Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/131

 institutions. Its schools were Polish and so on. Here the chief struggle was for a position of influence in Austria. This struggle became more and more intense and the position of the Poles in Austria became more and more threatened, first, because of the development of the Ukraina nationality in the Eastern part of the country, whose language is the Little Russian dialect, and then by the alliance of Austria with Germany. The Austrian-German alliance gave the Germans more and more influence on the whole of Austrian affairs, and the new tendency was to reduce the importance and influence of the Poles in the Empire.

In German Poland, there was a desperate struggle for national existence against the German system which is very well known. The Polish community here had a position of great strength. For instance, the banking corporations of German Poland had been developed to such perfection that the famous German economist called them a danger to the State. The position was strengthened also by some territorial acquisitions of the Poles, who had acquired parts of the country which did not belong to the Poles at the time of the partition, but whose population is Polish by origin and speaks Polish. All the force of Poland was directed to penetrating that part of the population with Polish ideas, and to a great extent it has succeeded. Silesia began to send to the German Parliament Polish members who belonged to the Polish Club some fifteen years ago, and even in the south of Eastern Prussia, where they were most isolated from the Polish influence and, owing to their religious confession, because they are Lutheran, all their clergy are Germans and the