The Washington herald., 1921-03-09
MEDIAEVAL POLAND VANISEIES
BEFORE CONQUERNG ADVANCE
OF MODERN WORLD INDUSTRY
kncient Kingdom No Longer Nation Of "No-
bles, Priests, and Peasants"
tof Wk1hlnEt ION HerHId md =
Evsntng Post.)
BY ARTHUR RUHL.

vrittsa for w..hinston Herald and y. Z. !
~ ARTHUR RUHL.
While the new Poland Is not an
Industrial country in the English
sense Of the vord-a country. that
Is to say. which lives by trade and
export Of manufactured goods-it
II no longer possible TO speak of
II as q land of mobiles. priests. and
PEASANTS" This medieval desig-
nation, which applied to what is
now Poland longer than to most
Western European nations. would
not At at all such a cotton mann
featuring town as Lodz, for in
ptance, the Polish Manchester"
which is about as medieval q city
as Rochester or Detroit.
fNor would Ii apply to Poznan-
Former German Poland its
modern. scientific farms and sugar
factories. it's peasant banks and co..
operatives. Poznan, or Poseu, as
the Germans say. was not hit di-
rectly by the war. Business went
ON as usual.
Highly Developed.
: 1t IL not only the most highly de-
veloped part of the new Poland
crossing from Russian Poland into
Posen Is almost like crossing from
Ldthuania into East Prussia II but
except for the disarrangement caus-
ed by the voluntary or compulsory
shifting Of ownership from German
TO Polish hands. 1t starts intact. a
going concern" And IL the new
Poland must look to former Aus
trian Poland for most of its trained
officials 1t can similarly count on
Posen for a good deal of western"
initiative. hardheadedness, and busi-
ness experience.
While agriculture must be the
main resource of Poland, as was
pointed out in the preceding article.
II has, In addition to the sugar fac
tories Of Poznan and the Warsaw
neighborhood, a considerable cotton
spinning industry. timber, coal, oil,
salt. and other mineral products.
Work Is Going Along.
- Accurate figures are hard to get,
three sections of the new Poland
were. before the war, included in
the statistics of the three nations
to which Russian. German and Aus
trian Poland belonged, and partly
been and still is in a state of war
or something close to II. Yet in
spite of all the difficulties, work
Is often found to be going on much
better than might be expected.
In the coal mines of Russian and
Austrian Poland, which normally
produce about 100000 tons OF
coal. the output is now about so
man has decreased here, as in West
ern Europe. but there have been
fewer strikes than in England. for
instance. and by putting more men
at work the totals have been kept
up.
PlebIscite Chances.
II the Upper Silesian plebiscite
should go in Poland's favor, Poland
will have not only enough coal for
her own needs, but enough to ex-
port as well. Germany's anxiety
ever Upper Silesia is due not mere
ly to the coal itself. of which, 1t
- said. only about 2 per cent went
1nut of the region, but to the pos
sible loss of the Silesian iron in
dustry. in which the bulk of, the
Upper Silesian coal was used.
The cotton production is said to
be about so per cent Of what IL was
before the war. The mill which
visited in Lodz was running fairly
satisfactorily apparently. Here, as
IN many other factories in the
neighborhood. the Germans had
taken away during their occupation
belts and other leather parts, brass
and copper, but as many spindles
were intact as there was cotton
to feed them. and the owner told
me that the army took everything
he could make.
Cotton Hard to Get.
The great dificulty seemd to be
that of getting raw cotton itself.
Turkestan cotton was cut of, ma
turally; Egyptian cotton was also
hard to get; such cotton as they
were using came from America
through Danzig, and the difficulty
here, OF course, was that of trans
port and still more that of paw
ment- With the Polish mark worth
about a fifth OF a cent. "real" money
was hard to come by, and once n
was found, the buyer had somehow
or other to get round the govern
lment restrictions against its ex-
port.
The story was told. for instance.
OF an American who had sold 5000
bales OF cotton to one of the Dodz
mills and then had to use every
sort OF diplomatic pressure to get
half OF the sum out of this country
In dollar exchange. while he was
compelled to take the rest in Polish
marks.
Exchange Problem.
This currency difficulty works
against a market for the finished
cotton even were the mills able 70
run at full capacity. One might
think that the surrounding coun-
tries. which need every sort Of cloth.
could take all that could be dumped
into them
SO they could. and find a place
for II. but 1t is as hard for them
for Latvia or Esthonia, for instance
Ito pay for the finished product a,
Ii Is for the Polish manufacturer 10
pay for his raw cotton, and as soon
as he goes abroad he must cornate
with the English manufacturer. who
already has his business connec-
tions, perhaps, and a much easier
problem Of transport. The natural
market OF course. is Russia, ana tbat
market Is closed
In these circumstances many curt-
Gus things have happened. Cotton
mas been brought from Amerio.
With the understanding that n
ehould be paid for by the return ~
me finished product. And there