Of all the parts of the Versailles Peace Treaty, there is perhaps none which it required greater moral courage to make or which it may be more difficult to uphold than the Polish-German settlement. That settlement has, I think, been not a little misunderstood; and a certain section of the press in this country and in England has frequently denounced it as one of the great iniquities of the Peace Treaty, the spoliation of Prussia, the sacrifice of millions of innocent Germans to the Moloch of Polish imperialism. It is, of course, true that the Germans do not like it, and that none of the other territorial sacrifices imposed upon them have called forth such indignation and rage. But could anyone expect that they would like it? Since the rise of Prussia was accomplished mainly by the spoliation of Poland, could anyone hope to effect a genuine restoration of Poland without taking a great deal of land away from Prussia? It is also true that the treaty incorporates a good many Germans into the new Polish state. In the provinces ceded outright to Poland, the ratio is about 1,000,000 Germans to 1,800,000 Poles. If all the plebiscites provided for go against Germany, the total of the territories which Poland will have acquired from Prussia will contain about 2,100,000 Germans as against 3,400,000 Poles.[45] Regrettable as this may be, the following observations may be made upon it. In the first place, if the real facts were known, the ratio would undoubtedly be found to be much more favorable to the Poles. For the figures just cited are based upon the Prussian official language statistics; and it has been demonstrated by the most painstaking and detailed investigations--and it is admitted by honest people even in Germany--that these statistics are grossly inaccurate, are in fact deliberately falsified for the purpose of making it appear that Prussia’s Germanizing policy in her ‘Eastern Marches’ has been more successful than is actually the case. Some idea of the discrepancy between fact and fiction may be gathered by comparing these linguistic statistics with the Prussian school census, which is equally official but less distorted for political purposes. One finds, for instance, such glaring contradictions as that the circle of Lyck contains only 51% of Poles according to the linguistic census, but 79% according to the school census; Sensburg has 49% of Poles according to the linguistic census, but 78% according to the school census; Lötzen 35% of Poles according to the linguistic census, but 70% according to the school census. The Peace Conference, although knowing the character of the Prussian language statistics, nevertheless adopted them as its criterion in order to be scrupulously fair to the Germans; but the facts just cited suggest that the real number of Germans transferred to Poland is far less than Prussian-made statistics would indicate.