Poland and Yalta

Manawatu Times, Volume 70, Issue 58, 9 March 1945, Page 4

Poland and Yalta

(To tile Editor.) Sir, —The correspondence column of a newspaper is a fair gauge of what the public is thinking, and by the interest it stimulates, can have as much influence on public opinion as the leading article. For this reason I feel com* pelled to combat with the truth the dangerous twaddle which has been written about the Yalta conference. It is dangerous because it confuses people and makes them ask: “If what Arm Jacques says is true, then surely this war will be as much a ‘ war to end war’ as the last one”—a disheartening and terrible thought. The core to the squabble is, of course, the “Curzon Line.” Ann Jacques bloodily portrays Caesar’s death and uses a particularly ugly word in describing England’s “perfidy,” but, para* doxially, nowhere does she mention the Curzon. Line or attempt to justify by facts her strong language in the public press. The Curzon Line was an honest effort by the Peace Conference of 25 years ago to shape Poland’s eastern frontier with a scrupulous regard for her traditional and natural boundaries and what is important, with a careful consideration for problems of nationality. White Russia, the land now being eontested, was seized from Russia by Marshal Pilsudski during the chaos of the revolution. The bulk of the inhabitants are Ruthenians —vigorously anti-Polish and violently anti-Catholic. Their sympathies are traditionally pro-Russian and they have never cheerfully subwitted to Pilsudski’s annexation. As we know to our cost, the League of Nations couldn’t do very much about Pilsudski’s high-handedness at the time, but now, at Yalta, the opportunity has lieen seized, and past mistakes are now being rectified. In point of fact Roland h going; to. bo

far better off this time, for her new eastern frontier will in some places be from live to eight kilometres in excess of the old Curzon Line. Also, which is most important, she will receive as a compensation for White Russia “sub* stantiai accessions of territory in the north and west.”—Danzig and East Prussia. Why, Danzig alone would be a splendid acquisition for Poland, surely! The few foregoing facts should help to clarify the situation a little but we should remember that the subject is too vast to. be treated adequately in a letter. No doubt exists, however—among people who have investigated the situation a little —that, with her new frontiers Poland will be properly equipped for the first time in ht-r chequered history for a career of peace and progress. —l am. etc., ''SNJw’w