PLANNED

Auckland Star, Volume LXXV, Issue 256, 28 October 1944, Page 1 (Supplement)

PLANNED

POLES DIVIDED

ALLIES , DIFFICULTY

Question Of Guarantees Not Yet Settled

British Official Wireless Rec. 5 p.m. RUGBY, October 27. Mr. Churchill, in the House of Commons, made a further statement on the future of Poland after his general statement about the Moscow conversations.

Major Lloyd, a Conservative member, asked the Prime Minister, firstly, if he could say whether it was the Government's policy and wish to defer decisions on all RussoPolish territorial and boundary questions until after the cessation of hostilities; and, secondly, whether the British Government was in general sympathy with the desire of the Polish Government for specific joint guarantees from the three great Powers in support of Poland's continued independence as a completely sovereign State after the war. Mr. Churchill replied: "With regard to the first question, we should welcome a solution between the parties themselves and an agreement between them that we should bring the whole matter to the peace conference in the form most helpful and favourable to all concerned, and also which would tide us over the difficult and potentially tragic period through which we are passing.

"With regard to a guarantee by the three great Powers, it certainly is our' hope that the three great Powers will guarantee the sovereignty and independence of Poland which may emerge. As far as the Soviet Government is concerned, I understand that will be their fixed intention, and I have not hesitated to say that the British Government will certainly concur and join themselves in such a guarantee. It is not for me to speak for the United States."

In the course of his main statement, Mr. Churchill also said: "If the Polish Government had taken the advice we tendered them at the beginning of this year, the additional complication produced by the formation of the Polish National Committee of Liberation at Lublin would never have arisen. Anything like prolonged delay in a settlement can only have the effect of increasing the division between the Poles in London and the Poles in Warsaw and hampering the common action which the Poles, the Russians and the rest of the Allies are taking against Germany."