POLISH STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXX, Issue 20, 10 September 1914, Page 4

POLISH STRUGGLE FOR LIBERTY

The story of the Polish struggle under Germany is well told by Mr Archibald Colquhoun in the "-North American Review." He observes .that the beginning of the real persecutions oi Polish nationality is found in the reprisals of Russia after the predestined failure of the Polish revolt of 1863, when Bismarck came to the assistance

of Russia. The language was forbidden in the higher schools; the Catholic religion—always a bone of contention between the Poles and their Orthodo.\ conquerors—was subjected to disabilities ; all Government offices were closed to Poles; a bigoted Russian bureaucracy ruled the country with an iron hand. All tbis was encouraged by Bismarck, who says plainly in Ins Memoirs that this policy was to preivent any settlement of the RussoPolish question, which must necessarily embarrass Prussia in dealing with her own Polish subjects- at the same time he was prepared to incur, as ho.actually did. the reproaches oi the w.hole of Western Europe, who were sympathetic to, the Poles, to secure that Alliance with Russia, which Frederick the Great a hundred years before laid down as essential to Prussian policy. The result was disastrous to Polish aspirations, j Fortunately for the Poles,'Austria treated her Pplisli subjects more generously',., and, them a. .limited; form of Home Rule. Thus «the spark of life for the Poles has not only been kept alive, but has kindled anew in the last forty years. And now Russia, free of Germany's baneful influence, has solemnly promised that long-wished for liberty to a brave and patient people.