RIGHT TO DANZIG

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4820, 7 August 1939, Page 2

RIGHT TO DANZIG

THE GERMAN CLAIM.

POLISH CASE DISCUSSED. NAZI OBJECTIVE. The following statement has been received by the Consul-General for Germany in New Zealand:— “The main object of the foreign policy has been and still is the removal of the intolerable and unjust stipulations of the Treaty of Versailles. Danzig is one of the worst examples of this kind. Ninety-eight per cent, of the population of Danzig are German. This is a fact which even the Polish politicians have never disputed. “Besides, these 400,000 Germans living in Danzig are National Socialists and filled by the same ideals as the Germans within the borders of the Reich. All statements to the contrary are wrong, and demonstrate that those who made them do not understand or do not wish to understand the spiritual force which emanates from the National Socialist movement. Foreign observers who listen to the counsels of disappointed politicians of the former Weimar Republic and other emigrants are ill advised. They would do better to remember the results of the plebiscite in the Saar territory and of the election in Austria. Corridor ami Ports. “By the Treaty of Versailles, Poland was given an over lordship over the Danzig Free State. This artificial creation, as well as the peculiar way in which the Corridor, giving Poland access to the sea, was marked out, was meant above all to prevent for all time the establishment of an understanding between Poland and Germany. Poland never earnestly tried to avail herself of the excellent facilities offered by the harbour of Danzig. On the contrary, she very early started to build the port of Gdynia, which was constructed for the sole purpose of ruining Danzig economically, under the hypocritical pretence that the harbour of Danzig was not sufficiently large for the Polish traffic. There are to-day more than ten miles of un-utilised harbour frontage in Danzig which are at the disposal of Poland.

“Poland tries to justify her demand for the maintenance of tin status quo in Danzig with the argument that she could not do without the port of Danzig because it lay at the mouth of the Vistula, which was the ‘main artery' of Poland's economic life. Two things are to be said against this argument: “(a) With equal right Germany could claim Dutch ports because they happen to be situated on the mouth of the Rhine. On the same basis Hungary would have the right to Rumanian Galatz, Yugoslavia to Greek Salonic, or at least the Gulf of Salonic, and Spain to Porto in Portugal. A moment’s reflection and a look at the map should suffice to refute this part of the argument. “(b) Now let us see what use Poland has made of the ‘main artery’ of her economic life. Since the war, commerce has fallen off so tremendously on the Vistula that one is inclined to believe that it must have; been systematically discouraged."