Instead of accepting, as was the first duty, the result of the
plebiscite, people have resorted to sophism of incomparable weakness:
Article 88 of the Treaty of Versailles says only that the inhabitants
of Upper Silesia shall be called to designate by means of a plebiscite
if they desire to be united to Germany or to Poland.
It was necessary to find a sophism!
The Addendum of Section 8 establishes how the work of scrutiny shall
be carried out and all the procedure of the elections. There are six
articles of procedure. Paragraph 4 says that each one shall vote in
the commune where he is domiciled or in that where he was born if he
has not a domicile in the territory. The result of the vote shall be
determined commune by commune, according to the majority of votes in
each commune.
This means then that the results of the voting, as is done in
political questions in all countries, should, be controlled commune by
commune: it is the form of the scrutiny which the appendix defines.
Instead, in order to take the coal away from Germany, it was
attempted, and is being still attempted, not to apply the treaty, but
to violate the principle of the indivisibility of the territory and to
give the mining districts to Poland.
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