The Issue at Danzig " Danzig," The Times is accused
of weakness in saying, " is not worth a war." The Times has admittedly brought itself under suspicion in such matters, but in this particular case it was discussing the differences between Germany and Poland over Danzig, and merely uttering the obvious truism that nothing at stake there was worth a war to either country. It does not follow that Danzig may not cause a war. But if that happens it will not be a war about Danzig ; it will be a war caused by the necessity, realised throughout Europe (apart from the Axis Powers) since the seizures of C,z,echo- Slovakia and Albania, of resisting the claim of Germany and Italy to make brute force the arbiter in international relations and appropriate by an armed coup any territory on which they may set covetous eyes. Danzig itself, it is said rightly, is a German city ; it was seized by Germany when the crime of the second partition of Poland was committed in 1793. It was because it was a German city that it was not handed back to Poland in 1919. Instead it was made an enclave in Poland, and its German citizens were left free, and are now free, to live their German lives as they will. But since Danzig had always been the port which served the large hinterland which is now Poland, the new Poland was given rights of transit and harbourage and control of the customs and the Free City's external relations. It was a relationship that worked well till National Socialism came to disturb it, and it is the only relationship that fits the special circum- stances.
