7 AUGUST 1920, Page 25

Poland and the Minority Races. By Arthur L. Goodhart. (G.

Allen and Unwin. 10s. 6d. net.)—Mr. Goodhart, an American scholar who is a Fellow of Corpus Christi, Cambridge, was sent to Poland in July, 1919, with Mr. Morgenthau's mission of inquiry into the alleged persecution of the Jews. He has printed his diary of the two months' tour in this interesting volume. He records some painful cases, in which either Poles or Bolsheviks were the aggressors. The racial animosities prevailing in Eastern Europe are so alien to British minds as to be almost incredible, as noted by this alert observer. In regard to the Polish troops Mr. Goodhart ascribes their excesses to lack of discipline and supervision. The new army lacked trusty non-commissioned officers. Mr. Goodhart was told that the Polish volunteers who had returned from abroad to fight for their country under General Haller were more violently anti- Semitic than the Poles who had always lived side by side with the Jews. The author found that the Polish Jews were divided into several parties ; while many insisted, as Zionists, on their separate nationality, others would have been content to conform to Polish ways, except in religion. These "assimilators," however, do not seem to receive much encouragement from either side.