Tribute to Poland

New Zealand Listener, Volume 10, Issue 255, 12 May 1944, Page 7

Tribute to Poland

EW ZEALAND’S _spar‘ticipation last week in Poland’s National Day was not a mere formality. The Poles are allies who have suffered unspeakable things for four years while their friends have been impotent to help them. It will most likely prove in the end that they have suffered more than any of the United Nations including even Greece and Jugoslavia. But last week for the first time since the war began they celebrated their National Day with reasonable grounds for believing that when it comes again they will be free. Therefore the people of New Zealand, as the Acting Prime Minister put it, felt "proud to associate themselves in spirit." Their homage was spontaneous and sincere. They honoured the courage shown in this war, the invincible will to suryive through all the wars of the past. Nothing could have been more genuine, nothing more natural. But one thought must have kept recurring to all those present who had political imagination; first a thought; then a question; then perhaps a doubt. What would Poland be when Europe was reestablished? Would the 35 millions who now cry out for deliverance like it when it came? Would they accept it gratefully and co-oper-ate whole-heartedly, or would religious, political, and _ racial clouds gather again where we hope now for a clear sky? It is not necessary, perhaps not advisable, to say more than that. The facts are plain enough to most people; plainest of all to the Poles. A genuinely liberal Poland has a great if still anxious future. A reactionary Poland could lose both its future and its friends. For we must face the painful fact here as it is being faced in London that there are Poles, as there are Americans and Englishmen, who want a settlement in Eastern Europe that would sooner or later bring conflict with Russia. No true friend of Poland will encourage such dangerous dreams.