STRANGE SITUATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVIII, Issue 54, 1 February 1938, Page 7

STRANGE SITUATION.

CAPITAL OUTSIDE FRONTIER. KOVNO, Jan. 30. The strange situation of the capital of a country being outside its frontiers will exist when the Lithuanian Parliament to-morrow meets to adopt the new Constitution, which includes the 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 a mutual frontier, and both still claim Vilna. The problem has defied numerous attempts at a settlement.

The dispute between Poland and Lithuania is very complex. 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 Jew 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.