104 SECTIONAL ADDRESSES. 



control of the port of Danzig, but it is able to share in the navigation 

 of the Oder and it has easy access to the south by way of the Moravian 

 Gap. 



It seems obvious, therefore, that Poland can best seek compensation 

 for the weakness of her geographical position by developing the natural 

 resources which lie within her ethnic frontiers. By such a policy the 

 different parts of the country will be more closely bound to one another 

 than it is possible to bind them on a basis of racial affinity and national 

 sentiment alone. Moreover, Poland is essentially the land of the 

 Vistula, and whatever is done to improve navigation on that river will 

 similarly tend to have a unifying effect upon the country as a whole. 

 The mention of the Vistula, however, raises one point where geo- 

 graphical and ethnical conditions stand in marked antagonism to one 

 another. The Poles have naturally tried to move downstream to the 

 mouth of the river which gives their country what little geographical 

 individuality it possesses, and the Polish corridor is the expression of 

 that movement. On the other hand, the peoples of East and West 

 Prussia are one and the same. The geographical reasons for giving 

 Poland access to the sea are no doubt stronger than the historical reasons 

 for leaving East Prussia united to the remainder of Germany, but 

 strategically the position of the corridor is as bad as it can be, and the 

 solution arrived at may not be accepted as final. 



Lastly, we may consider the case of East Galicia, which the Poles 

 claim not on geographical grounds, because it is in reality part of the 

 Ukraine, and not on ethnical grounds, because the great majority of 

 the inhabitants are Little Eussians, but on the ground that they are 

 and have for long been the ruling race in the land. It may also be 

 that they are not uninfluenced by the fact that the region contains 

 considerable stores of mineral oil. But as the claim of the Poles to 

 form an independent State is based on the fact that they form a separate 

 race, it is obviously unwise to weaken that claim by annexing a land 

 which counts over 3,000,000 Euthenes to one-third that number of 

 Poles. Further, the same argument which the Poles use in regard to 

 East Galicia could with no less reason be used by the Germans in 

 Upper Silesia. Mr. Keynes, indeed, suggests that the Allies should 

 declare that in their judgment economic conditions require the inclusion 

 of the coal districts of Upper Silesia in Germany unless the wishes of 

 the inhabitants are decidedly to the contrary. It is not improbable 

 that East Galicia would give a more emphatic vote against Polish rule 

 than Upper Silesia will give for it. If Poland is to ensure her position 

 she must forget the limits of her former empire, turn her back on the 

 Eussian plain, with all the temptations which it offers, and resolutely 

 set herself to the development of the basin ol the Vistula, where alone 

 she can find the conditions which make for strength and safety. 



Czecho- Slovakia is in various ways the most interesting country in 

 the reconstructed Europe. Both geographically and ethnically it is 

 marked by some features of great strength, and by others which are 

 a source of considerable weakness to it. Bohemia by its physical 

 structure and its strategic position seems designed by Nature to be 

 the home of a strong and homogeneous people. Moravia attaches itself 



