POLISH TONGUE.

New Zealand Mail, 29 January 1902, Page 17

POLISH TONGUE.

When the President opened a sitting of the Reichstag at Berlin in December, all the galleries were crowded in expectation of an excited debate over Lie Polish question, as the Government was to be interpolated on tlie alarming effect on the public opinion of neighbouring empires, caused by the Wreschen flogging affair. The subject was introduced by Prince Radziwill, who clajmed that the poles in Prussia have the right without impugning the dignity of the German nation of repelling efforts to rob them of their mother tongue. The Imperial Chancellor stated that tlie subject was purely a Prussian one, and that be would, if necessary, defend in the Prussian Diet the standpoint of the authorities. In a high-flown peroration, ho announced that Germany would not be influenced in any way whatsoever by the opinion of foreigners, or by any demonstrations abroad in carrying out her own policy respecting the very seriously threatening polish danger. After t bis the Chancellor, all the Secretaries of State, and a large crowd of attendant Government officials ostentatiously trooped out of the House. The effect of this move, which was evidently studied, was quite dramatic, and the Marquess Ito, who witnessed the scene from the diplomats’ gallery, evidently found it intensely amusing. In the further course of debate, Herr Ledebour, a Socialist, severely criticised the Government’s policy of Germanising Poles by the maltreatment of children, and compared German methods in Polish Prussia with English methods in the Transvaal. .