We now come to a more detailed consideration of the question of Lithuania, which the author of our document claims for inclusion in the new state. Historically the whole of Lithuania formed part of the ancient republic of Poland up to the time of the partitions, and roughly consisted of the following provinces, viz., Kovno, Vilna, Grodno, Minsk, Vitebsk and Mohilec. Out of these no claim, quite naturally, is put forward with regard to Vitebsk and Mohileff, where the percentage of Polish population is so small as to be completely negligible, for in Vitebsk Poles number only 50,000 out of a total of close on one million and a half inhabitants, while in Mohileff the percentage of Poles is but a third of that in Vitebsk, for in Mohileff there are but 18,000 Poles in a population of nearly 1,600,000. Thus out of “Lithuania,” as considered as a part of the ancient Republic, all are agreed to omit Vitebsk and Mohileff altogether, for the obvious reason that they are not Polish at all. Ethnographically the overwhelming majority of their inhabitants are White Russians, a race closely allied in blood and in language to Russia proper.
There remain, therefore, on our author’s claim to Lithuania for the new united Poland, the provinces of Kovno, Vilna, Grodno and Minsk. Of Minsk he claims the “greater part,” as also of another Russian province Volhynia. Since he separates the claim for Minsk and Volhynia from the claim for “Lithuania,” we will follow his grouping, and understand by the term “Lithuania” the three provinces of Kovno, Vilna and Grodno.
His argument is that they once belonged to the Polish republic (which everybody allows), and so, on historical grounds, should be returned to it, and he supplements this by the consideration that the Lithuanians, at any rate, out of the inhabiting populations are co-religionists with the Poles. But the real reason on which his case rests, and for which (apart from the Mittel-Europa question) the Powers of the Entente have all declared themselves in favour of a united and independent Poland, is not a matter of history (otherwise England might claim Calais) or of creed (otherwise she might claim Protestant Germany), but of race. The cause that underlies the justice of a united Poland is the right of nations, small or great, to exist, and ethnographically this demand for the annexation of Lithuania, and the greater part of Minsk and Volhynia, utterly breaks down.
With regard to Lithuania, our author allows that there would be included in the new Polish state two and a half millions of Lithuanians “linked to the Poles by religion and civilisation, who would find in the Polish state the conditions most favourable to their national progress.” Read in its context, which claims for the new state 38,000,000 inhabitants of which 70 per cent. are “Polish in culture, etc.,” this sounds as if ethnographically the inclusion of Lithuania might be admissible. But when we come to look at Lithuania itself, it wears a very different aspect. For according to the most reliable information obtainable the census figures for Lithuania are these[10]:—
Total population 5,728,000, of which 18.47 per cent. are Poles; or in detail:—
| Vilna | 26.3 | —per cent. of Poles. |
| Kovno | 11.4 | |
| Grodno | 17.0 |
The Russian return of 10 per cent. Poles in the province of Vilna is certainly below the mark, in fact it shews considerably less than half the true population, which is 26.3 per cent. But it is not admissible on purely ethnographical grounds to claim as national territory a district in which the nation in question only numbers a quarter of the inhabitants. As for the rest of Lithuania the percentage is lower yet, consisting as it does of 11.4 per cent. in Kovno and 17.0 per cent. in Grodno. This minority, it is true, consists to a considerable extent of land-owning Poles, as opposed to the mass of the Lithuanian peasantry, for Lithuania, is emphatically a country of rural populations, and in the whole of its three provinces there are but seven towns containing more than 20,000 inhabitants,[11] but if the ownership of land constitutes a claim for Poland over Lithuania, the same claim of the Germans over Silesia holds good, for a quarter of all Silesia belongs to six German proprietors. If then on the Democratic principle Poland refuses to admit the German claim there, she must abandon a similar claim of her own with regard to Lithuania, in so far as it is founded on ownership of soil. And mere ownership of soil is a singularly poor Democratic argument.
Now since in these three provinces the total population is over five and a half millions, of which two and a half only, according to our author’s figures, are Lithuanians, and of which Poles form only 18 per cent., what of the remaining millions? The answer is that by an immense majority they are White Russians, who, both by blood and by language, are closely connected, not with Poles at all, but with the inhabitants of Great Russia. Out of the three provinces, Kovno is overwhelmingly Lithuanian by blood, for the Lithuanians constitute a majority over Great Russians, White Russians, and Poles all added together. In Vilna the White Russians constitute a similar majority, outnumbering Great Russians and Poles and Lithuanians, and also, though not so overwhelmingly, in Grodno. There in the western part of the province the Poles have a local majority, and by a small rectification of the frontier it would be easy to include in the new Polish state a slice of territory, contiguous to the present Kingdom of Poland, where Poles will be in an indubitable majority, and a similar inclusion might reasonably be made with regard to parts of Vilna. On ethnographical grounds, which are the only ones that the Governments of the Entente recognise as valid, these rectifications are desirable. But this is a very different thing from claiming for the future State of Poland a vast area of provinces which by no tie of blood or language can possibly be considered as authentically Polish. Kovno is overwhelmingly Lithuanian, Vilna and Grodno are overwhelmingly White Russian. In none of the three provinces of “Lithuania” is there an approach to a majority of Poles. The percentage in Vilna is the highest, for there Poles form one quarter of the total population. But to make an ethnographical claim on such grounds is to reverse the usual sense of the word “ethnographical.”
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.