THE GERMAN MINORITIES • [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sur,—In a few more weeks the Council of the League of Nations „will. meet . to consider the Report which the Committee of Three have been called upon to draft on the Grievances of the. German Minorities. It is very important that the leading and essential elements in this controversy should be well understood.
It is exceedingly. _fortunate that M. Briand has ruled out of court the Polish suggestion that Minority obligations should be extended to all countries, as these were specifically
. created by the. Peace Treaty . to regulate the conduct of
• those signatories which _had large. alien populations trans- ferred to their control. Surely, Poland herself must admit that there is a very. great difference between the compara- tively small number of Polish workmen and labourers who for long have been assimilated into the German body politic, and the newly created German Minorities in Poland, com- prising large numbers of the professional and influential land-owning classes, whose pioneer forefathers built such towns, as Thorn, Bromberg, Elbing, and Gleiwitz, and whose families have lived there and carried on the enterprise and industry of their race from generation to generation.
The hardships and disabilities inflicted on the German Minorities are manifold, and affect and dislocate life at more than one point. Churches, schools and public associations have been singled out for attack and many of them already _suppressed. Honourable and public-spirited Germans like Dr. Ulitz are put away in Polish prisons on - trumpery .charges. There is a simultaneous launching of a. policy of dispossession which has already confiscated the larger part of German landed property for quite negligible compensation. — It is a good sign that the next -League Council Meeting will be held in Madrid, where the atmosphere may be more favourable to an impartial handling of the whole case on its own merits. Not a few publicists and students of inter- national affairs are of opinion that the best way to make their influence felt would be for the affected Minorities to . 'unite in a corporate body and decide on a concerted plan of action. This might be an effective counterblast to the - united -action- which the.. " Little Entente " contemplate, it
• appears, in defence of their treatment of dissatisfied Minorities. These expedients and palliatives may tell up to a- certain point, but behind and beyond-- such action. the initiative and the larger -vision • must come from the Powers who originally insisted on the exaction of the guarantees which have •since been violated. I believe that if 'this initiative . is forthcoming it would be supported by .enlightened. _public opinion in England and throughout the civilized world.—
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