MODERN POLAND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 57, 7 March 1936, Page 1 (Supplement)

MODERN POLAND.

STRIKING? CHANGES.

JLAND OF STORMY HISTORY.

(By CECIL W. LUSTY.)

Poland is not ranked among the <neat ehowplaees of Europe, but it is one of i tlie most interesting countries on the i Continent. Most European countries! have known sorrow deep and anguish bitter, the travail of wars and internecine strife or reigns of terror under foreign oppression. The history of Poland sinCo the genesis of Warsaw as the little Duchy of Mazovia, in the thirteenth century, has been a history of battles, of massacres, including chilidren, of dismembering Partitions, and of acute sufferings under alien yokes, throughout all the dark centuries, however, no iron heel could extinguish the embers of that great characteristic of the Poles—love of country. In such manner was created the soul ©f Poland, the soul of martyrdom, sacrifice and unyielding determination that permeates Poland's wealth of literature, music, paintings and sculptures. Nationality is unusually strongly ingrained in the Polish people. Poland's old National Anthem dates back to the fourteenth century, and her National Hymn, Dabrowski's "Mazurka," to the eighteenth century. I have heard these tunes played in Warsaw as well as "The First Brigade," the modern National Anthem, which commemorates the restoration of Polish independence and the work of Marshal Pilsudski. What Polish peasant, droshsky driver or child does not love to tell you of the deathless deeds of Kosciuszko—whom the poet Campbell has immortalised in his lines: "Freedom shrieked when Kosciuszko fell"—at whose call, after the second Partition in 1793, the bare hands of peasants captured the 'batteries of Catherine of Russia; or of Kilinski, the valiant shoemaker who led the first Warsaw insurrection against the Russians; or of Joseph Pilsudski, the Washington of Poland, and founder of the modern Republic, and his youthful Legions of 1914? This was the nationality that mocked at medieval torture chambers and twentieth century Czarist Siberian prisons and German firing parties. The Poles are proud to say: "When you behold a Pole who ftas not suffered imprisonment you behold an arrant coward." Victory of the Vistula. Women in Poland told me how they shouldered rifles and scythes and fought in the blood-drenched trenches alongside their menfolk and children in the crucial days of August, 1920, when the victory of the Vistula saw the final evacuation of the Bolsheviks from the walls of Warsaw. Once again Pilsudski swept back the traditional foe, the Russian hordes—hordes that had been promised three days of unrestricted looting in Warsaw. Modern Poland is thus, In effect, less than two score years of age. The romance of early Poland can be read ,in ancient cathedra] walls, where are embedded Turkish, Swedish and Ukrainian cannon balls; or in old palaces, such as Wilanow, near Warsaw, where are the Sultans' treasures sacred to the valour of King John Sobieski, at Vienna, in IGS3, when the Polish monarch answered the cry of all Christendom and established the ascendancy of the Cross over the Crescent. The story of the Republic is written in the transformation of the ancient Cassubian fishing village of Gdynia to the "miracle port of the Baltic;" in the modernistic capital of Warsaw and her sister cities; and in the successful State and municipal undertakings and social services. Desperately Poor. — The Polish railway system, which was reduced to ruins by the Great War, is now among the best in Europe, with locomotives and carriages of Polish make, and the work of the electrification of the Warsaw junction is well advanced. The Warsaw aerodrome is one of the best-equipped I have seen in all my European travels, and is a "hopping off" ground for most European capitals. Education is the thing in social services, and over 16 per cent of the national Budget is expended on public education, while Poland is in tlie van of world movements for physical training in education. Further eloquent testimony to the will of reborn Poland is Warsaw itself, with its fine buildings, spacious boulevards and beautiful parks. And all this in a country where over 70 per cent of the people live by agriculture and where the toiters of the soil are desperately poor. I could take you to farms in Poland where the people have no salt for their baking of bread and no oil for their primitive lamps. In Warsaw and other cities you will see, cheek by jowl with the minority rich, women in bare feet and children with pinched faces. Poland's , achievements are due to the spirit of her people. Wanted: A national monument to Pilsudski. Journey with me southward from \Vareaw to old-world Cracow, ancient Polish capital, and see for yourselves. Daily, including Sundays, we see a procession of human ants in the form of btate officials and artisans, soldiers and civilians, and adults and children a laboriously trundling wheelbarrows of earth up the hill of Sowimec, near Cracow. This oddly-assorted working bee is assisting voluntarily in the conetruction of tlie Pilsudski Mound, an earth beacon some 330 feet in radius and 120 feet high which will be laid , out with gardens and trees. It is being modelled after the fashion of two ancient mounds, Krak and Wan a, a a nineteenth century mound, Kosciuszko, all in and around Cracow. Earth from New Zealand. Urns of earth have come fro?n Poles all over the world, from New Zealand (many of the early settlers in Taranaki emigrated from Poland), Australia an South America. The work was begun on August (5, 1934 —the twentieth an versary of Poland's entry into tne war —and, according to plan, will finished this spring. Pilgrimages aie made from all over Poland, when all pay practical homage to the memory _ Pilsudski by wheeling a barrow of sol to the summit. They may then pur chase a feouvenir in the form of a cer cate which entitles the holder o reduction of railway fares. Politically, Poland is as settled a. any country in post-war Europe its legacy of minority and other intr cate problems bequeathed by the Ireatj of Versailles. Relations with Geimai J are quite cordial, and particularly the new Central European blocs, Ger many, Poland and Hungary on the on< hand and Czecho-Slovakia, Rumania an Russia on the other hand. According to a recent cablegram, sum marising the impressions of F ese Europe by G. Ward Price, the specia correspondent of tlie "Daily Mai , don, Poland, it was feared, might b willing to cede the Polish Con lclo [ return for Russian Ukraine. Spcakin, from my experience as a comparative!, recent resident in Poland I do not believ that anv responsible body of opinion Poland subscribes to this wish. liue, have heard such talk m cafes—thos reaorts so popular throughout Euroj

