should Danzig be returned to tile Reich, they would be faced with ruin, because Poland would divert the rest of her trade to Gydnia.

Visits to Czecho-Slovakia both before anil after the German annexation were paid by Mr. Scott. He found the people there were bitterly disappointed with their position. They felt that if tliey had never been linked with Britain and France they would have been able to come to some peaceful settlement with Hitler that would have left them in a better situation than at present. Had they not been counting on association with Britain and France, they might have given up the Sudetenland earlier. , i"I stayed with several . German families during two visits to Germany and they expressed great regret at the actual treatment of Jews, but they were most anxious to know what the outside world knew of 'the other side,' " said Mr. Scott. "I also stayed with families in Austria and they said they found they were worse off economically under the Reich, and families were faced with the same shortage of foodstuffs as in Germany."