HELP FOR THE POLES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LV, Issue 17041, 24 December 1918, Page 6

HELP FOR THE POLES.

Free access to Polish territories, either through Danzig or by way pi tho Vistula, was secured by the armistico terms imposed on Germany. The departure of M. de Paderewski, the acknowledged leader of the movement in allied countries for the liberation of Poland, to stimulate the resistance of his countrymen against tho Bolsheviks is a first step towards the restoration of Poland as an independent State, and consequently towards the permanent destruction of Prussian militarism. The wrong of 1914 has been partly righted by the delivery of Belgium from German occupation, and will bo fully expiated when Germany has complied with the final terms of peace; the wrong of 1871 has been righted by the surrender of Alsace-Lorraino to France; the wrong of 1792, 1793, and 1796, which before August, 1914, was the classic example of Prussian perfidy, will in its turn also bo righted. The successive spoliations of Poland robbed her first of onethird of her territory, then of a second third, and finally placed the whole nation under foreign domination. Mr. Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George have declared in .almost identical terms that the reunion and the restoration of the former Russian Poland, of Posen and Silesia, and of Galicia is an essential feature of any lasting resettlement of Europe, and the Allies as a whole have adopted Mr. Wilson's ' : thirteenth point" with its promise of political, economic and territorial independence extending to the boundaries of the eighteenth century, with free access to the sea. The fulfilment of that pledge promises more than the realisation of Polish aspirations. " Prussia rose from Poland's destruction," Prince Lichnowsky has declared. "East Prussia was formerly a Polish county. These facts alone should prevent the illusion that Polish political ideas can be reconciled with Prussian and German ideas." The triumph of " Polish political ideas" of unity and freedom will indeed involve the destruction of Prussia. The " territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations" include tho greater part of the lands and mines and industrial regions of the junker landlords, and their restoration to the government of Warsaw will wreck the very foundations of Prussia.