However, the will of the people, self-determination, may constitute, even if ethnographically the conclusion is unsound, a reason for the fusion of one nationality in another, and our author asserts that a Lithuanian plebiscite would vote for inclusion in this new state. But even allowing that reports from Lithuania are coloured in Germany (which in itself does not seem probable, since Germany has before now considered the possibility of uniting the Kingdoms of Poland and Lithuania under German suzerainty, and so would not emphasize the dissonance between Poles and Lithuanians), such evidence as is accessible does not bear out this assertion. For the inhabitants of Lithuania have repeatedly protested against a fusion with Poland, regarding the Poles as their bitterest enemies. In 1916, for instance, the Lithuanian Socialists demanded independence, and declared against union with Poland: the Union of White Russian peasants in the following year (at a Congress they held at Minsk) issued a proclamation demanding union with Russia; in 1917 the Lithuanian Army Congress in Petrograd demanded that Lithuanians then included in Polish regiments should be allowed to transfer themselves to Russian regiments. Such instances, it is submitted, are tangible evidence against a mere assertion, in support of which no evidence is produced. It is, moreover, a dangerous thing to lay too much stress on the value of the bond of religion in such a consolidation as this unless that bond is cemented by the stronger ties of blood, for while religious differences have often constituted a cause of quarrel, we do not, as a matter of practical experience, find that a unity in religion constitutes a very binding force, except when, perhaps, there is religious persecution which brings co-religionists together. Such has not been the case in Lithuania, and as a matter of fact Polish and Lithuanian co-religionists have before now arrived at a very acute pass in the matter of the language to be used in churches, Lithuanians advocating a Lithuanian ritual, in those portions of the mass where Latin is not used, and Poles championing their own tongue. In fact, the religious bond has been the cause of considerable differences in opinion, and free fights have taken place in churches. Accounts of such disturbances have no doubt been exaggerated, but it is important to avoid exaggeration on the other side, and find in a common religion a valid cause for incorporating Lithuania in the new state. This religious bond, moreover, whatever it is worth, is only applicable as between racial Lithuanians and Poles. But in the three provinces which constitute Lithuania the numerical majority of the inhabitants are White Russian, whose national religion is not Roman Catholic but Greek orthodox. If then a common religion binds two of these nationalities, the same bond is equally valid between Russians and White Russians.