(vii) The Polish-Czechoslovak Boundary Dispute over the Javoržina District (1920-4). The Javoržina District was a fraction of the Spisz (Zips) County in the Carpathians, the disposal of which had been referred to the Conference of Ambassadors, as an alternative to the taking of a plebiscite, by the Supreme Council, in agreement with the interested Governments, on the 11th July, 1920, during the Spa Conference. On the 28th July, 1920, a declaration embodying the Conference of Ambassadors' decision was signed by the representatives of Czechoslovakia, Poland, and the Principal Allied Powers.1 In this award the Ambassadors assigned the northern tip of the Spisz County-which protruded as a salient from Czechoslovakia into Poland-to the latter country and the rest of the territory to Czechoslovakia, including Javoržina. The assignment of Javoržina to Czechoslovakia was confirmed in the Sèvres Treaty of the 10th August, 1920, under which the Principal Allied Powers transferred to the 'Successor States' certain territories formerly belonging to Austria-Hungary, and again by the Conference of Ambassadors on the 6th December of the same year. Poland, however, refused to accept the decision in certain respects; direct negotiations on these points between the two Governments led to no agreement; and eventually, on the 18th August, 1923, the Conference of Ambassadors referred the question to the Council of the League of Nations, with an intimation that they would not object if the Council saw fit to consult the Permanent Court of International Justice on the legal issue. Accordingly, on the 28th September, 1923, the Council, on the report of Señor Quinones de León (Spain) and in agreement with the two parties, consulted the Court as to whether the delimitation of the frontier between Czechoslovakia and Poland in this sector were still open, and, if so, to what extent. The Court heard the case in an extraordinary session on the 13th November, 1923, and found on the 6th December that the decision taken on the 28th July, 1920, by the Conference of Ambassadors was definitive, but that the specification of the discretionary powers therein conferred upon the Delimitation Commission likewise held good. On the 17th December, 1923, the Council, with this opinion of the Court before it, decided that the Delimitation Commission had exceeded its powers, and suggested that the Conference of Ambassadors should invite the Commission 1 See H. P. C., vol. iv, pp. 362-3 and 366. to make fresh proposals in accordance with the opinion of the Court and the findings of the Council. On the 12th March, 1924, the Council accepted the frontier line traced in the Delimitation Commission's report, but added that it would be desirable, in the interests of the communications and economic relations of the neighbouring communes on either side of the border, that protocols, in terms as favourable as possible to the reciprocal interests of the populations concerned, should be annexed to, and regarded as forming an integral part of, the final decision fixing the frontier line. This proposal was accepted by the representatives of the two interested states, and on the 26th March the Ambassadors' Conference decided to request the Polish-Czechoslovak Delimitation Commission to have the suggested protocols prepared. On the 26th April the Delimitation Commission met at Cracow, and on the 6th May a protocol1 was drawn up in that city providing for the adjustment of the economic questions relative to the frontier and for the definition of the frontier itself by a Polish-Czechoslovak Delimitation Commission. On the 5th September this protocol was approved by the Conference of Ambassadors, and therewith the controversy was closed. In itself the Javoržina Question was a trivial matter, but its settlement was an event of some international importance, since it opened the way to that rapprochement between Czechoslovakia and Poland which culminated in the agreement of 1925. (viii) The Italian Loan to Poland (1924).2 On the 10th March, 1924, a Polish-Italian agreement was signed under which a group of Italian banks, headed by the Banca Commerciale, was to lend the Polish Government 100,000,000 lire (gold) at 7 per cent., repayable in twenty years, the stock being issued at 89. This loan was guaranteed by the Italian Government and was secured on the Polish Government Tobacco Monopoly. (ix) Relations between the Baltic States along the These states were drawn together by the common fact that either the whole or the greater part of their respective territories had been carved out of the former Russian Empire, and by a common fear, 1 See the Central European Observer, 4th October, 1924. 2 The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 13th March, quoting from the Italian Press. L springing out of this fact, that sooner or later the U.S.S.R. might attempt to reclaim the heritage of the Czardom. Even in regard to Russia, however, they did not see eye to eye. Finland was inclined to hold aloof and to turn (since the settlement of the controversy over the Aaland Islands) 1 in the direction of Scandinavia. Esthonia and Latvia (especially the former) were anxious to placate Soviet Russia if possible, since of all the Baltic States they were the weakest and the most in Russia's way. Lithuania, who was cut off from contact with Soviet Russia by the incorporation in Poland of the Vilna Corridor,2 was swayed by her hostility towards Poland and was therefore not unfavourably inclined towards Poland's eastern neighbour. 