1.H.P.1 POLISH-LITHUANIAN NEGOTIATIONS.
(TO THE EDITOR 07 THE " SPECTATOR.")
Sfa,-In view of the opening of the Polish-Lithuanian Confer- ence at Brussels, perhaps you will grant me space for the following brief reflections on the subject. To everybody with any first-hand knowledge of the Polish-Lithuanian question, the Franco-Polish policy of trying to force Lithuania into some form of federation with Poland at this juncture must seem not only a complete stultification of the principles for which the war is supposed to have been fought, but intrinsically an act of political lunacy. As I understand it, the Franco-Polish policy is inspired partly by the consideration that several hundred years ago a " personal " union existed between Poland and Lithuania, from which it is argued that to-day also a special relationship should exist between the two countries. An impartial outsider would suppose that the oft and openly expressed repugnance of the Lithuanian people themselves to any such arrangement ought to be sufficient to justify the Great Powers in pronouncing a brief funeral oration over the stillboin proposal, and committing it to the silent tomb forth- with,-but apparently this is far from being the case.
Perhaps, therefore, I may be permitted to suggest to our French friends that it is just as reasonable for them to expect the Lithuanians to 'agree to federation with Poland to-day, partly because union between them existed in the Middle Ages, as it would be for, say, England to advocate federation between France and Germany to-day, and expect France to acqUiesce therein, because during the reign of Charlemagne a large part of the territory nowadays included in France and Germany was under a single rule. Such an enforced Polish-Lithuanian federation would be just as big an outrage on Lithuanian national sentiment as an enforced Franco-German federation would be on French national sentiment, and just as disastrous in the long run. Surely, then, even if there were no other cogent reasons against such an illusory " solution " of out- standingLithuanian-Polishdifficulties-and a dozen might easily be cited-the one given above should be sufficient to induce the Great Powers to veto once and for all Polish aspirations in this
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