VILNA DISPUTE

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 25, 31 January 1938, Page 10

VILNA DISPUTE

STRANGE SITUATION

CAPITAL OUTSIDE THE COUNTRY

NEW CONSTITUTION

(United Tress Association—By Electric Telegraph—Copyright.) (Received January 31, 2.30 p.m.) KOVNO, January 30. A strange situation in which the capital of Lithuania will be outside the country's frontiers will exist when the Lithuanian Parliament meets tomorrow to adopt the new constitution, which includes a provision that Vilna, which the Poles seized in 1920, shall be declared the Lithuanian capital. The situation recalls that Lithuania and Poland have never agreed* regarding the frontier. Each claims Vilna, and the problem has defied numerous attempts at a settlement.

The dispute between Poland and Lithuania is very long and complex. In outline it is this: The creation of the State of Lithuania was proclaimed in 1918. The province of Vilna, part of the new State, was occupied by the Bolsheviks in 1919. ■ The Poles forced them out a few months later. Poland had already demanded the cession of Vilna from the Allied Conference in Paris. The Allies shifted ground, first they fixed a boundary favouring Poland,' then they gave the territory to Lithuania. The position was then consolidated by a treaty between Lithuania and Russia. In July, 1920, in the course of the Russo-Polish war, the Bolsheviks again took "Vilna. They were obliged to retreat, leaving the city in Lithuanian hands. The Poles and Lithuanians then came into the conflict, and Poland appealed to the League of Nations to prevent further hostilities. A military commission of the League again drew a provisional line giving Vilna to Lithuania. But before this could come into effect • the Poles had again captured the place. The Lithuanians then appealed to the League, but the Council wished to leave Poland free to continue her war against Russia and dealt with the question on the basis of a fait accompli.