POLAND IN THE NEWS
POLAND is a fascinating country for the descriptive writer. Its strangeness and remoteness from Western Europe, its vivid contrasts between antique manners and modern aspira- tions, its romanticism and the sense of youth and urgency about it (even if you disapprove of some of the manifesta- tions of that youth) all give an itch to write to the pen of the traveller returned from that country. There have been then many books and articles on the renewed State of Poland in the last twenty years, some of them concerned only with giving an impression of the colour and quality of the place, others from experts on politics and economics are loaded with facts and figures—commodities which the enthusiastic Polish propaganda office are very fond of exporting. In general books on Poland have tended to be over-readable or unread- able.
Mr. Buell's book is a serious study of Poland from the angles of politics, economics, history and population. Never- theless, it is extremely readable. For anyone who is genuinely interested, and who wants to know about the country with whose destinies we have recently and so surprisingly become linked, this book is as good as any that has yet been written. It has, moreover, the advantage of being right up to date and contains chapters that consider the country in its new light as our ally. Mr. Buell is President of the American Foreign Policy Association. In recent years he has been visiting Central Europe and investigating political affairs there. He had intended at the end of his researches to write only a report for his Association. However he found the " problems confronting Poland so complex and so fascinating " that he decided to devote his energies to writing this book. His task was certainly worth while. He has produced a thorough, clear, and unbiassed study of modern Poland, informed throughout with a real sympathy for the feeling of the country that does not blind him to its faults and mistakes. Above all it is free of that tiresome over documented pedantry which we have grown to associate with the writing of some American professors.
He begins by describing and stressing the importance to Europe of the position of Poland today. This fact has grown pretty obvious to even the uninformed at this date. But Mr. Buell goes into details both historical and topical which illuminate and underline it. He then proceeds to an historical study, which he calls "lessons from the past" containing, of course, an account of the weaknesses which led to the partitions of the eighteenth century, and points out how those particular weaknesses could be avoided in the present. After this there comes the story of the resurrection of the State, a study of the political system, the economic dilemma, the problems of population, of minorities and of foreign policy. On this last Mr. Buell traces the tangled and difficult course which Poland has had to pursue in the last twenty years. He shows that, wedged in between the two powerful States of Germany and Russia, Poland has had to continue the exquisite problem of balance which was a legacy of her past. There are many critics who at a safe distance of many hun- dreds of miles of land and sea cannot understand why there should exist in the Polish mind any fear- of an apparently non-expansionist country like Russia. There .ase many reasons, however, both historical and contemporary, why those who, with the last gasp of their strength, drove back the Bolsheviks in 192o should look upon both of their powerful neighbours with suspicion. This is clearly demonstrated ,in this book. The involved story of Poland's relations with Czecho-Slovakia is fully dealt with, and the rights and wrongs are discussed in a dispassionate. way which shoUld be commended to the facile journalist critics. • The Czecho-Slovakian problem of course opens the door to discussing the other complications of Poland's relations with her other non-German neighbours and minorities such as the Lithuanians and the Ukrainians. Pflsudski's dream of a bloc consisting of Poland as the Main bOdy and Lithuania and the Ukraine as attached wings stretching from north to south and protecting all from Russian expansion was no more than a dream, though it led to much of the mismanagement and folly of the Polish Ukrainian policy. Mr. Buell points this out and makes it clear that on the future conduct of this policy much of the destiny of Poland depends.
From the perpetual question of the minorities (very fully exposed here) we are led naturally on to one of the most urgent of the difficulties confronting the modern State of Poland—the dispersal of the growing population which Poland will shortly be too small to contain. Much is heard from the totalitarian States of the need for lebensraum. No country in Europe is more oppressed by this need than Poland. It is the fate of youthful and eager countries to find their popu- lations growing uncomfortably. The door of emigration is • now closed both to Poles and Polish Jews. Can colonial room be found for than? Mr. Buell put this question forcibly, and leaves no doubt that it must be answered soon.
From neglecting Poland and her problems for many years, the British public has suddenly become if anything over anxiously aware of them. This reasoned, informative and interesting book can answer many questions that people are
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