It is useful to have the text of the so-called
Polish Minorities Treaty with an account of the operation of the safeguards of minorities. (The Protection of Minorities. By L. P. Mair. (Christophers. 8s. 6d.) For that Treaty, signed in 1919 by Poland upon the demand of the Powers that established her, was the model of those also signed by Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Greece, and Rumania, and was incorporated in the Treaties of Si. Germain, Nenilly, Trianon, and Latistinne. The provisions have been of undoubted value in the settlement of Europe, but we have often regretted that in operation they have fallen short of the hopes of those who framed them, and that the League of Nations has not surmounted all the great difficulties of enforcing the spirit or the letter. The early chapters show how, in spite of the cult of sovereign inde- pendence, the notion of such safeguards was present at the Congress of Vienna, and they trace its development through a century. At the end of the book the writer describes the work of the unofficial Congress of National Minorities which has done something to form public opinion, and has a chapter on the unhappy people left with a doubtful or even with no nationality, in which she seems to undervalue the " Neilsen passports " which were salvation for many staatenlose.
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