Poland and her Peasants After months of delay, the Polish
Government has still done nothing to satisfy the demands of the peasants who form the overwhelming and impoverished majority of Poland's population. But if the Government really wishes to achieve that national unity for which it so frequently and so eloquently appeals, it cannot afford to delay much longer. This week the Peasants' Party has issued a manifesto declaring that the Government's disregard of the peasants' demands has created a situation in which the party leaders " no longer have the right to demand further patience from the peasant masses." The manifesto is both a threat and a cry of desperation ; its effect on the more reactionary elements in the regime may be to inspire a demand for stringent measures of re- pression. President Moscicki himself, and some of the most influential Ministers, would, however, prefer to proceed by compromise, and by granting permission to publish the manifesto they are held to have given a sign of the Government's concllitary intentions. If those intentions are sincere—and the peasants have every right to doubt it by now—they could not be given more effective expression than by granting the peasants' demand that their leader, the ex-Prime Minister M. Witos, should be allowed to return to Poland from his exile in Prague.
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