POUND'S RE-BIRTH

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17011, 19 November 1918, Page 4

POUND'S RE-BIRTH

The news that Genera! Pilsubski has begun the formation of a National Government in Warsaw indicates that the first definite i step has been taken towards the reinstatement of Poland in the map of Europe. Since its partition amongst the three neighbouring monarchies j of Russia, Austria, and Prussia, this land that once was a bulwark of Christian civilisation, against the barbarian has had no- place upon that map. It has riot been even what Metternich contemptuously styled the Italy of fifty years ago— a geographical expression. The Poles have been exiles, some of them literally, others abiding in territory that has passed under alien rule. All that has remained of the glory of five hundred years ago has been the tombs of the kings and the jewels of the crown—-the' latter kept on show in the museum of a German city. The partition was one of the worst crimes ever perpetrated in the name of the balance of power, and the confession of one of its participants,- Maria Theresa of Austria, well expresses what all of them must have felt: "In this thing, where not only public law cries to Heaven against us, but also all natural justice and sound reason, I must confess never in my life to have been in such trouble, and am ashamed to/show my face." The worst offender has been Prussia; for while all three participants have imposed their rule upon the unwill•ing Poles, Prussia has added the avowed policy of exterminating or forcibly Germanising them. Prince Balow, the German Chancellor of 1900, illuminatingly defended this policy by declaring that " rabbits breed faster than hares." Despite Prussian expenditure of over a million sterling a year for 10 years in this attempt, the Polish "rabbits" refused to be ousted; the Poles bought land from the German colonists faster than the Government secured it for these political immigrants. In 1908 the Government adopted compulsory expropriate, of Polish, owners, and the comui-,te merging of Prussian Poland in • Germany was apparently assurer. The crushing defeat of the Central Powers in this war has saved Poland from final extinction, and Pilsubski's task may succeed in reuniting the dismembered State and giving it a chance to take again an honourable place among the nations of the West. In that event, the day in August of 1914 that saw Russia invade Galicia, by that time joined to Austrian Poland, may prove to have been the beginning o' Poland's new era. It is certain tl at the international Peace Congress will give Poland the opportunity to determine for itself its form of government, and for that event this new departure may well prepare. , '..';';»