Perth Amboy evening news., 1922-06-03
Geographic News
Bulletins by the
National Geographic Society
ORPHAN Il

AN ORPHAN AERAA
suppose our New england coast
subject TO "A peace treaty ADJUST
ment which would make ConnectI-
cut and Rhode island an IndeIen-
dent country. Boston "a free city. the
lower part of Maine thus severed
still = part OF the United States,
and PASSPORT. Maine. subject to the
League of Nations. Then let a con-
troversy start regarding the future
of PASSPORT. whether it shall he as
signed to Canada. made "A free
state under a Brazil protectorate. or
be incorporated in our imaginary
nation of Massachusetts and Rhode
Island"
According to a bulletin from
| Washington, ID. c., headquarters of
the National Geographic Society, if
you can imagine the feelings of the
Eastport folk under such sircum-
stances you also can gain some idea
OF the present "where-do-we-go-
from-here' state of mind in the
Memel district OF Nor,h Europe.
Races Add Complication
Even men are racial factor
would he missing" the bulletin con-
tlnues, and to make our hypo-
thetical New England comparable
to that along the Baltic shores we
would nave to picture Eastport to
be nearly half populated by French
Canadians who most naturally cast
their eyes toward their own Domin-
ion, and suppose the intervening ma
ton made of the Bay State and
Rhode Island to be peopled by Latin
Americans.
Mcneil was lands end for the
former German Empire, situated at
the apex of the northern triangle
OF East Prussia. Hamburg and
Bremen, which usually come to
mind as cities of northern Ger
many, are in the approximate la:i-
tude of Liverpool, while Memel is
on a line with Glasgow and Edin-
burgh. Its situation is like h a of
New York were Long Island a pen
insula with it's eastern end Joined
to the Connecticut shores above
New Haven. The Kurische Half is
considerably larger than Long ISL
and Sound and the neck of this in
iand sea bottle. where Memel lies,
is very narrow.
Germany's Northcrnmost Gateway
"A glance at a map of Northern
Europe will show why Memel COM
manded the shipping of the Baltic
even as Bremen and Hamburg were
the entrepots for overseas COM
merce. Mcneil was the gateway 10
the erstwhile German Empise from
Stockholm, Riga, Copenhagen and
Petrograd. Then note the curse of
the Memel, or Niemen, River and
you can realize readily how the city
played the middleman for West Po-
land and Russia. 1t bore great RATS
OF logs which were sawed at
Memels mills and this lumber prod
uct was carried to every Baltic city,
a portion of it going back to Rus
sian ports. Before the war The
value OF its timber shipments alone
amounted to more than $4,000, 900.
Early in the war the Russians
invaded Memel which led to a wide
ly quoted ediet from Berlin, for
each German village or farm burnt
by these hordes three Russian vii
or farms will be destroyed
The defense of Memel by two Prus-
sian regiments consisted of the SOL
dlers disbanding, mingling with the
people, and thus compelling the pop
ulation to help fight in defense of
thelr city. a procedure which, it will
be recalled. furnished the excuse for
subsequent German atrocities in
Belgium.
"Menel was known before the
war as a prosperous city with
neither a millionaire nor a pauper
1t had fio%urishing iron boundaries,
shlpbuilding yards and distilleries
and it manufactured chemicals and
soap. Its population OF some $4,000
had only II per cent. Lithuanians.
while in the rural sections of the
present district of Memel 20 per
cent. of the people were Lithu-
anians. This proportion, not sub
stantially altered today. is a compli-
eating factor in its ultimate political
disposition"