Evening Post. THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1933. FREE CITY OF DANZIG

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 63, 16 March 1933, Page 10

Evening Post. THURSDAY, MARCH 16, 1933. FREE CITY OF DANZIG

The compliments, paid to Sir John Simon on his services in the settlement of the dangerous dispute between Poland and the Free City of Danzig regarding the Island of Westerplatte were evidently very well deserved, and they are the more welcome because in spite of his honesty, his fairness, and his courtesy he has never gained the confidence of Geneva to anything like the same extent as his Labour 'predecessor, Mr. Arthur Henderson. The contrast, between the impressions made by the two Foreign Secretaries, which is mainly a matter of personality and temperament, has heen increased to Sir John's disadvantage by the fact that the devotion of a large part of his energies at Geneva to the attempt to avert the breach between Japan and the League was considered to imply his.approval of her policy. It was therefore far better for British diplomacy that this brilliant success should have been won by a Foreign Secretary who was to some extent under suspicion than by a Prime Minister who, with the possible exceptions of Lord Cecil . and Mr. Henderson, is as thorough a League of Nations man as either Britain or any other .country has got, and is universally so regarded. It must also be. remembered that a success which has greatly improved Sir John Simbh'sjstanding at Geneva may perhaps have done almost as much for the standing of "the League of Nations in Europe. It was as the League's agent and; with-its machinery that Sir John *was working, and it is highly improbable that-in any other capacity 'either he or anybody else, could have averted the war.

Looking at the facts of today without realising the appalling difficulties of fourteen years ago, it. seems hardly possible to; imagine that human perversity.: could have sown the seeds of war more thickly than did the peacemakers of Versailles in those sections of- the Treaty which* created the Polish Corridor and - the. Free City of Danzig. Mr. Lloyd George's estimate was, if we remember' Tightly, that, while the. chronic «cause of unrest, hi the west had'been eliminated by the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine to Eraiice, no less than six new Alsace-Lorraines had been established on Germany's eastern frontier, and of these six the Free City of Danzig may probably be regarded as the most virulent. They were all the' outcome of the excellent intention expressed by President Wilson in one of the "Fourteen Points" which constituted one of the foundations of the Peace Treaty.' Appropriately enough it was No. 13 of these points, which read as follows:

An independent Polish-State should be created' which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably lolish populations which should. be assured a free and secure access to the sea and whose political and'economic independence and territorial integrity should-be guaranteed by international covenant, . .

Three times in the last thirty years of the 18th century Poland had been partitioned by the three surrounding despotisms, and they had left her without a harbour. After they had all crashed in the World War one of the problems of die peace was to restore her independence: and to give her, in Wilson's words, "a free and' secure-access to the sea." The complexity, qf the problem is "sufficiently indicated .by the fact that more'than thirty solutions were proposed. The one adopted provided the desired access by cutting the corridor through Prussian territory to the sea, thus leaving a large German population in East Prussia completely severed Irom the rest of' Germany. To construct a new harbour on this frontage was.naturally regarded as out of (he-question at that time, and the Polish representatives battled hard lor the inclusion in the corridor of Danzig, which, 'as commanding the mouth of the Vistula, the river of Poland, is her natural, harbour, and had belonged to her till 1792 when, along with the. rest of West Poland, it was annexed by Prussia. But t6 give the new State the freehold of o«J?&A Wi« h a PoPulat?on exceeding 360,000, 96-per cent, of which was German—and ardently German was not in accordance with the principle of "self-determination" which was another of President Wilson's points, nor would it have made for peace; The "Free City of Danzig," with a hinterland of about 726 square miles, was accordingly created as a sovereign and independent State under the protection of the League of Nations, but Poland was given full commercial rights of 'Danzig,, the free use of the harbour, and also a share in the administration of both the harbour and the city, and the complete control of the railways, and, oddly enough, of the city's foreign policy. The complication and overlapping of rival jurisdictions in the Free City is indeed a

Chinese puzzle which we arc fortunately under no Obligation to understand.

The result of this extraordinary experiment is that from tho date of its birth the Free City of Danzig has been seething with quarrels and rumours and intrigues and suspicions and appeals to the League and other tribunals to an extent which is probably unequalled by any other spot on the earth at the same time, and has certainly given the League of Nations greater trouble. The following item from an authoritative record which we may not najne will give some idea of the character of Danzig politics during 1932:—

The statements in the English Press in April as to a possible invasion of Danzig by Poland in May only served to increase the- tension already existing. . . . The, new regulations passed by the Danzig Senate in May as to-the admission of warships into the port were considered to have been aimed at Poland, and tho Polish Navy consequontly sent a ship to Riga to be overhauled. ... In Ma}', June, and,-July the "Society for tho Defence of the Western Borders'' of Gdynia conducted an intensive boycott of Danzig and Danzig goods, culminating in the' publication of a black list of Poles visiting the Free City. . . . The report of the Committee of Experts appointed by the League of Nations to'consider tho claims of Danzig against the Port of Gdynia was issued in October, and was unfavourable to Poland. It suggested that the Gdynia port charges should be levelled np to those of Danzig or vice versa; in the latter ef/se Poland should refund to Danzig any loss caused thereby. Poland announced its intention of appealing against, this.

Disputes over ; railway charges, school fees, currency problems, the importance of semi-finished- German goods, and the violation of quota restrictions also helped to pass the time. Matters got worse after a change of Polish Commissioners in September. ■ ■.'..■'

Since the appointment of M. Papee as successor to M. Strassburger, there' has been a considerable change in Polish policy in respect of Danzig, from one of static defence to one of constant attack. ... The visits of the English and German Fleets in July and August were accompanied by a succession of incidents due to the unrestrained zeal of minor officials, which only served as fuel for the flames of racial'hatred which had been welling up for months. . . .■ In June it became officially known that the Danzig Senate was receiving a subsidy of two million reichsmarks per quarter from'the German Government. .. ..

If we add to this that in 1930 Major Poison Newman found Danzig "more German than Germany itself"; that both General yon Schleicher and Herr Hitler have recently made Poland and ' East Prussia the subjects of particularly provocative appeals; and that Koenigsberg, the. chief city of East Prussia, has, been distinguished- by some of the worst'excesses of Nazi violence, it'will be seen that the' dispatch of 120 Polish ~ troops, without previous notice, to the Island of Westerplatto, while it was already in ■ the' occupation of the Danzig police, might . easily have served as a spark in a powdermagazine. By; extinguishing the spark .inthe nick of time the League of Nations lias earned the gratitude of the world..;. ', '