TRANSACTIONS OP SECTION K. 225 



water, mountains or any other bouiulary—makaig geograjiliiral feature. Favour- 

 able geographical frontiers are merely important for strategic iuir])ii«5es. 



The definition of ' Historical ' frontiers is the most debatable since several 

 countries may claim to have held a certain frontier at various times. A con- 

 sideration must be made here as to whether a frontier is gained by a country 

 through conquest, an economic colonisation against the wish of the inhabitants, 

 or else by arrangement with the local inhabitants. Finally, the stability of a 

 historical frontier and the conditions accompanying it are not to be disregarded. 



' Historical ' frontiers are of special imnortance in the case where there is a 

 question not of altering the frontier, but of establishing it anew, if the country 

 in question did not possess political independence at the time preceding the 

 making of the frontier. This is the case with Poland. Before trying to define 

 what frontiers she ought to have, if they are to be based on racial grounds, and 

 what if the minimum economic necessities are considei-ed which would provide 

 her with material independence, it is necessary to recall to memory Poland's last 

 frontier. Such was her frontier of 1772 before the period of the partitions, which 

 frontier with small variations she enjoyed for some four or more centuries. The 

 historical frontier of 1772 included some 760,000 sq. km., and the territories thus 

 united in Polish hands, if non-Polish ethnically, were acquired by dynastic and 

 other arrangements. At various times Poland extended over a larger area, e-.g-, 

 when she included the lower Dnieper, the original home of the Cossacks, but those 

 were acquisitions based on conquest and she did not possess them in 1772. 



The last hundred and fifty years have made great changes in the political 

 orientation of some of the inhabitants of the Polish lands of 1772. The Poles 

 did not become Germanised or Russified, but in that part of the Polish State 

 coming under the Russian rcfrime, which was composed of several other nationali- 

 ties besides the Poles, Ruseificatory measures stimulated a national revival, and 

 brought even a quite new national awakening to the Ukrainians, Lithuanians, 

 Letts and Esths. Thus the fact that on the territory of the Poland of 1772 there 

 live to-day some 53 millions of peonle, of whom 38 per cent, are Poles, makes 

 much greater difference now thnn it would have in 1772. In short the ethnic 

 principle demands that some 369.000 sq. km. of old Poland be ceded to the 

 newly constituted national States. The remaining 391,000 sq. km. forms what 

 people call ethnic Poland, i.e., where the Poles form an absolute majority. The 

 historical claims are stronger in that case, for naturally these lands form the 

 cradle of the Polish race. If the Peace Conference had wanted to make definite 

 Section 8 of the Treatv and had followed the ethnic principle this would have 

 been the limit of Poland tn-dav. P'ld she would have formed a more truly national 

 State than any other in Eastern Europe. 



The economic principle often does not coincide witli the national one, a 

 difficulty which has arisen in all n^wlv-formed countries. In the r^ase of Poland 

 it does rouThly coincide, and to the two districts the only ones which are some- 

 times considered ethnically debatable — Gdansk (Danzig) and Eastern Galicia — 

 the economic and historical claims of Poland are particularly strong. 



4. The Dodecanese. By O. H. T. Rishbeth. 



The name to most signifies little more than ' a few barren rocks,' yet the 

 historical associations, economic standing, and apparent political value of these 

 islands call for consideration. The name (' Twelve Islands') has been variously 

 interpreted as to its content, but in questions of frontiers it is clear that all 

 those islands lying off the soutli-west coast of Asia Minor, and which are not yet 

 Greek, are meant. They stretch from close below iSamos on the north to Rhodes 

 on the south-east, towards the Cyclades westwards, and towards Crete south- 

 westwards, and from the south-eastern part of the- 'Grecian Archipelago.' They 

 appear to be mainly a fragmentary fringe, of the south-west Asia Minor coast, 

 though others (Karpathos, Karos, Astypalaia) seem links of westward-stretching 

 former mountain chains, of .which they are the unsubmerged summits. They 

 are mainly small barren crags with deeply bitten and often precipitous coasts, 

 hilly or mountainous, devoid for the most part of streams, natural vegeta- 

 tion, and girt by dangerous seas. Rhodes and Kos are larger and are excep- 

 tional in many of the above respects, and they have fair stretches of level 



