The Timaru Herald. TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1924. EIGHTS OF MINORITIES.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, Issue 18084, 10 June 1924, Page 6

The Timaru Herald. TUESDAY, JUNE 10, 1924. EIGHTS OF MINORITIES.

It was impossible in 1919 to redraw tire map oi Europe in exact accordance "ltu racial community s aspirations. !So, to compensate those uunoiitifcs wiio tor expediency dad to be (or at any rate were) included ui btales ot predominantly different race, a senes oi . •‘Mmority Treaties'’ were devised winch, ido new or enlarged States were required to sign before tffen status could be Dually recognised. These treaties embodied promises from such States not. to discriminate unfairly against subjects o, other than the national race, and not to interfere with them, m the free, exercise of their own religions and use of their own languages. There were ten such treaties in all placed under the guarantee of the League m TJid and 1920. Their effect was to gave questions concerning' - those minorities an international status. Unfortunately some of the States concerned have not ceased to feel aggrieved at the existence: ot this obligation. Poland, with mno million non-Poles in her holders, showing a particularly ill grace in acknowledging it. And now a Commission of the Polish ITiet has, according' to _ a London paper, reported that, its maintenance is incompatible warn national sovereignty. The idea oi “sovereignty” embodied in such a complaint is wholly pernicious. It is parallel with _ the view oi private property which reg'ards all taxation as spoliation. As' a modern State cannot, exist without making inroads on its citizens’ earnings, so an interdependent Europe cannot exist in health without making inroads' upon the “sovereignty < of its constituent members. This, moreover, is a- very unfortunate moment to choose for an agitation against the Polish Minority Treaty. The Berlin correspondent of the “Manchester Guardian has lately drawn attention to the ever-worsening plight of the nonPolisli elements in Poland, and especially of the Ukrainians, the tale of whose inclusion in tlm Polish State is anything' but respectable history. The cliier effect (and not a had one) may be to fasten the League Ootmcils eyes anew on the way thei-Polish Treaty is being disregarded.