order to render firm the barrier to Germany’s expansion eastwards. Just as Russia will not, according to the view of the National Democrats, object to the loss of Lithuania, so Lithuania will not object to Poland’s gain. Educated opinion there sees as clearly as the National Democrats themselves that she cannot stand alone, for that would speedily mean that she would be penetrated by Germany, and her most natural affiliation is to Poland. By blood she is a non-Russian country, and though by blood she is not predominantly Polish either, yet the Poles form a not negligible percentage of her population, while her civilization is purely Polish. The two countries have a common religion, and economically she is far more closely bound to Poland than to Russia, and for years her trade has gravitated to Warsaw and not to Petrograd or Moscow. Linguistically also, though the native language has as little to do with Polish as it has with Russian, no educated Lithuanian is ignorant of Polish, and it is impossible for an educated man to live there with interchange of ideas and civilized thought without speaking Polish. Russian is merely the official language imposed by the dominating state, and the necessity of the employment of the Polish tongue was seen when, during the advance of the German army, the troops passed out of Poland into Lithuania. For the Germans arriving there dismissed their Polish interpreters under the impression that Russian alone would now be needed. But they could make no headway whatever in that language, and had to send for their Polish interpreters again. It is with these arguments, many of which have undoubtedly considerable weight, that the Polish leaders of the National Democrats support their claim for Lithuania. The matter does not admit of compromise, for Lithuania must be united either to Poland or to Russia. Ethnographically she strictly belongs to neither, but with all due respect to the right of separate nationalities to enjoy a national and independent existence, it is clearly possible to push that principle too far. Basques and Bretons are not ethnographically French, nor are the Welsh English, but just as no sane thinker would dream of demanding for any of those a separate independent existence, so no one who has studied the problems of Eastern Europe could wish to create an independent Lithuania. She must be joined to Russia or to Poland, and the reader who reflects on the arguments advanced on the one side and the other must make up his mind in which direction wisdom points. NOTE.--_Mr. Harold Williams has very kindly read over and discussed with me the foregoing arguments advanced by the National Democrats for the inclusion of Lithuania, and has sent me the statement of his view’s on the question, which I append:_-- “NOTE ON THE CLAIM OF THE POLISH NATIONAL DEMOCRATS TO LITHUANIA.