Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-12-21
POLAND FOUND STRONGER
AFTER GERMAN ELECTION
Threat of Fascist Program Seen Strength
ening Regime of Marshal
PiIsudski.

umphed. Poland not unnaturally took
alarm. The question Of the frontiers
and of national security entered into
the campaign. As consequence Pill
sudski won victory which, although
doubtless due in part to illegal methods,
was in the main the result of this
national outburst of apprehension.
Polish Position Clarified.
What the PilSudski victory means to
Europe in general and Germany in par
ticular is plain. Poland is resolved I'M
der no circumstance to consent to any
revision of her eastern frontiers, to any
modification of the Polish Corridor, to
any change in the boundaries in East
ern Silesia. All German political par
ties and leaders having publicly pro-
claimed that revision of these from
tiers is the primary condition for a
peaceful Europe, Poland has replied by
establishing a government ready and
willing to go to the length Of war to
defend them.
The situation is actually Illuminated
much further. 1t has been the Ger
man estimate that Poland was an un-
reasonable and impermanent creation,
a season state" which could not long
endure once the support of the allied
states was withdrawn. This view has
been to degree weakened by reason
of the unmistakable progress Poland
has made economically and industrially
in the postwar years. Thanks in part
to American loans, Poland has been
able to stabilize it's currency. organize
its coal and iron industries, develop its
railways and in general get started as
national economic unit.
On the other hand, the political in
Conference has served to sustain the
German hope of an eventual relapse
into that anarchy that was long ago
the cause of the collapse of the older
Poland. Just as long as Parliament
and Pilsuoski were at war and the con-
f1ict endured undecided Germans we're
able to hold the conviction that one
day an inevitable collapse would follow,
and then the question of the Polish
Corridor and Upper Silesia could be
regulated in accord with German de-
sires and without the need of any war,
local or general.
Continue French Alliance.
But now Poland has thrown its lot
in with a dictator who Is backed by the
army, who is supported by all the ele-
ments in the country that place ma
tional security and unity, along with
business and financial prosperity, above
mere parochial political issues. For a
certain number Of years there will be q
strong centralized rule. This rule will,
as it has already indicated, exert every
conceivable kind of pressure to REFUGE
the influence and abate the activity of
the German and Ukrainian minorities
within Poland, as it will continue to
associate itself with France in general
European questions.
Since no sensible German-and, In
fact, no German of any influence-de-
sires war or believes it even possible
for Germany to go to war in the next
few years. the Polish election means
that the German situation in the East
will continue to worsen and the Ger
man chance of enliSting European sup
port for her revision policy win lessen.
Year by year the German elements In
the debatable lands of the Corridor and
Upper Silesia is losing in numbers and
influence. Thousands of Germans are
flowing out of this region each year,
and their places are being taken by the
Slavs. Any plebiscite would even now
reveal decisive majority everywhere,
and this condition can only intensity
in the next years under a strong Polish
government.
Time works against the German,
then, not only in the lands surrendered
to Poland but also in Danzig and East
Prussia, where insecurity is tending to
promote German emigration and Polish
infiltration is beginning Moreover,
this condition is further intensified by
the rapidly declining German birth
rate in the face of a Polish rate that
is now at least the double of the Ger
man. Thus for all the Germans the
issue of the Polish Corridor Is not any
longer the mere question of recovering
lost territory and thus restoring terri
torial unity, but it is even more the
question of avoiding the eventual loss
of East Prussia and of preserving the
contemporary German majority in the
Danzig Free State.
Thus the Polish election, following
the Fascist triumph in Germany, opens
a new and still more acute phase in
the whole Eastern question.
Copyright 1897