Evening star., 1928-04-08

" YTLNA, April during the past
Y week I have been travelling along
" the last remaining front in post
' war Europe, the imaginary line
which separates Poland from LII
| thuania, the frontier which Is the cause
of the Poland-Lithuanian dispute still
filling all the public prints OF Europe
and worrying all the peace-pundlts OF
Geneva.
AS European disputes go. this ques-
| ton of Lithuania is relatively recent.
| 1t only takes definite shape about the
| fourteenth century, when a Lithuanian
prince, hard pressed by the Teutonic
knights. married Polish princess and,
renouncing pagantsm. became Chris
| tian AS a direct consequence of this
bit of strategy, Marshal Pilsudski and
NJ. Waldemaras. the prime minister Of
Lithuania, had their recent quarrel at
Geneva.
In the old sense. Wilma is not front.
No one is shooting there. What actu-
ally exists is not war but state Of
war. which bears the same relation to
actual hostilities that an American of
| tive of a member nation at a Geneva
meeting Of the League of Nations
| Trade Barriers.
| Although there is no actual fighting,
the 100000 of people who live on
either side of this imaginary line can
not trade with each other. The Lithu-
anians cannot buy their clothes in
wilma; the lumbermen of all the region
of the Niemen and the Wilya cannot
ship their lumber down the rivers. If
you want to go from Kovno to wilma, a
two-hour auto trip by the direct road,
1
| roundabout.
Going to this front, too, in the auto
mobile Of the Polish governor Of the
district. I was taken to the little VIII
| lage of Troki. which gives an illuminat-
ing notion of the character Of racial
disputes in this corner of the world.
| Here is a castle which the professors
! who accompanied me assured me was
| Macbeth's. Facing it were fortresses Of
| the Lithuanian Kings. now destroyed.
as a consequence of tncursions by
Swedes in the days Of Gustavus
| Adolphus and Charles XII. Eastward
| on the hill stand the ruins of con-
vent shot to pieces by German cannon
when the Russians made a rear guard
| resistance in 1915. On the road out Is
the pass by which Napoleon descended
into wilma on his way to Moscow, the
I
came rushing to Warsaw in 1920 and
back again after a brief battle.
Is Natural Center.
| During the peace conference the
/ wise nlapmakers were fascinated with
| the idea of bestowing wilma upon
I.ithuania because, In the days Of the
marrying prince, Wilma had been the
Lithuanian capital The fact that there
| we're no Lithuanians in the city did not
trouble the peacemakers. A year later.
while they we're still wrestling With the
problem, the BolShevists came piling
into the town and when they left. even
more precipitately. they thoughtfulfy
made. over their rapidly disappearing
claim to the LithuanianS. Finally. .
Polish general. driven by his troops
who were natives Of wilma, seized the
town.
Why do the Lithuanians claim Wilma
Because wilma. and not their own cap
ital of Kovno, is the natural center OF
all the region which hes between the
Baltic and the Russian frontier. Here
1--WE railway lines meet, here is net
work of highways. Here is city which
| with its buildings. monuments, past
glories and present economic possinil-
tiles offers all the necessary basis Tor
| a capital. This is the material side.
Politically, IL Poland holds wilma The
Iithuanians cannot touch the PGSSlan
boundary They cannot ienew their al
| Iiances with the bolshevists, They can
/ not prevent Poland from becoming what
it once was. the great Eastern state.
Behind the IitluanianS stand both the
| Germaas ani the bolsnsvistS. For the
| Germans Polish possession OF wilma
blocks all German lines OF communica-
| tion wis Russia. establishes Poland IN