Death of Count Skrzynski Negotiator of Polish-jewish Agreement.

Count Skrzynski, ex-Premier and former Minister for Foreign Affairs, has been killed in a motor accident near Ostrow, in Posen.

Count Skrzynski played an important part during his term of office in the life of the Jews of Poland. It was he who initiated the Polish-Jewish negotiations which resulted in the Polish-Jewish Agreement of 1925, and he postponed an official visit to the United States of America in order to be present at the formal ceremonies of ratifying the Polish-Jewish Agreement. On his arrival in America he was received by a delegation of the American Jewish Congress and by several other Jewish organisations, and American Jewry as a whole gave him a cordial reception. He visited the Jewish quarters of New York, accompanied by M. Muehlstein, the head of the Polish delegation at the League of Nations Assembly, and he was entertained by a number of prominent American Jews. Before leaving America on his return to Poland he made a statement to the New York J.T.A., in which he said that the Polish-Jewish Agreement in his opinion opened a new chapter in Polish-Jewish relations. During my visit to the United States, I have had the opportunity of meeting the representatives of the Jewish population, he said, and of speaking about the Agreement reached between the Polish Government and the Jewish representatives in the Polish Parliament. I am convinced that the results will be most satisfactory. The basis of good relations is mutual confidence.

Soon after his return to Poland he became Prime Minister.

The late Dr. Leon Reich, who was President of the Club of Jewish Deputies at the time, and the late Mr. Lucien Wolf, in his reports to the Joint Foreign Committee constantly expressed confidence in the policy conducted by Count Skrzynski. When he became Prime Minister, the Joint Foreign Committee adopted a formal resolution expressing satisfaction at the accession of the Coalition Government under his Premiership, and with his statement in Parliament that he would carry out the terms of the Polish-Jewish Agreement.

It was Count Skrzynski, when Mr. Sokolov, President of the Zionist World Organisation and the Jewish Agency, was in Poland in 1925, who issued the first declaration made by the Polish Government of sympathy with Zionist aspirations, which has since been reaffirmed by successive Polish Governments.