epend mainly upon the mood of the peoples of Europe after they are
tired of shedding each other's blood. But it is well to realise that
the question of the Kiel Canal is one which may very possibly lead to a
prolongation of the war, and which, as I have already hinted, Russia will
not allow to rest, even if Britain should hesitate to complete the work.

(3) The third point at which, on a basis of racial redistribution, a
defeated Germany must inevitably suffer territorial loss, is the Polish
district on her eastern frontier. The present kingdom of Prussia includes
3,328,750 Poles among its subjects, mainly in the former duchy of Posen,
but also in Silesia and along the southern edge of West and East Prussia
(known as Mazurians and Kasubians). The pronouncedly anti-Polish policy
pursued by the German Government for over twenty years past has aroused
deep and insurmountable hatred against Prussia in the heart of the Poles,
who even in the days when Berlin was relatively conciliatory towards them
had never relinquished their passionate belief in the resurrection of their
country. Above all, the attempt to denationalise the eastern marches by
expropriation, colonisation of Germans, and other still cruder methods,
has not only been in the main unsuccessful, but it has roused the Poles
to formidable counter-efforts in the sphere of finance and agrarian
co-operation. This coincided with remarkable changes in Russian Poland,
which has rapidly become the chief industrial centre of the Russian Empire.
Economic causes have toned down the bitterness which Russia's cruel
repression of Polish aspirations had inspired, and to-day Prussia is
unquestionably regarded by every Pole as a far more deadly enemy than even
the Russian autocracy, the more so as the conviction has steadily gained
ground that the Polish policy of Petrograd has been unduly subject to the
directions of Berlin. While, then, the Poles look upon the promises from
either of these two capitals with pardonable suspicion and reserve, it
is certain that to-day such hopes as they may entertain from foreign aid
centre more and more upon Russia.

Any attempt to reconstruct the kingdom of Poland, whether as an independent
State or, as seems more practicable, as an autonomous unit within the
Empire of the Tsar, would inevitably deprive Prussia of the greater part of
the Duchy of Posen (except the three or four western "Kreise" or districts,
in which the German element predominat