As for the internal development of the nation, it is seemingly hampered with as many hindrances as the international. It may be likened to the world after creation, bearing marks of the chaos of the eve. The German Poles differ considerably from the Austrian, while the Russian Poles are differentiated from both. The last-named still show traces of recent servitude in their everyday avocations. They lack the push and the energy of purpose so necessary nowadays in the struggle for life. The Austrian Poles in general are reputed to be likewise easy-going, lax, and more brilliant than solid, while their administrative qualities are said to be impaired by a leaning toward Oriental methods of transacting business. The Polish inhabitants of the provinces hitherto under Germany are people of a different temperament. They have assimilated some of the best qualities of the Teuton without sacrificing those which are inherent in men of their own race. A thorough grasp of detail and a gift for organization characterize their conceptions, and precision, thoroughness, and conscientiousness are predicated of their methods. If it be true that the first reform peremptorily called for in the new republic is an administrative purge, it follows that it can be most successfully accomplished with the whole-hearted co-operation of the German Poles, whose superior education fits them to conform their schemes to the most urgent needs of the nation and the epoch.
The next measure will be internal colonization. There are considerable tracts of land in what once was Russian Poland, the population of which, owing to the havoc of war, is abnormally sparse. Some districts, like that of the Pripet marshes, which even at the best of times had but five persons to the kilometer, are practically deserts. For the Russian army, when retreating before the Germans, drove before it a huge population computed at eight millions, who inhabited the territory to the east of Brest-Litovsk and northward between Lida and Minsk. Of these eight millions many perished on the way. A large percentage of the survivors never returned.[192] Roughly speaking, a couple of millions (mostly Poles and Jews) went back to their ruined homes. Now the Poles, who are one of the most prolific races in Europe, might be encouraged to settle on these thinly populated lands, which they could convert into ethnographically Polish districts within a relatively short span of time. These, however, are merely the ideas of a friendly observer, whose opinion cannot lay claim to any weight.
To-day Poland's hope is not, as it has been hitherto, the nobleman, the professor, and the publicist, but the peasant. The members of this class are the nucleus of the new nation. It is from their midst that Poland's future representatives in politics, arts, and science will be drawn. Already the peasants are having their sons educated in high-schools and universities, of which the republic has a fair number well supplied with qualified teachers,[193] and they are resolute adversaries of every movement tainted with Bolshevism.
Thus the difficulties and dangers with which new Poland will have to contend are redoubtable. But she stands a good chance of overcoming them and reaching the goal where lies her one hope of playing a noteworthy part in reorganized Europe. The indispensable condition of success is that the current of opinion and sentiment in the country shall buoy up reforming statesmen. These must not only understand the requirements of the new epoch and be alive to the necessity of penetrating public opinion, but also possess the courage to place high social aims at the head of their life and career. Statesmen of this temper are rare to-day, but Poland possesses at least one of them. Her resources warrant the conviction which her chiefs firmly entertain that she may in a relatively near future acquire the economic leadership of eastern Europe, and in population, military strength, and area equal France.
Parenthetically it may be observed that the enthusiasm of the Poles for British institutions and for intimate relations with Great Britain has perceptibly cooled.
In the limitations to which she is now subjected, her more optimistic leaders discern the temporarily unavoidable condition of a beneficent process of working forward toward indefinite amelioration. Their people's faith, that may one day raise the country above the highest summit of its past historical development, if it does not reconcile them to the present, may nerve them to the effort which shall realize that high consummation in the future.
FOOTNOTES:
[ [190] Most of my articles written during the last half of the war, and some during the armistice, were held back on grounds which were presumably patriotic. I share with those who were instrumental in keeping them from the public the moral portion of the reward which consists in the assumption that some high purpose was served by the suppression.
[ [191] On April 26, 1917.
[ [192] Mainly White Russians.