In this profound conviction of the practical and ideal worth of Polonism
one approaches the problem of its preservation with a very vivid sense of
the practical difficulties derived from the grouping of the Powers. The
uncertainty of the extent and of the actual form of victory for the
Allies will increase the difficulty of formulating a plan of Polish
regeneration at the present moment.

Poland, to strike its roots again into the soil of political Europe, will
require a guarantee of security for the healthy development and for the
untrammelled play of such institutions as she may be enabled to give to
herself.

Those institutions will be animated by the spirit of Polonism, which,
having been a factor in the history of Europe and having proved its
vitality under oppression, has established its right to live. That
spirit, despised and hated by Germany and incompatible with Slavonism
because of moral differences, cannot avoid being (in its renewed
assertion) an object of dislike and mistrust.

As an unavoidable consequence of the past Poland will have to begin its
existence in an atmosphere of enmities and suspicions. That advanced
outpost of Western civilisation will have to hold its ground in the midst
of hostile camps: always its historical fate.

Against the menace of such a specially dangerous situation the paper and
ink of public Treaties cannot be an effective defence. Nothing but the
actual, living, active participation of the two Western Powers in the
establishment of the new Polish commonwealth, and in the first twenty
years of its existence, will give the Poles a sufficient guarantee of