POLAND’S FUTURE

New Zealand Tablet, 4 November 1915, Page 22

POLAND’S FUTURE

What is to be the fate of Poland as the outcome of the war? No one can yet say, but for the moment the outlook of the Poles is different from what it was at the commencement of hostilities (says a writer in the Catholic Times). Then the Grand Duke Nicholas issued a manifesto in which he cheered the inhabitants of Poland by referring, in a democratic spirit, to the approaching resurrection of their country. Soon afterwards it was announced from the Russian capital that the Czar promised, if victorious, to unite in one autonomous State, under his sovereignty, the parts of ancient Poland held by Germany, Austria, and Russia, In the year that' has passed since the hopes of the Poles were thus raised the prospects of the establishment of an autonomous Polish nation under the supreme authority of the Czar appears to have become more distant. Poland has been made desolate. Her people during the twelve months have again and again felt the destructive fury of the struggle. To city, town, and country it has brought ruin. Vast numbers of them have been left without homes or the means of procuring food. Never has war devastated as this one has done in Poland. In whole areas houses have been reduced to heaps of bricks and stones. Manufactories, industrial works, farm buildings, useful institutions of almost every kind have met a common fate; they have been consumed in the flames of the conflict. And now the Poles, who can count so many victims on each side, are informed that their liberation is to come from the Austrians and the Germans. Austrian and German troops occupy their capital, and Austrian and German journals have been discussing projects for hA J

The Formation of a Polish Kingdom ; by the Central Powers. It is true there is little, likelihood of any such scheme being at once adopted. In deciding where the chief authority shall rest Prussia will want to have the lion’s share, and to this arrangement Austria will not readily assent. It is not surprising, therefore, to learn that as Germany and Austria cannot agree to the new scheme Warsaw will be governed in the same way as Brussels ‘ for the duration of the warlike occupation,’ or to read that the Vossisehe Zeitung tells the members of the Polish Club, of Vienna, who have been demanding the re-establish-ment of Poland as an independent State under the suzerainty of the Hapsburg monarchy, that it is not at Cracow, or Lemberg the question will be solved of what is to be the political fruit of a war in which the German people have made such heavy sacrifices. It may be taken for granted that if Germany and Austria were to come out of the war successfully— they will ultimately be defeated there can be no doubt—-the Poles would have reason to look to the future with anxiety. Austria’s claims would be made little of and Prussia would obtain the upper hand. What that would mean the Poles know full well from history. Prussia has played

The Part of an Evil Genius

in connection with the destiny of Poland. To it belongs a large share of the responsibility for the three partitions of the country. The plan of the first partition was discussed in detail at Neustadt by the Austrian Emperor and the King of Prussia, and: the King’s brother made a long visit to St. Petersburg to induce Catherine of Russia to become a partner in this project of aggression and robbery. V ; On : the occasion. ; of the preparations for the second partition General Mollen-

dorf, the leader of the Prussian army, issued a declaration in which he made Jacobinism, with which the Poles had nothing to do, the pretext for the dishonest action of the Prussian Government. This was done to throw dust in people’s eyes, and especially to keep the plutocrats of the British Parliament quiet. The Polish Kingdom, after the second partition, shrank in size to a third of what it had been, and in the third partition this was disposed of, Prussia receiving about a thousand square miles. Thenceforward, for the most part, Bitter Oppression was the Lot of the Poles. The fire of patriotism never ceased to burn in their breasts, and many of them in 1812 joined the Grand Army of Napoleon, who held out to them the hope of restoring the Polish monarchy. The execution of the design, if he ever entertained it, was defeated by his fall. For a while the aspirations of the Poles again received some encouragement from 1 the Allied Powers, who at the Congress of Vienna, in 1815, endeavoured to bring about an improvement in the conditions under which they were governed and the treatment meted out to them. But these efforts had little effect, and the existence of the Poles has been, to a great extent, a, constant fight against tyrannical attempts to stamp out their nationality. N In recent years Austria has shown considerable liberality towards the Poles, granting them Constitutional rights as well as religious liberty. But in Prussian Poland the people have been ruled with an iron hand. Bismarck, indeed, conceived the idea of elbowing them out of their own land. Public money was used to buy up Polish estates, which were then handed over to Germans. The Polish language was banished from the public schools. The sale of Polish newspapers at the railway stalls was prohibited. Children were forbidden to learn their catechism in Polish, and for refusing to recognise this ordinance the late Cardinal Ledochowski was sent to prison. Polish associations were persecuted, and any measures for the assertion of Polish national views were sternly repressed.

Such has been the character of the regime in Prussian Poland, and it is not probable that if a Polish Kingdom were set up by the Central Powers the mode of ruling it would be much better, for in the exercise of authority Prussian influence would predominate. But, fortunately for the Poles, it is certain that in the end Germany and Austria will not be victorious, and that in the settlement of the conditions under which they will be governed in the future Great Britain and France will have a good deal to say.