UPPER SILESIA.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 May 1921, Page 5

UPPER SILESIA.

POLISH ADVANCE CHECKED.

By Telegraph.— Press Assn.—Copyright. London, May 12. According to the Daily Telegraph, the Allies’ Commissioners have arranged that Korfantz shall stop the forward march of his troops, enabling the railway and other public services to be reestablished under Polish control. The Allies have been urged to decide the future status of the districts without delay. Meanwhile Korfantz controls practically the whole disputed districts.

Action of a bellicose nature by the Poles in Upper Silesia has been predicted for many months. A correspondent writing from the troubled area recently said: Both the pro-Germans and the pro-Poles are well armed. The InterAliied Commission discovers hidden arms every day. In Beuthen, where the Germans predominate in the town and the Poles in the surrounding country, the number of rifles, revolvers, hand-grenades and ammunition found buried in the fields or stored in houses i and cellars has been increasing steadily i during the last few weeks. In Oppeln about two score rifles and quantities of ammunition were found during the last week of January. In the same week 35 arrests were made for murder, attempted murder, or robbery with violence; and Oppeln is a comparatively quiet area, with 152,000 inhabitants, mostly Germans. About a fortnight ago eight machine guns, 460 rifles, 100,000 rounds of ammunition, 3500 hand grenades, and 360 bombs were found in a railway wagon. The whole consignment had come from the German arms depot at Neisse, in Middle Silesia. Both Poles and Germans have secret military organisations. The open Polish frontier gives the Poles an immense advantage over the Germans. The German frontier is much shorter. The Germans sometimes succeed in smuggling arms across it, but after Versailles and Spa arms are much scarcer in Germany than they are in Poland. Besides, compared with Poland, Germany is peaceful and orderly, and it is much more difficult for bandits to roam about as they pleas?. Polish arms are always within reach across the frontier. During the insurrection of ‘ last August Polish toops from General Haller’s army crossed it in small numbers sunported the insurgents. Big Polish forces are concentrated within a few miles of the frontier, and occasionally a Polish soldier turns up in some Upper Silesian village. But most of the armed terrprists are civilians. The Polish terror is, above all, a permanent threat. Ordinary murders for the sake of theft are very common. but political murders are very rare, the last one being that of Kupa, a Pole who at first supported Korfantz but then left him in disgust, whereupon he was murdered in his own house. Beat* ings with rubber life-preservers are fair, ly common.