The eastern frontier of Poland is also still undefined, for reasons already indicated. At any rate, the Polish armies are now occupying a very wide area in the east. A year ago the Bolshevik forces had advanced almost to the borders of Congress Poland: today, after a certain amount of fighting, the Poles have thrust them back almost to the Dnieper. The Poles are now in possession of most of the old Russian provinces of Grodno, Wilno, Minsk, and Volhynia: i. e., of a very large part of those eastern territories which belonged to the old Polish republic and which have been the object of an age-long dispute between Poland and Russia. What the ultimate fate of these regions will be, it would be difficult to forecast. The various nationalist movements which have sprung up in this area are of such recent date and such uncertain strength, that it would require much boldness to prophesy the outcome. Will Lithuania, for instance, consolidate itself as an independent state, or renew its old federal union with Poland, or return to Russia? Will the Ukrainians unite once more with Russia or establish themselves as a new state of 40,000,000 people? What will become of the White Russians, of all the peoples in this region the most enigmatic? The western section of them, being Catholic, may perhaps gravitate towards Poland; the eastern section, being Orthodox, may perhaps cleave to the side of Russia. Or will they develop a national movement of their own? When and in what fashion will a reorganized Russia be able to reassert her voice effectively in these questions? Such are some of the uncertainties in the case. At all events, for the time being the Poles are again in possession of a larger part of their ancient heritage, of the Poland that existed before the Partitions. They are in possession of territories which, taken together, must contain a population of over thirty millions. And whatever fluctuations may still take place in her frontiers, Poland is likely to remain the largest and in many respects the most important of the new states produced by the war, the sixth most populous state in Europe. While it would doubtless be premature to hail in this state, restored only yesterday and still in process of construction, a new Great Power, it is not impossible that Poland may in time become one. For, assuming that Upper Silesia comes to her by plebiscite, her economic resources are magnificent. The richest coal reserves on the Continent; zinc, lead, iron, petroleum in abundance; highly developed industries in the Congress Kingdom, which was the Lancashire of the Russian empire, and in Upper Silesia, which was the Black Country of eastern Germany--such are some of the assets with which Poland resumes her national life. The greatest problem lies in the people themselves. Of them a writer by no means prejudiced in their favor has recently declared: