Perplexing Poles
While it was perfectly right for the House of Commons to press Ministers regarding the deportation of a small number of Poles from this country to the British Zone of Germany so long as there was any doubt about the legality of the proceeding, the statement made on the subject by the Home Secretary on Tuesday should remove any grounds for concern. The Poles now in this country, most of them men who fought under General Anders in Italy, have two alternatives open to them. They can return to their own country, a course which the British Government strongly advises, though some of the activities of the secret police in Poland hardly provide an encouragement to Poles who supported the Polish Government in London ; or they can join the Polish Resettlement Corps, be given an industrial training and be gradually absorbed permanently into British industry. Out of the i36,000 Poles in this cou,ntry all but 5,000 have taken one course or the other. Those who refuse either can dearly not be kept here indefinitely at British expense ; it is not proposed to send them to Poland against their will, and if any other country is willing to take them they can go to it. But a start must be made in transferring them from this country, and the British Zone of Germany is the one place where no difficulties about their recep- tion arise. Even so they are under no compulsion to remain there if they can secure permission to enter some neighbouring country. It is a difficult problem, but pure recalcitrance can be neither encouraged nor tolerated.
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