CHAPTER IV POLAND’S PLACE IN NEW EUROPE At the present moment the policy of the National Democrats with regard to a united and independent Poland is concurred in by the Realists (landowners), the Progressives, the Christian Democrats, the party of Economic Independence and the National Union. Their united aims, including access to the sea for the new independent State, have been now centralized in the Polish National Committee, which has been formally recognised by the Entente Powers. M. Dmowski is its President in Paris, Count L. Sobanski represents it in England, M. Skirmunt in Italy, and M. Paderewski in America. But since many, if not all of the Polish Parties in the Kingdom of Poland (with the exception, a weighty one, of the Jews) would support its policy, if they thought that there was a chance of its being realized, it is very important that it should clearly be brought to their knowledge that the powers of the Entente are solid for the establishment of the new State, that, in fact, it forms an essential part of their scheme for annihilating the Mittel-Europa policy of Germany. It is true that there have been many single pronouncements on behalf of one or other of the Entente governments to this effect, but I would venture to suggest that a joint declaration[12] would be useful in order to restore in Poland a fuller confidence in the sincerity and unanimity of the Entente’s aims in this regard. During the events of the last year, owing to Germany’s success in her detachment of Russia and her crushing of Rumania, this confidence has undoubtedly been shaken, and an impression, zealously fostered by German propaganda, has been produced that the Entente, in the absence of a solid declaration on the subject, may be treating the question of Poland as a counter for bartering with. There has, too, been an ambiguity in the latest utterances of the Entente which has aroused suspicion, which it is most important to allay. Mr. Lloyd George, for instance, in January of this year, said “We believe that an independent Poland composed of all the _genuine Polish elements_ desiring to form part of it is an urgent necessity for the stability of Eastern Europe,” and Mr. Wilson echoed the ambiguous “genuine Polish elements” by the phrase “incontestably Polish.” This expression has been pounced on by Germany, and interpreted to the Poles as signifying the exclusion of any territory where the population is not completely Polish, and the insinuation has been made that since no territory is exclusively inhabited by Poles, the Entente mean to do nothing for them, except keep them as a make-weight to balance other concessions which Germany might have to make. It would restore Polish confidence in the sincerity of the promises made by the statesmen of the Entente, if it were possible for them to define their purposes a little more clearly, and “make known the interpretation thereof.”