Page:Russian Realities and Problems - ed. James Duff (1917).djvu/133

 lose their position in the east. The second fact realised by the Poles is this: the German policy is the only policy which considers the Polish problem as a whole, which has some logical solution of the Polish problem. Neither Russia nor Austria has such a system, but the Germans have, and German statesmen have already realised that their Polish problem is not limited to the frontiers of the German Empire. Their Chancellor in one of his speeches in German Poland said, "We are struggling not only with our Poles in German Poland, but with the whole Polish nation." The third fact realised by the Poles is that Germany to a certain extent controls the Pohsh policy of the other two Empires. The German tendency in Austria has the effect of reducing the Polish influence in Austria. In Russia, German influence works strongly in the anti-Polish direction. Germany seeks to destroy Polish nationality. She knows that it would not be sufficient to annex a large part of Poland, because that would only strengthen the position of the Poles in Germany. It is much more convenient to keep them as they are and gradually to destroy them, to assure that on neither side of the frontier shall Polish civilisation flourish. So she employs every possible influence in Russia to destroy any policy which supports Polish progress. I may remind you that, when the Polish members in the second Duma brought forward a Bill for the introduction of Polish teaching in the schools of the kingdom of Poland, all the organs of the German semi-official Press published articles in which they said quite openly that Polish teaching introduced into Russian Poland would be a provocation against Germany,