The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 1919. SETTLING EUROPE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CVIII, Issue 16800, 2 April 1919, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 2, 1919. SETTLING EUROPE.

The game of jig-saw is hard enough to play when a hundred broken pieces iiave to be fitted together to form an 'original pattern. In the reconstruction of Europe which, on the territorial side, is the chief work of the Peace Conference,'the pieces have to be ,fitted together to form a new pattern. That makes the problem infinitely more difficult, but two principles have been laid down as guides to procedure., The;"fourteen points" require 1 that boundaries shall be fixed, as far as possible, in accordance with nationality, and that', as far as possible, every new nation shall be given a direct outlet to the sea. Where direct access to the sea cannot be provided by the cession; of territory, Mr Wilson has stated that the inland State must be giyen a risrht' of way, to be- internationalised. But the two key prin-. ciples of the Allies' jig-saw, are , not easy to apply. The difficulty of their application in 1 the case of. Poland) is causing a sham differ- ' ence with the German Government -at' the present time. Poland must have a seaport, and its natural port is Dantzig, at-the' Vistula's mouth. But '; ' though in some parts of, West ' J Prussia 1 , Poles, form a majority- of the- inhabitants, ' Dantzig is a Gerrdan town, with, only ten percent., of Poles among its 150, UOC of population. The fact'that iv " was Polish once does not make it Polish., in a racial sense, to-day. - But 'the Poles need the use,, of - ' Dantzig at once. Their armies, • rudely disciplined, and - ill supplied", like all the mid-European armies at the present time, have been sorely menaced by the Bolshpviks. In France there' has W.ff »een '"a 1 Polish Division/ under General Haller, well discip- - lined and - well supplied, ~ ' which , would make all the difference to the \ safety ol Poland if 4 it could ■ get' there. But' the German's object to the landing of this force at Dantzig, on the-ground that, if the Poles can get a footing,in the port, they will want tht? '- town, and. 'most. or all of West Prussia besides. M. Paderewski is said to have promised that West Prussia would be given to the Poles when General Haller arrives. The Allies .have replied' thsyt it is not' their intention to , occfcoy Dantzig-. s but the armistidf will be broken by the Germans, and they will be free "to 'take any further steps, if permission for a landing is refused. There is no doubt what the ar- • mistice requires. "The Allies," one of its terms states, "shall have free access to territories evacuated by the Germans on their Eastern frontier, either through Dantzisr or by the Vistula, in order to convey supplies to the populations of these terri-* tories or for the purpose of maintaining order." * Legally the German Government has not n leg to stand upon in its objections to the landing.

One of two things must happen. Either the German Government must back down, or the landino- will be made by , force. Marshal Foch may have to march to Berlin, yet to bring our enemies to their senses. There is no chance of the Germans being able seriously to renew the war. If nothing had happened sincej the loss of all their oil supplies with the Turkish, Bulgarian, and Austrian capitulations would have made its continuance by them impossible. But a forced landing at Dantzig, even the domination of Weimar or Berlin by Marshal Eoch, will not solve the problem of Polish boundaries. The trouble is, as a writer in "The Times" has pointed out, that nowhere, except in the south, where the Carpathians form the boundary between the Poles and Slovaks, has Poland any clear natural or ethnic frontiers. "In the West the Polish settlements are closely interlocked with those of the Germans. In the East Polish minorities are scattered throughout the territories which once formed part of the Polish State." Where there are rival claims to ownershin the Poles, like anv other race, will tend to want all tbev can get. Three and a half million Poles have to be liberated from German rule, but it is unlikely that they will get more than a road to Dantzisr, with t!u> free use of its harbour facilities. To a large extent the question of sea outlets, dominates all the territorial proceedings of the Conference. It makes the chief trouble in the south of Europe.

Il I Iwlrere Italy is contesting Jug-o-Slavia's claim to an outlet at JTiumo. And the Allies are holuHi£ on to Arohanpel and Odessa like ffrim death, because the heathen of a country which has 110 sea outlet must be hampered in their power for mischief by that cirounistance, however they *nay raffe and fume. Not the least important work of the Peace Conferenco will bo that of the committco which is considering the intcinationalisation of waterdays, including the Vistula, though its work receives small notico in the cable news.* It jihi.v appear that if General Haller's Division had been sent to Poland in January, when its transfer was beincr if larger forces had been sent to Rusißia, a chief menace to the Conference's labours in the power 6f Bolshevism mio-ht have been better checked. But mid-Europe is ?L •n« e for new armies in the middle of winter, and though Hungary has succumbed to thfc 4W+t lV ® m ? dn l ess {t iB Probable