All history shows
that such an arrangement, however hedged in by the most solemn treaties
and declarations, cannot last. In this case it would lead to a tragic
issue. The absorption of Polonism is unthinkable. The last hundred
years of European History proves it undeniably. There remains then
extirpation, a process of blood and iron; and the last act of the Polish
drama would be played then before a Europe too weary to interfere, and to
the applause of Germany.
It would not be just to say that the disappearance of Polonism would add
any strength to the Slavonic power of expansion. It would add no
strength, but it would remove a possibly effective barrier against the
surprises the future of Europe may hold in store for the Western Powers.
Thus the question whether Polonism is worth saving presents itself as a
problem of politics with a practical bearing on the stability of European
peace--as a barrier or perhaps better (in view of its detached position)
as an outpost of the Western Powers placed between the great might of
Slavonism which has not yet made up its mind to anything, and the
organised Germanism which has spoken its mind with no uncertain voice,
before the world.
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