T HE nation which forcibly extends its borders adds to its
political troubles. If the example of Ireland were not enough to emphasise the price that must be paid for the conquest of an alien race, we need only look at the three great Eastern Monarchies, which 'have not yet suc- ceeded in pacifying the heart-burnings aroused by their partitions of Poland more than a century ago.' It was very well for Kosciusko to cry, "Finis Poioniae ! " as he sank wounded on the field of Maciejowice-L--if he really did make a remark which he always afterwards denied—but Poland was by no means ended : it affords a striking instance of a nation which, being dead, yet speaketh. The Parliaments of Austria and Germany alike have to reckon with their little knot of irreconcilable Polish Deputies, and though Russia avoids troubles of this sort by the simple device of having no Parliament, her "Vistula Government" is not one of the least thorns in the flesh of the Czar and his advisers. It is curious to note, as the student of history can hardly fail to do, that the Poles seem to feel active discontent with their present situation in inverse ratio to the historical blame which can be attached to their spoilers. Of the three Powers which divided Poland among themselves in 1772-95, Russia had the greatest show of right on her side, because the chief portion of the territory which she annexed consisted of ethnically Russian provinces which the house of Jagellon had in earlier days torn forcibly from the house of Rurik. Prussia and Austria had far less right to their share, which they could only claim on the good old plea of main- taining the balance of power,—the diplomatic way of saying that if our neighbours take what is not theirs, we must take an equivalent—blessed word !—in order to keep ourselves abreast of them. Yet Austria has had com- paratively small trouble with her Polish subjects, though she aggravated her offence by annexing Cracow in defiance of all rules of international law, and it is only of late years that Prussia has suffered from the outbreak of that Polish agitation which Count von Billow solemnly denounced a fortnight ago in the Reichstag. The per- sistence of the Polish spirit of nationality—perhaps we should rather say its growth in recent times—is the more remarkable because, of all the great kingdoms that arose out of the break-up of the Roman Empire and the folk- wanderings, Poland was the least homogeneous and the least stable. Discordant in race and unworkable in con- stitution, . it never had a. reasonable justification for existing. The wit of man could hardly conceive a more absurd political arrangement than the liberum veto, by the exercise of which a single Member of the Polish Diet had the constitutional right to put an end. to any business, however important. Nominally an elective Monarchy, Poland was in fact a military oligarchy in which a tithe of the people held the rest in bondage hardly to be paralleled since Carthage. How is it that the lapse of a century has converted Poland into the symbol of down-trodden nation- alities, and given the Poles a strength of national senti- ment and a thirst for freedom which they never possessed in the heyday of independent existence,—not even when John Sobieski drove the Ottoman thunder-cloud back from the very walls of Vienna ?
The answer to this question may be found partly in the history of the treatment of the Poles by their new masters, and partly in the circumstances to which Count von Billow's interesting speech of January 23rd calls atten- tion. In the first place, we have many grounds for believing that nothing cements the sentiment of nationality like pressure from without. The typical case is that of the Jews, who were always quarrelling among themselves and splitting into cliques and factions when they formed a nation, but have been preserved in their racial unity by the harsh treatment that has been meted out to them ever since they were driven from Palestine. So we observe that the feeling of nationality—the craving for what, following the fashionable terminology of the day, Count von Billow calls " Pan-Polish " propaganda—is strongest in Russia, where the Poles have been horribly ill-governed through nearly the whole of the last century, and. where the attempts made to stamp out their very language have recoiled, as such things usually do, upon the heads of the statesmen who have made them. In Galicia, where the Austrian Government has exerted a mild, and on the whole tolerable, sway without attempting to interfere with the language or religion of the new subjects whom the Empress-Queen accepted with unfeigned reluctance, there is no very acute Polish question, and the agitation carried on by the Deputies is partly an echo from without, partly a consequence of the necessity that seems to be laid on all Members of the perturbed Austrian Parliament to find some plausible ground of disagreement with their fellows, —some reason for being " agin the Government." In Prussian. Poland there are deeper grounds for disunion. There seems to be an unfortunate natural antipathy between the Germans and Poles,—or, in a wider sense, between men of Teutonic and Slavonic race. The Germans prosper in Russia, but are universally detested. The recent development of great industries in Russian Poland, which is bringing Warsaw and Lodz to be regarded as the Sheffield and Birmingham of the Czar's Empire, is almost wholly due to the immigration of German employers and German capital, which are for the first time importing commercial prosperity into any part of ancient Poland. But it is regarded with grave suspicion by Russian statesmen, and with dangerous dislike by the Russian people. The strongest bond of the Franco-Russian Alliance is to be found in a common hatred and fear of Germany, felt equally on the quays of the Seine and the banks of the Volga. Slays and Celts have something in common which shrinks angrily from the slower-witted but stronger and more solid Teuton. When we add to this the Prussian ideal of "government by drill-sergeant," which was so well illustrated recently by the school-riots at Posen, it is not difficult to perceive why Count von Billow finds an awkward and unpromising Polish agitation upon his hands.
We regret to add that we see little prospect of a satis- factory settlement of the Polish question, which may at any time thrust itself upon the notice of Europe as a dangerous disturber of the public peace. Many of us can still remember the outrageous methods which Russia ap- plied to it in 1863,—methods which the general conscience could hardly tolerate at this time of day, and with which it might yet be exceedingly difficult to interfere without grave international dangers. Close observers think that a new Polish rebellion might be quite possible if Russia were to find her attention drawn away by such a war as is now impending in the Far East. In Prussian Poland the more peaceful and humane weapon forged by Bismarck is apparently confessed a failure. In 1886 he announced, as a panacea for the dangers which he saw in the growth of a Polish sentiment within the borders of the Empire, a policy of expropriation of Polish landowners. Fifteen millions sterling wore to be spent in buying out the old aristocracy, and replacing them by German "colonists." It was still thought, we see, that the szla,chta, the nobility who constitute perhaps one million out of the ten now in- habiting Russian Poland, were the only part of the nation that counted—as had, indeed, been the case throughout the history of independent Poland. In this Bismarck was but following the precedent set by Russia, where as long ago as 1865 a Ukase was issued prohibiting the acquisition of any fresh land by Poles, and providing that whenever a landowner left no lineal descendant his estates should pass into Russian hands. Now Count von Billow practically confesses that this policy has been a failure. The centre of gravity of the "Polish agitation" has moved lower down. It is no longer the landowners, but the peasants and the workmen who are to be feared. It is rather a painful commentary. on the work of German civilisation that Count von Billowf finds himself compelled to speak in terms of grave" repro- bation of the very developments among the working classes which in a free country are regarded as the best fruits of progress. The wicked Polish peasants -and: workmen are actually venturing, it seems, to pro; vide themselves with libraries, co-operative associations, popular banks. There must surely be something rotten in a policy which is forced to decry thrift, education, self- help, as practised by its proletariat. Might not one suggest that an educated and productive Pole is a more useful member of the community than a lazy and ignorant German ? ' Perhaps it will some day occur to a heaven- born statesman in Prussia or Austria—possibly even in Russia—to treat the Poles on the same footing with other subjects, and see what effect that will produce. It is a bad look-out for the prosperity—even for the peace— of North-Eastern. Europe if the Polish question is. to be- treated solely on the lines of the intolerant and short-- sighted policy indicated by the Imperial Chancellor.
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