1^0 EMPLOYMENT OF THE PLEBISCITE [438 



the population, in part as cession conditioned upon the con- 

 sent or refusal of the inhabitants to be transferred to Polish 

 allegiance. There is naturally a wide divergence of opinion 

 between the Allies and Associated Powers and Germany as 

 to the proper lines of demarcation of the first and second 

 zones. That the Powers who framed the terms of the 

 Treaty were fully conscious of the fact that the sections of 

 German territory transferred to Poland without a plebiscite 

 contain a considerable number of Germans is shown by the 

 inclusion in the Allied-Polish Treaty of guarantees of the 

 rights of racial minorities. 



The territories transferred without vote constitute parts 

 of the Provinces of Posen, West Prussia,* Pommern and, 

 according to the original draft of the Treaty, of Schlesien. 



The German reply takes exception to this transfer with- 

 out regard to the racial configuration. Abiding by the 

 consequences of its acceptance of President Wilson's Four- 

 teen Points, Germany declares herself ready to yield to 

 Poland those sections of Posen and West Prussia which 

 are " inhabited by indisputably Polish populations." 



Under the provisions of the first draft of the Treaty, 

 Upper Silesia was to be ceded without a vote. The Ger- 

 man reply contests this decision and in its argument states : 



The districts of Upper Silesia demanded for Poland are nor in- 

 habited by an indisputably Polish population. The will of the popu- 

 lation has been clearly expressed in the elections to the Reichstag 

 in 1903 and 1907. Before 1903 not one Polish deputy had been 

 elected. In 1907, at the general, direct and absolutely secret elec- 

 tion for the Reichstag the Poles received 115,000 votes, the Germans 

 176,287; in 1912 the Poles obtained 93,029 and the Germans 210,100 

 votes; at the time of the elections for the National Assemblies 

 (Nationalvcrsamttiluttgcn) of the Empire in 1919, when all citizens 

 of either sex above the age of twenty had cast their votes in a gen- 

 eral, equal, direct and strictly secret election, the Poles proclaimed 

 their abstention from voting. In spite of this, almost sixty per cent 



* Only in a small section of the province of West Prussia, " com- 

 prising the Kreise of Stuhm and Rosenberg and the portion of the 

 Kreis of Marienburg which is situated east of the Nogat and that 

 of Marienwerder east of the Vistula, the inhabitants will be called 

 upon to indicate by a vote, to be taken in each commune (Gemeindc), 

 whether they desire the various communes situated in this territor>' 

 to belong to Poland or to East Prussia." 



