POLAND AND THE VATICAN.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE " SPECTATOR..1
SIR,—The Pope has been sending his congratulations to Poland on her approaching liberation. I do not recollect any messaggs of encouragement to Poland when she was being held down under the iron heel of the three great autocracies of Europe. Samuel Johnson wrote to Lord Chesterfield : "Is not a patron, my Lord, one who looks with unconcern on a man struggling for life in the water, and when he has reached ground, encumbers him with help ? " Similar good wishes are now doubtless on their way to Belgium. No sympathy for Belgium, we were told, could be shown by the Vatican in August, 1914. Doubtless there were powerful friends in Germany and Austria who might have been indignant. Even Cardinal Mender came back from Borne empty- handed. True friends, it was supposed, visited in prosperity only when invited. In adversity they came without invitation. It is otherwise nowadays, and we have departed from Sir Walter Scott's view:—
"When true friends meet in adverse hour
'Ills like a sunbeam through a shower."
But now it is when the sun shines, in a clear sky, that friend congratulates friend.—! am, Sir, &c., P. W. C.
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