3 In the preceding volume the mutual relations of this group of states have been traced 3 down to the close of the year 1923. At the beginning of 1924 no less than three Baltic Conferences were in prospect one between Poland, Latvia, Esthonia, and Finland to be held at Warsaw on Poland's initiative; a second, limited to Esthonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, to be held at Kovno on the rival initiative of the last-named country; and a third, to include not only Lithuania but Soviet Russia, to be held at Riga. The last of these conferences, which was to discuss a local pact of nonaggression, fell through.5 The other two were postponed but eventually took place. The Warsaw Conference (Seventh Baltic Conference') was held on the 16th-18th February. The principal agenda were the removal of economic barriers, joint action at the next session of the League of Nations Assembly, and the conclusion of an arbitration treaty between the four states represented. The results were inconclusive. The project of an arbitration treaty was blocked by the announcement of the Finnish representative that he was not empowered to discuss the matter; the Polish representative would not commit himself to co-operation at Geneva; while the Esthonian representative secured the withdrawal of the Russian Question from the agenda. The Kovno Conference, which opened on the 19th May, was more successful, since the Latvians sympathized strongly with the Lithuanians—a kindred nation of the same calibre-in their unequal 2 See op. cit., pp. 250–6. 1 See Survey, 1920-3, pp. 234-8. 3 pp. 238-45. 4 See the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 26th January, 1924. Le Temps, 18th April, 1924. See The Times and the Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 19th February, 1924. contest with Poland; and though the Latvian Government could not afford, in face of the Russian menace, to enter into a political alliance with Lithuania so long as the feud between Lithuania and Poland remained uncomposed, it was all the more eager to strengthen the economic links between the two countries. Although at this conference political questions appeared on the agenda, the main business was to examine whether the Zollverein which had already been formed between Latvia and Esthonia 2 could be extended to Lithuania. The discussion resulted in a comprehensive final act, providing for the appointment of expert commissions to work out a practical scheme for tariff and customs unificationafter which a further conference was to be held in order to give the scheme effect. It was also agreed that the three states should pursue a concerted foreign policy, especially in the Assembly of the League of Nations.3 In August a railway conference was held between Esthonia, Latvia, and Soviet Russia, which resulted in a decision to unify the existing separate railway conventions on the basis of the International Convention of Berne; and effect was given to this by the signature of nine technical conventions. In this case, as in many others, a technical achievement was also an event of political importance, since the facilitation of Soviet Russia's access by railway to the Baltic ports was more likely than anything else to ease the tension between the U.S.S.R. and the two small countries which cut her off from direct access to the sea. Meanwhile, a conference which the four Governments participating in the Warsaw Conference of the previous 16th-18th February had proposed to hold at Helsingfors on the eve of the Fifth Session of the League of Nations Assembly, was twice postponed 5 and did not meet until the 16th-17th January, 1925. On this occasion a number of important agreements were concluded, relating not only to passport formalities and communication facilities but to arbitration and conciliation." On the 24th November-4th December a conference to consider measures for the suppression of liquor smuggling was held, likewise 1 See a statement by the Latvian ex-Prime and Foreign Minister, M. Meierowicz, quoted in Le Temps, 4th February, 1924. 2 See Survey, 1920-3, p. 244. 3 The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 29th May, 1924. See Le Temps, 26th August, 1924. 5 The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 13th August and 11th December, 1924. See The Times, 19th January, 1925. The Arbitration and Conciliation Agreement will be dealt with in the Survey for 1925. at Helsingfors, and was attended by all the states possessing Baltic sea-boards-that is, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Esthonia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, and Germany-as well as by Norway. The final protocol was signed on the 4th December.2 (x) Relations between the Scandinavian States (1924). The principal new departure in Scandinavian relations during the year 1924 was the entrance of Finland into the Scandinavian group. In January the Swedish Government addressed an invitation to Finland, as well as to Norway and Denmark, to attend a conference at Stockholm on the 28th February.3 Finland accepted, and the conference duly met. The purpose of the conference was to negotiate inter-Scandinavian conciliation agreements in pursuance of the resolution passed on the 22nd September, 1922, by the League of Nations Assembly during its Third Session, and the delegates unanimously adopted a draft for setting up permanent conciliation councils, to which the states concerned were to be bound to submit any disputes which it had proved impossible to settle by diplomatic means and which they were not pledged, by previous treaties, to submit to the Permanent Court of International Justice or to an arbitral tribunal.4 On the 27th June six bilateral conventions based on this draft were signed between the states represented at the conference. Good relations between the three West Scandinavian countries were improved by the signature on the 27th March of a complementary protocol regarding the accession of Norway to the DanoSwedish Monetary Conventions of the 27th May and the 16th October, 1875,5 and on the 26th July of a postal convention. In the same year there was settled a dispute which had arisen between Denmark and Norway out of a claim, put forward by the former country, to the sovereignty over the whole of Greenland, including not only the west coast, with its Danish settlements, but the east coast, which was not under permanent human occupation. Norway protested against this claim as likely to prejudice her hunting and fishing rights along this coast, and the first negotiations 1 The Times, 25th November, 1924. 2 The Times and Le Temps, 6th December, 1924. 3 The Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 23rd January, 1924. Le Temps, 7th March, 1924. 5 Bulletin de l'Institut Intermédiaire International, July 1924. |