Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1944. FRONTIERS AND SECURITY.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 14 January 1944, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1944. FRONTIERS AND SECURITY.

PARTS of the latest Soviet statement on the subject of relations with Poland and the determination of that country’s frontiers on east and west justify the observation made in Britain that they, like the Polish declaration to which the Soviet statement refers, are of a controversial nature. . At the same time, as has also been recognised in Britain, it is possible to regard the Soviet statement as doing something to keep alive the hope of an. ultimate and amicable settlement. Far as the proposals now put. forward by Russia fall short of meeting Polish claims, something is done to open the way to negotiations in the intimation that the Soviet Government does not regard the 11)39 border (the line to which the Red Army advanced in that year) as unalterable and in the declaration that it stands for a strong and independent Poland and for Polish-Russian friendship. While the problems involved in the determination of the. Polish frontiers, not only with Russia, but with Germany and Czechoslovakia, admittedly are of serious difficulty, it has been claimed fairly that the whole of the circumstances surrounding these problems have been greatly modified, and indeed transformed, by the outcome of the recent Allied conferences at Moscow, Cairo and Teheran. Apart from their vital and of necessity only partly disclosed bearing on the conduct of the Avar, these conferences led to something more than tentative agreement on the creation of an international organisation to uphold and safeguard peace when it has been established. The whole future of great and small nations will depend on what is built on the foundations thus laid. With the principal Allied Powers giving a lead in the establishment of an association for collective security in which all peaceful nations Avill be invited to participate and co-operate, every nation will be pffered a degree of security it could never hope to attain by any adjustment of its individual frontiers.

At the same time, the development of an effective system of collective security may be expected to create an atmosphere and conditions lending themselves in a high degree to the equitable settlement of frontier and other disputes. A dependable system of collective security will in a great measure do away with the strategic significance of national frontiers. For the rest, nothing better can be desired, where complex questions of. frontier adjustment are raised, than that these questions should be settled as far as possible in accordance with the wishes and interests of the groups and sections of people '.immediately concerned.

Hopes of future stability and peace will be dimmed if that ruling principle is not applied to the settlement, during and after this Avar, of all frontier disputes, where enemy as well as Allied territory is concerned. A fair possibility nov r appears that a dependable system of collective security, with a backing of international force against any future attempt at aggression, will presently be worked out. That organisation would be prejudiced if not fatally undermined,/however, if in the peace settlement a new set of minorities witli grievances tvere created and the plotting and scheming of minorities for redress started all over again. The larger hope is in the development of an international understanding and organisation that will guarantee and safeguard peace and make the location of frontiers less important than it has been in the past. Tn order that this organisation may rest on a firm foundation, however, it remains very necessary that all frontier and other issues raised between nations should be determined in a spirit of liberal justice and equity.