Vilna but later Zeligowski with an army of White Russians turned out the Lithuanians and established an independent Polish Government.
The Jewish Question.—One of the most important questions to be considered by the new Polish State is that of the Jews. Numerically they form roughly one-seventh of the population. In Warsaw a third of the population are Jews: in many provincial towns four out of every five inhabitants are Jews and in some nine out of ten, and of these the vast majority are Eastern Jews who in language, religion and customs differ from the population. Their language is Yiddish, a Middle-High German dialect; for the purposes of writing, Hebrew characters are used. Their dress is peculiar to themselves and their unclean habits and low standards of conduct “are neither European nor modern.” The Western Jew is the more civilized type which is generally found in western Europe, speaking the language and conforming to the habits of Western civilization.
The Eastern Jew is essentially a business or commercial man, but rarely a producer. He is usually a middleman or intermediary. In towns the majority of the shops are owned by Jews, but they are a race apart, hated and despised by the rest of the population, devoted to their religion, which is a primitive type of Judaism.
The Jews have been settled in Poland between 800 and 1,000 years so that they can hardly be considered “strangers” in the land, in fact the Slavs cannot be considered very much more native than they. It was not, however, until about 20 years ago that the present quarrel between the Jews and the Poles began. The Tsarist Government drove the Jews out of Russia but gave them exceptional advantages in Poland. These Litvaks (as they were called) openly professed themselves the partisans of Russia and founded the Jewish press which set to work openly to fight against Polish autonomy. The Poles attacked the Jews before the war by means of a national boycott, the only means by which one subject race could attack another. During and after the war the hostility to the Jews was increased by the fact that in the German occupation the Jew was the willing tool of the invader, and by the close connexion between the Jews and Bolshevism. The hostility to the Jew was marked in 1918 and 1910 by excesses in which some 200–300 have in fact been killed, but which have been enormously exaggerated by the Jewish press.
The following recommendations for the future treatment of the Jews in Poland were made by Sir Stuart Samuel in his report on his mission to Poland (Cmd. 674, 1920):—That the Polish Government be urged to carry out the clauses of the Minority Treaty of June 28 1919, in a spirit of sympathy with its Jewish subjects. That a genuine and not a “masked” equality be accorded to the Jewish population of Poland. That all outrages against the person and property of the subject, irrespective of race or religion, should be promptly punished and the names of the delinquents published. That the Jews in E. Galicia be restored to their official positions in the same manner as non-Jews have been. That no restrictions should be placed upon the number of Jews admitted to the universities. That a decree be published declaring boycotts illegal, and ordering all publications advocating boycott to be suspended. That all prisoners in internment camps be brought to immediate trial, and that humane treatment be assured to all interned prisoners. That facilities be afforded for the introduction of new industries into Poland with a view to converting a larger proportion of the Jewish population into producers. That the British Government should assist Jews wishing to emigrate from Poland by providing facilities to proceed to countries such as Palestine, Canada, S. Africa, Algeria and S. America, or any other country desiring to receive them. That banks be established possessing the confidence of the Jewish public, so that money might be deposited therein instead of being carried on the person or concealed in dwellings. Finally, that the desirability of a secretary who understands and speaks Yiddish being added to the staff of H.M. Legation at Warsaw be considered.
Capt. Peter Wright, in his very valuable and interesting report states (Cmd. 674, 1920, pp. 17–36) that the great majority of the poor Jews are of the Eastern type and extreme orthodoxy (Chassidin). They form an immense mass of squalid and helpless poverty and Capt. Wright's only recommendation is that the richer Jews should study the condition of the poor Jews who either trade as small middlemen, as hawkers or touts, or labour as unskilled, or almost unskilled, and fill the sweating dens as sweaters or sweated when they emigrate. They are driven into all sorts of illicit and fraudulent practices and in England, in the East End of London, too large a proportion of convictions for such offence can be laid to their account. They are unfit for the modern economic world for want of education and for Western society because of their habits and want of cleanliness. They are devoted to their strange old religion but as they grow rich their piety, as the Chief Rabbi told Capt. Wright, is destroyed by wealth and they take too little interest in their poorer brethren. No one who knows Poland can be surprised at the Polish attitude or the desire of the Poles to be rid of this corrupting influence.
