of the river to its estuary. … It is only fair that the claim of the river-basin should prevail against that of the seaboard." Economic reasons The Poles held the view that without direct access to the Baltic Sea, Poland's economic independence would be illusory. Around 60.5% of Polish import trade and 55.1% of exports went through the area. The report of the Polish Commission presented to the Allied Supreme Council said: "1,600,000 Germans in East Prussia can be adequately protected by securing for them freedom of trade across the corridor, whereas it would be impossible to give an adequate outlet to the inhabitants of the new Polish state (numbering 25,000,000) if this outlet had to be guaranteed across the territory of an alien and probably hostile Power." The United Kingdom eventually accepted this argument. The suppression of the Polish Corridor would have abolished the economic ability of Poland to resist dependence on Germany. As Lewis Bernstein Namier, Professor of Modern History at the University of Manchester and known for both his "legendary hatred of Germany" and Germanophobia as well as his anti-Polish attitude directed against what he defined as the "aggressive, antisemitic and warmongerily imperialist" part of Poland, wrote in a newspaper article in 1933: "The whole of Poland's transport system ran towards the mouth of the Vistula.... "90% of Polish exports came from her western provinces. "Cutting through of the Corridor has meant a minor amputation for Germany; its closing up would mean strangulation for Poland.". By 1938, 77.7% of Polish exports left either through Gdańsk (31.6%) or the newly built port of Gdynia (46.1%) The Inquiry's opinion David Hunter Miller in his diary from the Paris Peace Conference noted, that the problem of Polish access to the sea was very difficult because leaving entire Pomerelia under German control meant cutting off millions of Poles from their commercial outlet and leaving several hundred thousand Poles under German rule, while granting such access meant cutting off East Prussia from the rest of Germany. The Inquiry recommended, that both the Corridor and Danzig should have been ceded directly to Poland. Quote: "It is believed that the lesser of these evils is preferable, and that the Corridor and Danzig should [both] be ceded to Poland, as shown on map 6. East Prussia, though territorially cut off from the rest of Germany, could easily be assured railroad transit across the Polish corridor