New-York tribune., 1901-04-24
PRTSSIA AND THE POLES

The decision of the Prussian Government more
severely to repress the use of the Polish Ian
guage in Posen by banishing il from the schools
is an interesting part OF the worldwide Ian
guage conflict which is or has been raging in
North America and In South Africa. in Belgium.
in Austria and in several parts Of the Russian
Empire of which echo was recently heard in
Great Britain, and ominous possibilities OF
which are to be observed in many another land.
1t is also a reminder of the strange battle for
| nationality which is going on in the East Mark
of Prussia between Teuton and Sav, in which
the latter seems to be steadily gaining. Perhaps
it is because Posen the birthplace of the
Polish kingdom. perhaps for some other rea-
son; but, at any rate. the Poles there display an
| aggressive vitality such as may nowhere else be
found. If it existed generally throughout trip
artite Poland, the map of Europe might have
to be remade.
Bismarck once declared that PolonsmuS and
Socalismus were the two disorders which most
threatened Germany. He tried to check them
both, and failed. His expected cure for Polon-
ismus to purchase the lands of Poles who
would sell, as many were glad TO do, and to
colonize them with Germans. He got the Reichs-
tag TO appropriate some S25.0O0.O00 for the pur-
pose and in all more than 100000 Germans
were settled In Posen. But. instead of German
izng the Polish province, the Germans them
selves have been Polandized. They have nearly
all of them taken to using the Polish language.
and they sing God Save Poland" far more
than THE Watch on the Rhine" The same is
true in the other Polish provinces. Nor is that
ALL The Poles are invading other parts of Prus-
sia and are becoming a powerful political factor
in the whole kingdom. 1t is startling fact that
in Westphalia there are to-day, among the work
inc Polish than CprmaO
the number of Poles having quintupled in ten
years. In Rhenish Prussia the number of Poles
is increasing at an ominous rate And this seems
to be done without any diminuton of the num-
ber of Poles in the Polish provinces. In the lat
ter Bsmarck's policy Of land purchase has so
completely failed that now the Poles who
buying out Germans are twice as numerous
the Germans who are buying out Poles.
This movement toward Polish habilitation
is the more extraordinary because it receives
absolutely no aid from outside. The Poles are
Slavs, of course. but they assuredly get no help
from the Pan-Slav propagandstS of Russia or
from the Russian Government The inter, in
deed, openly sympathizes with the Prussian
Government in its effort to suppress the last
vestiges of Polish nationality. The Poles are
thus being ground between two millstones; but
instead of being crushed. they seriously i'm
pairing the integrity of at least of the stones
Nor do they get any help from the Vatican. for
the German Government has arranged with the
latter for the appointment Of German bishops to
Polish sees. Yet they more than hold their own,
and to-day present the anomalous spectacle of n
subjugated people menacing their twenty times
more numerous conquerors. thousand years
ago the founder of the Polish kingdom acknowl
edged himself to be a feudatory of the German
Emperor To-day the German Emperor has to
take drastic measures TO defend his empire from
the kingless remnant of the Poles.