This forms a preliminary nucleus of 12,000,000 inhabitants,
among whom are about 2,000,000 Jews. This great proportion of Jews is
accounted for by the fact that Poland is in the zone where Jews are
allowed to live in Russia.
Our new Poland would not comprise the ancient Lithuania--the districts
of Wilno, Kovno, and Grodno--although Lithuania formerly was part of
Poland and still has about one million Polish inhabitants who form the
aristocracy and bourgeoisie. Lithuania, which is really the region of
the Niemen, is peopled by Letts, who have their own language, resembling
neither Polish nor Russian, and they likewise hope to obtain some day a
measure of autonomy in the Russian Empire, with the right to use their
language in schools, churches, and civil proceedings. One thing is
certain: they would protest, and rightly, against actual incorporation
into the new Poland.
The 125,000 square kilometers and 12,000,000 inhabitants of Russian
Poland, lying around Warsaw, would constitute the nucleus of
reconstructed Poland.
Must we add to this the 79,000 square kilometers and 8,000,000
inhabitants of Galicia, which was Austria's share in the spoils of old
Poland? Certainly, so far as western Galicia around Cracow is concerned,
for this is a wholly Polish region, the Poles there numbering 2,500,000.
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