POLAND’S FUTURE

Hokitika Guardian, 5 December 1932, Page 7

POLAND’S FUTURE

DANGER SPOT OF EUROPE,

SYSTEMATIC? OPPRESSION

LONODN, 'November 20. Poland’s future is the most precarious in Europe, says the Berlin correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian,” who adds that only her alliance with France and German disarmament stand between her and the destruction that is threatening her both within and without, ti.nd she is bound -to- act if th s alliance is loosened or Germany rearms. •' " 11 - ' • Describing, after a tour of East Prussia, the dangers tO’peace, tlie correspondent' okplains fjhn'j both tho German and* the Polish standpoints are untenable. The Polos declare that the Versailles decisions are hmmitab-ei hut nevertheless they simultaneously are modifying them in their own favour. They are systematically oppressing the German minority in the Polish Corridor and are fostering their own port of-Gdynia, thus involving the destruction of the trade of Danzig. Meanwhile, the Germlans are militarising East Prussia, which, robbed of its natural markets and half surrounded by protectionist Poland, would die without German subsidies. /

Nazi -propaganda constantly magnifies the menace of a Polish invasion of East Prussia and emphasises the fact that Konigsberg’s defences are obsolete, owing to the Versailles Treaty, Moreover, the authorities have ordered whole towns and villages in East Prussia to- undergo regular gas drill the people rushing into' shelters while German planes purporting to be Polish, perform sham raid-s. j