The Southland Times MONDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1944. Britain’s Decision About Poland

Southland Times, Issue 25549, 18 December 1944, Page 4

The Southland Times MONDAY, DECEMBER 18, 1944. Britain’s Decision About Poland

MR CHURCHILL’S statement on Poland, printed this morning in a cable message from London, is the most important statement on the subject yet made on behalf of the British Government. It is also disturbing, for it leaves no doubt that national policies are being shaped outside the framework of world co-operation visualized at Dumbarton Oaks. As far as Britain is concerned, the movement towards a final attitude in the Polish question is being made under the pressure of circumstances, especially of circumstances which appear to have been arranged, or strongly influenced, in Moscow. Moreover, Mr Churchill had to admit that he “had been in great difficulty because the attitude of the United States had not been defined with the precision which the British Government had reached.” Thus, on the question which has taken a fundamental importance in Allied relations, and which may severely test the possibility of postwar unity, the three major Powers have so far been unable to reach an understanding. This would not matter greatly if the war were ended, and if time were available for a careful approach to a settlement. It is, indeed, an ominous fact that the most difficult of all European problems has been thrust into its decisive phase in the climax of the war. There is no need to pretend that it can be studied with coolness of temper and the wider view while Russian troops are in eastern Poland, while the allegiance of the Polish people is divided between the Government in exile and the Lublin Committee, and while political and military requirements are closely interlocked. A settlement made under these conditions can scarcely be separated from a haste and coercion which will have bad effects on the future politics of eastern Europe. The initiative throughout has been taken by Russia, whose insistence on large-scale territorial revision cannot have been welcomed either in London or Washington. It is true that in demanding the Curzon Line as her western frontier, and in suggesting the cession to Poland of a great part of East Prussia, the Russians have advocated “the disentanglement of populations.” This would mean the total expulsion of the Germans from the areas to be taken by Poland, and the transference of several millions of people from Polish territories in the east and south. It has been found that revisionist claims are most easily pressed, and can most quickly become causes of war, when large and disaffected minorities are left under foreign rule. The Sudeten Germans of Czechoslovakia, for instance, were useful instruments of Hitler’s aggressive policy in 1938-39. A “clean sweep” is therefore a logical solution; it has the merits of simplicity and thoroughness.