Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1919. GERMANY'S BOUNDARIES.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LIII, Issue 104, 3 May 1919, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail SATURDAY, MAY 3, 1919. GERMANY'S BOUNDARIES.

ONE of the • many difficult tasks confronting the Peace Conference has been the fixing of the eastern and western boundaries of Germany. This has now been solved, save for such detailed delimination as can only be done by special boundary commissions, acting under instructions and making elaborate surveys. Such commissions will be appointed after the signing of the treaty. It is understood that the dominantly Polish districts of Prussia, including the fortresses of Posen and Thorn (though not West Prussia 01 the valley of the Lower Vistula), will form part of the new Polish State. The crux of the problem here was the control of Danzig, the port at the mouth of the Vistula. Strips of country on both sides of the Lower Vistula from Poland to Danzig are inhabited mainly by Poles, while Danzig itself is almost wholly German in population. Moreover, the granting of those strips, together with Danzig, to Poland would have broken down the land bridge between Berlin aijd the thoroughly German province of East Prussia. Yet the Vistula is essentially a Polish river, and Poland must have a secure outlet by it to the sea. The Allied solution is said to be a return to the policy of Napoleon, namely, the conversion of Danzig into a free city, ! but with this difference, that it is to be under the special protection and supervision of the League of Nations. On Germany’s western frontier the League of Nations is, seemingly, to be employed in an equally effective manner to satisfy France’s claim to the coalfields of the Saar Valley, without actually annexing to France the Lower Saar region, which lies just to the north of the Lorraine boundary as it .existed up to the war of 1870-1. Eco ! nomically and geologically region belongs to Lorraine. Without its coal Franco cannot work properly the Lor mine iron mines, which contain about 90 per cent, of her total iron ore. The Saar region was, in fact, allotted to France at the peace of 1814, when

Napoleon was sent to Elba, but she was deprived of it at the final settlement after Waterloo. Considering hov Germany deliberately set herself in thi war seize the French coal and iroi fields with a view to retaining then permanently after tho war, how elu exploited them for her own advantage during the war, and left them bade damaged lor the French, France ha' a good claim, apart even from stratetr? cal reasons, for demanding the annexe tion of the Lower Saar Valley, SF [ is, however, to have control -ofthe district and the mines for- 15 years, as the mandatory of the League of Na-

tior.3. This is to be regarded as a part of the compensation due to her. It is moreover, possible that, in the ultimate settling up of her reparation debts to France; Germany may find it neces-

sary to make such an arrangement permanent as part payment ci her nubilities. For the strategic protection oi France, the German Rhineland to tin north of the Saar Valley as far as tin Dutch frontier is also, it is said, to be “demilitarised,” and placed ii some form or other under the charge of th. League of Nations, for at least a number of years. All these provisions, ii addition to the severe military ant naval terms which are sure to he included in the treaty, should not only bring home to the Germans the fact of their utter defeat, hut also make them, for a generation at least to come, impotent to disturb the world’s peace — that is, always provided that the Allied Powers hold together either in the League of Nations or in some othe” effective alliance.