MODERN POLAND

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23810, 17 May 1939, Page 7

MODERN POLAND

VITAL PORTS ON THE BALTIC GDYNIA AND DANZIG THE CORRIDOR AS NATION'S LIFE-LINE The following article on modern Poland's vital needs was written by the Warsaw correspondent of the New York Times: — Poland, with its 35,000,000 population and area o. 150,000 square miles, is inseparable from the narrow strip of 88 miles along the Baltic Sea, her only maritime frontier and a mere 2£ per cent, of her entire border lines. These sands along the grey Baltic are Poland's dearest treasure. Modern Poland would perish were -he deprived of her sea outlet, every Pole would say instantly. The Poles, now as sea-minded as any sailor nation carry in their memory all figures concerning their overseas trade and development of the seaports, of Gdynia and Danzig—for Danzig too. despite being a Germanspeaking free city, is regarded as a Polish port. Vistula Poland's Lifeline Poles would also say the Vistula River is Poland's lifeline. Except for a few miles of its estuary on Danzig territory this great Eastern European waterway is Polish from its source in the Carpathian Mountain? to the Baltic. For centuries it has been a great Eastern trade route. The old Polish commonwealth shipped her grain and timber and imported western luxuries through Danzig. Modern Poland restored this historic tradition. She won access to the Baltic through Pomorze (the Polish corridor), an ethnographically Polish region; but in German-speaking Danzig she obtained only certain trade privileges and special rights. Danzig soon proved inadequate to carry all Polish overseas trade. Gdynia was chosen as the second Polish seaport, and within 14 years it has grown from an obscure fishing village to a modern, prosperous city of more than 100,000. A few figures will illustrate the importance of Gdynia and Danzig to Poland and the benefits the Free City derives from association with the Polish hinterland. In 1913 as one of several German Baltic ports, Danzig had a yearly turnover of 2,000,000 tons of incoming and outgoing shipping. This total rose to more than 3,000,000 tons in 1925, and 6,000,000 tons in 1926, when Poland's coal exports had begun to grow. It is still thrice the pre-war figure. Gdvnia was non-existent as a port till 1927, when it carried 1,000,000 tons of shipping. This increased to 3,000,000 tons in 1929 and nearly 9.000,000 tons last year. The bulk of Poland's foreign trade, some three-quarters of it, goes through Gdynia and Danzig. Cut off from the sea, Poland would become a German dependency economically and politically. Gdynia and Danzig are equally important for Poland. The Poles will give up neither. When Berlin put to Poland suggestions that the time was ripe for settling the Danzig problem, the Polish Government rejected the idea-and ordered partial mobilisation. The Nazis dropped the Danzig question for the moment. If and when they raise it again, the Poles will be more ready than ever to defend Pomorze and hold it. This is not an easy task, especially in the north, where Pomorze forms a forty-to-sixty-mile-wu !e bottleneck. Attack Will be Defence Attack will be Poland's defence, it is said, in case of a war with Germany. Swift motorised and special cavalry divisions stationed about Danzig and along the Eas' Prussian border would immediately move to occupy adjoining territories and broaden the Corridor. Valuab'? assistance could be rendered to Poland by the Lithuanians. Friendship with Lithuania is of paramount imDortance for Poland. The Lithuanians, good fighters like the Poles, could muster an array of 200,000 to paralyse the German forces in East Prussia From the sea the long and narrow Hel Deninsula, natural defen e line for Danzig bay, is heavily armed and fortified. In case of a general European war, it is held, the three Baltic States —Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia could, together with Poland, resist for a long time Germany's eastern armies. The German minority in the Corridor, it is believed, would not present a difficult problem in case of war. These Germans are scattered all alone the Reich frontier, in no county forming a majority According to Polish statistics of 1931. there were 741 000 Germansoeakin? persons in Poland; 'o-day. it is estimated, that fi <*ure has in-creasf-d to ibout 8?0 000 Onlv a fraction of th^se—los 000--live in Pomorze Province the Corridor nroofT. TbTe they constitute 10 per cent, of the population.