Some instructive official statistics bearing on the Polish question are
given by the Berlin correspondent of the Times in Tuesday's issue. From these it appears that in the decade 1890-1900 the number of persons in Prussia of Polish or kindred stock has risen from 2,922,475 to 3,305,749. In the same period the number of those speaking Polish as their mother-tongue has risen from 2,765,101 to 3,063,490. While the proportion of these Poles to the total population has decreased by about -I- per cent., those who speak German and Polish have increased from 103,112 to 164,221. The Times correspondent, commenting on these figures, notes among the features of the decade the effacement of the old division of the Poles into nobles, priests, and peasants ; the growth of the commercial class in the towns ; and the conversion of many agricultural labourers into miners or industrial workmen. In Silesia, one of the seats of the mining industry, a national Polish party of Radical tendencies has arisen to counterbalance the accession of strength to the Clerical Centre due to the westward move- ment of the Poles, who are usually Roman Catholics. The Polish question is, in truth, far more formidable for Germany than the Irish question is for us. The most active and enter- prising element in Ireland is Unionist, but there is no Belfast in Polish Prussia.
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