PROBLEMS OF DANZIG

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIII, Issue 22543, 7 October 1936, Page 12

PROBLEMS OF DANZIG

The League Council has asked the Government of Poland to assume responsibility for finding a solution of the problems of Danzig, and Poland's acceptance of the task has been officially intimated. This does not mean, and under the terms of the treaty provisions creating Danzig a free city cannot mean, that the League has delegated its governing authority to Poland. These provisions are explicit: the League is appointed by the treaty signatories sole protector of Danzig and sole guarantor of its constitution, and is not empowered to divest itself of this responsibility. Germany's previous title to Danzig resides expressly in the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, and (as with the mandates) they alone have power to end the cession, the League exercising a surveillance on their behalf which it cannot delegate. It is in this limited respect merely a trustee, and the position is made doubly clear by a clause in the international deed of trust, this clause including a reference to further agreements by the parties as the means of settling possible questions other than that of the status of Danzig—as their possession, to be maintained as such by the League. But to ask Poland to find a solution for the present problems, arising from the antagonism of Danzig's Nazi Senate to the League's High Commissioner, is a justifiable expedient. The problems belong to the inner political sphere, where Poland possesses recognised interests, and the Polish Government can reasonably be expected to seek a solution in conformity with the over-riding provisions of the treaty and of the supplementary Polish-Danzig agreement of 1920. In due time it will report its recommendations, which must be in accordance with the standing requirement that the constitution of Danzig, not its status, "can only be changed with the permission of the League." Should Germany's wish to regain possession be ever officially communicated to the Principal Allied and Associated Powers, that will be quite another matter.