New-York tribune., 1919-07-08

distant date to challenge Germany as one of
the great industrial states Of Europe.
Moreover, if a real Poland is thus created,
with sure outlets on the sea, with satisfac-
tory industrial machinery nothing is more
likely than that the East Prussian fragment
will in time be submerged by the Polish
waves from the great Slav hinterland.
Germany recognizes with certain clarity
that she has lost the war in the west; it may
we'll be that she will never challenge France
again, so far as Alsace-Lorraine is concerned,
with the certainty that France will be backed
there by Great Britain, and not improbably
by the United States. Moreover, the loss Of
Alsace-Lorraine, even the permanent loss Of
the Saar basin, is of relatively minor inn
portance, but if real Poland is constructed,
protected during its early years and en-
dowed with Germany's Polish provinces,
then Germanys hopes in the east are gone
Germany Cannot Accept
For Germany, then, the Polish question
is vital. AS it stands, Polish armies in
Posen are less than 100 miles from Berlin
The barrier of the lower Vistula is re-
moved If the Slavs should ever again
stand together, if Pan -Savism should re-
awaken when Russia comes to her owr
again, the road to the German capital would
be open and short, without natural obstacle
Even If Russia remained in chaos, another
European war in which Poland, as would be
inevitable, stood with France and Great
Britain would bring instant and deadly peril
to Germany.
In sum, and the point is capital, Ger
many cannot, save after she is reduced to
utter helplessness, accept the eastern
frontiers as drawn at Versailles. She can
not even permit them to be established
temporarily, for the Balkan example has
shown that peoples once liberated msintain
their freedom tenaciously and successfully.
IL Poland gets her new boundaries her
chance of keeping them is far greater than
If the matter is delayed by German oppo
sition until Allied armies are demobilized
and Allied publics have wearied and cone
back to forgetfulness.
Poland Gets Only Justice
There is no need of pointing out that
what Poland has obtained is justice. not
generosity. The Danzig compromise is
very real disappointment of legitimate
follsh ASPIRATIONS But to permit Poland
to have justice means for Germany. for
Prussia, the true master of Germany. to
lose much Of her power in Germany. much
of her force in Europe.
BY contrast if Poland does not obtain
justice Germany will escape from the war
with no real barrier in her way for new
adventure, and the flimsy Polish state
which does not include German territories
assigned to it at Versailles will first be
strangled industrially and commercially
and presently reannexed to Germany. re-
storing the old situation of evil and the
ancient obstacle to world peace.
Events in Poland in the next weeks and
months, therefore, must have verv inn
portant bearing upon the future Of Eu-
rope and of world peace, and no detail in
tae application of the conditions of peace
can be more interesting than that which
relates to the surrender by GERMANY of
the territories she has promised to return
to Poland.
copyright. 1919. by The Mcclure Newsnsn.,
Syndcate)