Iowa state bystander. [volume] (Des Moines, Iowa) 1894-1916, 1912-01-05

give the Polish noble enough to pay
his debts and still enable him to re-
tain the greater portion Of his lands.
, Very soon there was a network Of
these banks all over the country with
a controlling bank At rosen. Very
soon all Of German Poland was STIR
red with land speculation Of great
dimensions. The masses Of the Polish
peasants had been land hungry ever
since they were emancipatcd and now
they were not only given motive for
getting land. but 1t became patriotic
thing to do. For the first time Polish
peasant began to have some share In
the life of the people. In fact, It was
no longer the spendthrift. idle, intrigu.
ing, political noble who was to have
the Polish nation, but the humble.
thrifty and despised peasant And
when 1t came to a contest with the
powerful Prussian government 1t ap-
peared that the Polish peasant was
tough enough and thrifty enough to
make good fight. In fact it Is now
clear that the governments policy has
failed.
In the first place the Polish peasant
was willing and able to live cheaper
and work harder than the German
peasant who sought to displace him.
He was therefore able to bid higher
for the land. The result was The
price Of land went booming. The gov
erpment had to bid higher and higher
for the land they purchased. The mil
lions Of money which poured into the
country tended to enrich the Polish
landlords Lands which came into
the hands of German peasants pres
emily found their way back to the
harder and thriftier Pole. Sometimes
the German peasant would even con-
nite with the German landowner to
match the government.
Agriculture revived, trade increased,
the whole country began to prosper.
German banks began quietly putting
their money into the hands of Polish
banks for Investment. The Polish
people ceased talking about insurrec-
ton, or they talked about 1t very soft
ly. They were all intent upon the in
dustrial and economic struggle. While
the government was opposing them,
private enterprise was encouraging
them.
The result has been that, while the
governments land policy failed and
while there has been great deal of
irritation because of the efforts of the
German government to impose their
language on the Polish people, the
Polish people are now more bound up
with the German people than they
ever were before. They still keep
up the struggle for nationality. but 1t
Is very doubtful If the masses of the
Polish people would accept United
Poland If 1t was offered to them. The
masses of the people. who are now
prosperous and thrifty, would not want
to put themselves under the control
Of the sentimental and impractical
nobility Of their own race again.
Meanwhile the history of the other
divisions of Poland have been very
different. While German Poland has
become prosperous agricultural COM
munity, Russian Poland has become
one of the great manufacturing cen
ters of Europe. 1t has been able to
become this because it is protected by
the Russian tariff and has the whole
vast Russian empire for It's market.
II Poland were reunited all this agri-
cultural and commercial property
would be destroyed, because both Ger
man and Russian Poland would lose
their respective markets.
On the other hand, in Austrian Po-
land where the Polish nobility has
had free hand in the government of
the province, where they have had
their own language and their own uni;
versity, and the racial struggle has
been rather between the Poles and
the Ruthenians, their conditions are
pretty much as they were. The peas
ants have made some progress in re-
cent times, but 1t has not been due to
the influence of the nobility, but rath-
er to the influence Of returned emf
grants from America.
The point which the speaker tried
to make was that the struggle over
the language question in Europe, and
the struggle for political rights, were
at bottom the same; that when you
got down to the bottom you saw that
it was the struggle Of the race at the
bottom to rise, to win self-respect and
freedom of action, against a race jeal-
GUS of Its privileges and determined to
maintain its place at the top.