Letter of the B. P. K. to Painlevé

The Chairman of the Belarusian Deputies' Club sent the following letter to the well-known French public figure Painlevé, who signed the protest against the "white terror" in Poland:

At a moment when Western Belarus, torn away from her Mother by the Treaty of Riga, was striving in vain through her representatives in the Polish Sejm and Senate to win back her trampled elementary rights, we heard with relief the voice of protest against the white terror existing in Poland, a protest which the most enlightened representatives of present-day France did not hesitate to sign.

On behalf of the Belarusian People and its parliamentary representation in the Sejm and Senate of the Polish Republic, I consider it my honorable duty to express to you and to your colleagues, Mr. Deputy, our deep gratitude and high appreciation for this so noble impulse of human feeling.

On this occasion I allow myself to send you, Mr. Deputy, our most sincere congratulations on the victory that you and your political friends won in the parliamentary elections, and also to express my conviction that France, following the path of the lofty ideals of her Great Revolution, will in deed wish to support the just aspirations of the Belarusian People to settle their own fate in accordance with their own will.

Accept, Mr. Deputy, the words of sincere esteem and respect.

(signed) Bazyl Rahula, Chairman of the Belarusian Deputies' Club in the Sejm and Senate of the Polish Republic, Member of the Sejm.

Warsaw, 28 May 1924.