Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/122

 Polonism strong in Posen and Royal (West) Prussia provinces annexed at the partition of Poland, her German territories in East Prussia and Silesia were partly isolated and exposed to great danger in case Poland should recover her national strength and reconquer her independence. To ensure retention of those territories Prussia is bound to aim at the destruction of Polish nationality, not only in her own provinces- but also in a large part of Russian Poland.

That is why the Prussian State spared neither efforts nor funds in the work of exterminating the Poles and did not hesitate to adopt measures which provoked the indignation of the whole civilised world. Fortunately for the Poles, Posen was the oldest part of the national body, the cradle of the Polish Kingdom, with the Polish civilisation deeply rooted in the mass of the population, with the national character most developed and tenacious. They rapidly learned German methods of work and adopted them in defence of their nationality, of their ideals and of their mother language, as well as in the economic struggle, in the defence of Polish landed property, and in industrial and commercial competition. In their economic progress they equalled and in some respects even surpassed the Germans of the country. In agriculture, they reached the level of most of the progressive countries of Europe, and at the same time they developed a strong middle class and to a great extent Polonised the towns where the Germans and Jews, the latter supporting Germanism, had been very strong. In the last decades of the nineteenth century the percentage of Germans in their country was considerably reduced (to 38 per