Poland in 1921.—It was still impossible in the autumn of 1921 to make any final or definite statement with regard to the boundaries of Poland; as regards Lithuania the situation remained unsettled, and it was only in Oct. that a decision favourable to Poland in respect to Upper Silesia resulted from the award of the League of Nations (see Silesia).
Working on the principle of national rights it was attempted at the Peace Conference to make the boundaries of Poland conform to ethnographic divisions. A commission was appointed, under M. Cambon, which was to deal with the Polish question and submit drafted proposals to the Supreme Council. The first report of the commission concerned the western boundaries, the proposals being as follows: The larger part of Posen and Upper Silesia should be transferred to Poland, “leaving Germany the western, predominantly German-speaking districts of both territories.” According to the German census of 1910 the Poles formed about 65% of the population in the two areas ceded to Poland. In addition Poland was to be given “the central and eastern zones of the province of West Prussia, including both banks of the lower Vistula and Danzig,” though racially the latter was distinctly German. The settlement in the case of the district of Allenstein, that is to say the southern zone of E. Prussia, was to be referred to a plebiscite.
These proposals were not accepted without modification, as it was urged by Mr. Lloyd George that they were terms to which the Germans would never agree. In the first place a modification was made with regard to the territory round Marienwerder on the E. bank of the Vistula. Instead of being transferred to Poland outright this territory was to be subjected to a plebiscite. More important, however, was the change introduced in the matter of Danzig. It was decided that Danzig and the small adjacent district were to form a free city under the protection of the League of Nations. Poland received the right of freely using all the water-ways, docks and wharfs and was to have the control and administration of the Vistula river. Later a third modification was made with regard to Upper Silesia, when it was decided that in this territory too there should be a plebiscite.
The results of the plebiscite in the Marienwerder and Allenstein districts were in favour of Germany, a result which was largely due to the number of Germans who were imported into the territory. The plebiscite in Upper Silesia was likewise in favour of Germany as a whole, though in many districts there was an immense Polish majority.
The southern boundary of Poland is that of Galicia. In the N.E. the boundary between Poland and Lithuania was still unsettled in 1921 and the Poles were still in possession of Vilna, the capital of Lithuania.
With regard to the eastern boundary between Poland and Russia nothing definite could be settled at the Peace Conference as there was no recognized Russian Government with which to carry on negotiations. In order to facilitate the work of the Warsaw Government in organizing local administration in the part of Russian Poland which was certain to be ceded by Russia, a provisional eastern boundary was proposed which would include all the territory which might be regarded as having “an indisputably Polish ethnic majority.” All the territories to the W. of this line were to belong unconditionally to Poland, whilst the territories to the E. were to be settled by future negotiations with Russia. Roughly speaking this provisional boundary corresponded to the old boundary of the Governments of the Vistula. This provisional boundary has since become known as the “Curzon Line.” When the Poles appealed, in the summer of 1920, for help against the Bolsheviks an attempt was made by the British Government to secure peace. Lord Curzon, acting on behalf of the Government, proposed the acceptance of this line as the basis of the peace terms. The Poles being unwilling to sacrifice lands which were inhabited by an incontestably Polish population would not agree to this settlement and were later, at the Treaty of Riga, able to conclude peace with the Bolsheviks on more advantageous terms.
As finally settled at Riga on Oct. 12 1920 the line of the eastern boundary is as follows: Starting from the border of Latvia the line takes a south-easterly direction to Dzisna (Disna), thence S. passing very slightly to the W. of Dokszyce (Dokshitsi); it passes some 30 km. W. of Minsk and, farther S., 90–95 km. E. of Pinsk; it proceeds almost due S. and then slightly S.W. to Ostrog; for
