POLO-RUSSIAN WAR

Hokitika Guardian, 18 May 1920, Page 3

POLO-RUSSIAN WAR

(N.Z-. Times.) We are invited to believe that a thunderbolt has been hurled from Poland against Bolshevik Russia. It is ; almost an accusation of perfidy against the gallant Polish nation. British Ministers are explaining that their Governi merit is nob implicated in the Polish light, and averring that they have given notice to Poland that no advance beyond the Eastern boundaries assigned by the Peace Treaty will he permitted by the ’Entente Bowel’s. At the same time, British dockers have refused' to handle, ,in London, at all. events, monitions intended for shipment to Boland. On tlie other hand, Germany has been discovered to lie sending nunii- / tions to the Eastward, and if these were not intended for Bolshevik Russia it is difficult to say what other destination can lie assigned them. Any way, the munitions ought not to have been exported at all, but surrendered according to Treaty to the Entente Powei-s. This discovery certainly strengthens , the suspicion that there is a strong party in Germany anxious for a Russian alliance, as the only thing that offers recovery to tlie shattered German hope of balancing Western losses by Eastern gains. Nevertheless, the Polish yu'• policy seems to be viewed askance by the Entente Powers. Why, it is difficult to conceive, seeing that one primary object of the peace settlement was the establishment of Boland as a powerful buffer State. between Germany and Russia, with Roumania strongly in support to the southward towards the Black Sea. This arrangement has been from the first regarded as the necessary safeguard both of the new States of Central Europe and. of the general peace. Poland, ’moreover lias been both threatened and attacked by the Bolshevik' Government of Russia, and both threats and attacks have been viewed by the Entente Powers with considerable apathy. Under these circumstances no one has any right to l>e surprised that Poland has taken vigorous ■ measures for her own defence, and no one has any right on the Entente side to feel aggrieved. Tlie attitude of a section —or more for tlie point is somewhat obscure —of Labour is in tlie extreme illogical. The Polish nation is fighting for its existence as a free and "independent State on n basis which it lias proved to be essentially democratic.' British Labour professes to sympathise with Democracy and with tlie aspirations of all nations to be free? For British Labour to strongly condemn the action of a particular nation with which it professes a general sympathy based on principle is illogical. Moreover, it. is ungenero’us towards- a people which, 'after nearly two centuries of the violent and brigandish tyranny of three Powers, permitted by tlie apathy of the other Powers which was a disgrace to their civilisation and their manhood, recovered its freedom and is taking measures to secure it. Tlie Socialism of Germany, which sympathises in some degree,* and for sinister purposes of' its own, with the Soviet ambition to crush 'Poland, sees more clearly the duty of the Entente Powers, for its organs insist that these Powers are seeking to strengthen tlie Poles by promoting the Romanian,-nlliance, and drawing closer the ring against the Russian frontier. The fears of German Socialism are more

logical than the attitude of British J Labour. The former see the Entente duty,'and fear that it is going to ’ e done; whereas the Labour lenders, or some of them of Britain, and the pack of pacifists that always intervenes in fnvolur of Germany, insist that such duty shall not be done. The result is the usual indecision on the Entente side. The Poles, fortunately for themselves, have struck out for themselves. Their Minister at Washington has declared that, requiring no help from their onceoutspoken friends, they are quite able to bold their own, and moan to do it. It is an appeal really to the Entente not to hamper the Polish effort by any untimely and unjustifiable opposition. What they have have done in this direction tlie cables have informed us pretty fully. They have, it is now certain, struck a tremendous blow at Soviet Russia, with as great and wide a victory as anything, save the great Entente offensive in the-Great War. They have driven the “Red” armies before them in head-long flight on a wide front to a depth of between sixty and ninety miles, occupying 200,000 square miles of country. They have paralysed the Reds in the Crimea; they have, with their allies of the Ukraine, captured the cities of Odessa,- on the Black Sea. and Kioff; they have fluttered and flustered all the border'States as far as the Baltic; the echoes of sympathy with them are loud in Finland; and tho silence of the Moscow wireless is broken by sundry reports of an anti-Soviet revolution in the centre of Russia. This is the end of the first plia.se.- The Polish gains require consolidation, and the Soviets may, if not interfered with by internal disquiet, have time to consolidate tlieii forces, at the head of which is General Brusilolf, if General Maurice speaks bi

tlie card. While tlie next move, like all next moves in war, is uncertain, it is well to consider what the Polish object is. According to the Polish Minister at Washington, and according to commonsense, the Polish object is not the conquest’of Russia. Oh the contrary, it is the same in character as the Entente policy with regard to Poland herself. The buffer State is attempting to establish a ring of buffer States in front of its own Eastern border, or, rather, of the line held by Poland and Rouinania between the Baltic and the Black Sea. This the Polish Minister aforesaid declares to be the only possible check on .the spread westwards of Russia Bolshevism and its alliance with Germany. J.t is, he. urges, the only guarantee (1) of the integrity and freedom of Poland, and (2) of the permanent peace of Europe. This policy is the outcome of a, master mind, and its first move has proved a master-stroke. It deserves! the sympathy and support of everyone who loves peace and justice among men, and wishes well to the nation which for centuries was the bulwark of Europe, and for two centuries was tlie victim of unparalleled tyranny, and is now fighting to establish itself once more in the comity of free nations.