POLAND'S DEFENCES

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22620, 7 January 1937, Page 8

POLAND'S DEFENCES

Poland is to spend £15,000,000 on defence. The bulk of the money is being lent by France, and a large part of it will be paid for French arms. The reaffirmation of FrancoPolish friendship by Colonel Beck, Foreign Minister of Poland, is unnecessary under the circumstances, but it has some significance in the fact that Colonel Beck for personal reasons has been less cordial toward the French than toward the Germans, while General Rydz-Smigly, who carries the support of the army, has favoured France, though resenting the Franco-Soviet pact. The renewal of Poland's military activity is obviously due to the rapid expansion of Germany's military power. In 1933, when the country had a standing army of 260,000 men and a large trained reserve, Germany had nominally 100,000 men under arms. Russia was then the feared menace, and the following year the ten-years non-aggression treaty with Germany was signed. Since then Germany has risen to great military power, reoccupied the Rhine territory and moved rough-shod over treaties. It is small wonder, therefore, that Poland is on the alert against German aggression. No longer can she safely balance herself upon pacts with Russia, France and Germany. Part of the Hitler plan expressed in the book "Mein Kampf" was the recovery of Danzig, Memel, the Polish Corridor and Upper Silesia. Against strong opposition in Berlin, Hitler abandoned this so far as Poland was concerned by the ten-years pact, but ever since the war successive German Governments have refused to accept the Polish - German frontier as final. Even the late Dr. Stresemann, who in the Treaty of Locarno renounced the German claim for revision of the western frontier, could not be moved from his determination to leave open the question of the eastern frontier. The old aim, and Nazi contempt for treaties, is reviving Poland's close association with France and causing her to strengthen her defences.