September i6, 1920] 



NATURE 



93 



Polish element within it sufficiently strong to 

 justify its independence on ethnical grounds. More- 

 over, the alien elements which it contains are united 

 neither by racial ties nor by contiguity of settlement. 

 Considered as a whole, Poland is at least as pure 

 racially as the United States. When we consider the 

 economic resources of Poland we see that they also 

 make for a strong and united State. It is true that 

 in the past the country has failed to develop as an 

 economic unit, but this is a natural result of the 

 partitions and of the different economic systems which 

 have prevailed in different regions. Even now, how- 

 ever, we can trace the growth of two belts of 

 industrial activitv which will eventually unite these 

 different regions. One is situated on the coalfield 

 running from Oppeln in Silesia by Cracow and 

 Lemberg, and is engaged in mining, agriculture, and 

 forestry ; while the other extends from Posen by Lodz 

 to Warsaw, and has much agricultural wealth and an 

 important te.\lile industr>'. Moreover, the conditions, 

 geographical and economic, are favourable to the 

 growth of international trade. If Poland obtains 

 Lppi-r Silesia she will have more coal than she 

 requires, and the Upper Silesian fields will, as in the 

 past, export their surplus produce to the surrounding 

 countries, while tlie manufacturing districts will con- 

 tinue to find tlieir best markets in the Russian area 

 to the east. The outlets of the State are good, for not 

 only has it for all practical purposes control of the 

 port of Danzig, but it is able to share in the naviga- 

 tion of the Oder and it has easy access to the south 

 bv way of the Moravian Gap. It seems obvious, 

 therefore, that Poland can best seek compensation 

 for the weakness of fier geographical position by 

 developing the natural resources which lie within her 

 ethnic frontiers. By such a ixdicy thr3 different parts 

 of the country will l>e more closely bound to one 

 another than it is possible to bind them on a basis 

 of racial aflinitv and national sentiment alone. 

 Moreover, Poland is essentially the land of the 

 Vistula, and whatever is done to improve navigation 

 f"' that river will similarly tend to have a unifying 

 ' t upon the country as a whole. The mention of 

 Vistula, however, raises one point where geo- 

 . .iphical and ethnical conditions stand in marked 

 t.igonism to one another. The Poles have naturally 

 ' i'fl to move down-stream to the mouth of the river 

 . iiich gives their country what little geographical 

 inilividuality it posses.ses, and the Polish corridor is 

 ilv expression of that movement. On the other 

 1(1, the peoples of East and West Prussia are one 

 1 the same. The geographical reasons for giving 

 ind access to the sea are no doubt stronger than 

 historical reasons for kaving East Prussia united 

 the remainder of Germany, but strategically the 

 it ion of the corridor is as bad as it can be, and 

 solution arrived at may not be acceptetl as final, 

 (ly, w«' may consider the case of East Gnlicia, 

 ifh the Poles claim not on geographical grounds, 

 luse it is in reality part of the Ukraine, and not 

 ethnical grounds, because the great majoritv of 

 th>' inhabitants are Little Russians, but on the ground 

 th.Tt they are, and have for long been, the ruling race 

 in the land. It may also l)e that thev are not un- 

 infltfnred by the fart that the region contains con- 

 ' ■ stores of mineral oil. 



■>-.SIovakia is in various ways the most 

 Mg country in the reconstructed Europe. Both 

 liically arki ethnically it is marked by some 

 of great strength, and by others which are 

 ■■ of considerable weakness to it. Bohemia 

 ' iral structure and its strategic position 

 I'^d by Nature to he the homo of a strong 

 i^.rirous people. Moravia attaches itself 

 NO. 2655, VOL. 106] 



*ii rvi I II >| I II 



more or less naturally to it, since it belongs in 

 part to the Bohemian massif, and is in part a 

 dependency of that massif. Slovakia is Carpathian 

 country, with a strip of the Hungarian plain. 

 Thus, while Bohemia possesses great geo- 

 graphical individuality, and Slovakia is at least 

 strategicallv strong, Czecho-Slovakia as a whole does 

 not possess geographical unity, and is in a sense 

 strategically weak, since Moravia, which unites the 

 two upland wings of the State, lies across the great 

 route which leads from the .Adriatic to the plains of 

 Northern Europe. The country might easily, there- 

 fore, be cut in two as the result of a successful 

 attack, either from the north or from the south. 

 Later I shall endeavour to indicate certain compensa- 

 tions arising out of this diversity of geographical 

 features, but, for the moment at least, they do not affect 

 our argument. We have, further, to note that the 

 geographical and ethnical conditions are not altogether 

 concordant. In Bohemia we feel justified in arguing 

 that here at least the governing factors are and must 

 be geographical. To partition a country which seems 

 predestined by its geographical features to be united 

 and independent would give rise to an intolerable 

 .sense of injustice. In Slovakia also there are racial 

 differences. Within the mountain area the Slovaks 

 form the great majority of the population, but in 

 the valleys and on the plains of the Danube, to 

 which the valleys open out, the Magyar element pre- 

 dominates. Moreover, it is the Magyar element which 

 is racially the stronger, and before which the Slovaks 

 are gradually retiring. Geographical and ethnical 

 conditions, therefore, unite in fixing the political 

 frontier between Magyar and Slovak at the meeting 

 place of hill and plain. But on the west such a 

 frontier would have been politically inexpedient be- 

 cause of its length and irregularity, and economically 

 disadvantageous because the river valleys, of which 

 there are about a dozen, would have had no easy 

 means of communication with one another or with 

 the outside world. Hence the frontier was carried 

 south to the Danube, and about 1,000,000 Magv-ars 

 were included in the total population of 3,500,000. 

 The danger of transferring territory not on geo- 

 graphical or ethnical, but on economic, grounds could 

 not be more strikingly illustrated. With regard to 

 economic development, the future of the new State 

 would appear to be well assured. Bohemia and 

 Moravia were the most important industrial areas in 

 the old .Xustrian Empire, and Slovakia, in addition 

 to much good agricultural land, contains consider- 

 able stores of coal and iron. But if Czecho-Slovakia 

 is to be knit together into a political and economic 

 unit, its communications will have to be developeil. 

 We have already suggested that the geographical 

 diversity of the country offers certain compensations 

 for its lack of unity, but these cannot be taken advan- 

 tage of until its different regions are more closely 

 knit together than they arc at present. The north of 

 Bohemia finds its natural outlet both by rail and 

 w.-iler through Cierman ports. The south-east of 

 Bohemia and Monivia look towards Vienna. In 

 Slovakia the railways, with only one important excep- 

 tion, converge upon Budapest. The p<>ople appear to 

 be alive to the necessity of remetlying this state of 

 affairs, and no fewer than fifteen new railways have 

 been projected which, when completed, will unite 

 Bohemia and Moravia more closely to one another 

 and to Slovakia. Moreover, it is proposed to develop 

 the waterways of the rountr\- by constructing a rannl 

 from the Danube at Pressburg to the Oder. If these 

 improven>ents are carried out the position of Czecho- 

 slovakia will, for an inland State, be r«-markablv 

 strong. It will have through communication by 