where love and politics arc made and plots are brewed —and a whisper or t\\ o in the lobbies of the Seym. But rolanu desires peace and also, I believe, would not give up her Baltic Coast ten itory (the° phrase "Polish Corridor" is anathema in Poland) at any price. Gdynia is a vital life artery of Poland. In 1924 it was a fishing village of some 500 folk. To-day it is a fashionable watering resort and a modern port that hums with the activity of well over 50,000 inhabitants. In 1925 only lot ships sailed to and from Gdynia; five ] years later the number was 44(50; to-day ; Danzi" is completely vanquished com- ( mercially by neighbouring Gdynia. Certainly Poland is anxious to please Germany, as the following illustration, 1 my residence in Warsaw, shows. A Warsaw Jewish merchant received a business communication from a firm in Germany. He returned the letter unopened, writing on the envelope that he refused to deal with people countenancing Herr Hitler. The merchant was promptly arraigned before the Warsaw Bench on a charge of insulting the head of a friendly State and sentenced to two years' imprisonment. There is, ol course, certain anti-Semitic feeling in Poland, a feelino- that has increased consiaeiably in recent years. Poland in the past extended a hospitable home to the Jews and there are many almost exclusjvp/y Jewish towns in the country. Demonstrations and window-breaking are now common. Attitude Towards Neighbours. Communism is hated by the Poles— but on the other hand Poland, although its Government is rather martial and dictatorial, has no leanings towards Fascism —and many still dread the Russians. Prejudices remain, but cordiality is evidenced in business and general relations. The Poles are of a xorgivmg nature; they have not troubled to destroy monuments commemorating Russian victories; the Russian churcjies are among the architectural landmarks of Poland; and all is quiet in tha Ukraiife minorities. Relations are most strained with neighbouring Czechoslovakia, and, as reported in the cablegrams, demonstrations have been made at the Czech Sassy in Warsaw. When I was in the Polish Carpathian mountains, where the winter sports and health r«o«. of Zakapane and Krynica, soma of the frontier passes were closed and tlieie were rumours among the Polish peasantry of border skirmishes. Tbe Poles, in common with moot European races, have not that characLie of stability and sang froid that • =o typically British. Rumours soon *«■ bene" 1 " &" — to foreign ennenj that the SSth#*"»»»» bel ? s "S Italian r .i t there were fears ol a watched and k ' beincr United and Poland European spark Dein D i o im. plunged into war. Anrl so reborn Poland continues to b out her destiny, the destiny of the W °'J of the White Eagle. The emblem people of tb became the whlte eagle Torh prince of the early Slavonic when Lech, j of white eagles -n tribes, f °" nd j ich . he pitched his camp. a ,-ock on wl he said, and " Hcr f, rt lite Gniezno, which means ori t ! hnilt Gniezno is one of the oldnst towns Europe and ~«»», visit it- to-day.