Election

Outrageously high-handed measures were countenanced by Dictator Marshal Josef Pilsudski during the general election completed last week. At the same time, however, he could point to an impartial report showing that Poland has prospered vastly since his swashbuckling seizure of power (TIME, May 24, 1926).

Balloting. Thirty-four parties crowded the field, an average of slightly more than one political group per million Poles. To meet competition thus keen, the Sanatzia or Healthy Politics party, supporting Pilsudski, adopted quaint & questionable expedients:

1) Rural constituencies of ignorant Roman Catholics were treated to a cinema in which the Virgin Mary was shown celestially aiding the Marshal and by implication favoring his party.

2) Pugnacious sympathizers of Sanatzia armed themselves with horsewhips and broke up many an opposition caucus.

3) Throughout White Russia and the Polish Ukraine the police, acting apparently upon orders from Warsaw, declared invalid, for no valid reason, a majority of the party lists submitted in opposition to Sanatzia.

Righteous anger of the electorate at such tyranny was inferred from the fact that slightly more than half of those entitled to vote did not vote.

Results. Chosen were both a new Sejm (Chamber) and a new Senate. In the former Marshal Pilsudski obtained roughtly twice as many Deputies as are adherent to any other group, but even so his cohorts number not quite one-third of the Sejm as a whole. The great confusion of party lines made it difficult for even the Marshal to count his Deputies with exactness, but he claimed 150 out of a Sejm of 474. The only trend discernible among the other parties was a leftward shift which virtually undermined the formerly potent Nationalist bloc and slightly swelled the ranks of the Communists.

When balloting for the Senate was complete, Marshal Pilsudski was found to have an even greater plurality of supporters than in the Sejm. No communist senator was elected.

Significance. When it is remembered that Marshal Pilsudski has carried on as Dictator since 1926, though never supported in the Sejm by anything like a working majority, the election of last week assumes its true insignificance. Politically, Poland is a loose conglomeration of irresolute entities, held together, for good or ill, by a National Military Hero. He remains, however, self-confessedly no statesman. The marvel is that Poland, once given the boon of a government which is at least stable, has forged ahead so rapidly in agriculture, industry and commerce. Pertinent is a report recently issued by Financial Advisor to the Bank of Poland Charles Schuveldt Dewey, onetime (1924-27) Assistant Secretary of the U. S. Treasury.

Advisor Dewey's keynotes:

1) Current budget receipts in Poland already show a surplus over expenditures of 214,000,000 zloty ($24,010,800) which is expected to reach 300,000,000 when complete returns are available for the fiscal year.

2) With two-thirds of the population engaged in agriculture, their production is now back at pre-War levels, and the harvest of 1927 exceeded that of 1926 by 10%.

3) Employment in all vital industries is now the highest on record, and the number of persons still unemployed has sunk from 300,000 in 1926 to less than 100,000.

4) Although the balance of trade for 1927 was slightly unfavorable in the amount of $42,800,000, this is believed to be partially accounted for by the curious fact that there was an over-export of grain which had to be reimported at higher prices to feed the population.