Rumania

RUMANIA A new conference met in Paris to discuss the situation, and in 1861 the election of Prince Cuza was ratified by the Powers and the Porte. The two assemblies and the central commission were replaced in Jan. 1862 by a single ministry and single assembly at Bucharest. In May 1864 the Assembly was replaced by two chambers (of senators and deputies). The franchise was now ex tended to all citizens, a cumulative voting power being reserved, however, for property, and the peasantry were emancipated from forced labour. Prince Cuza's agrarian and educational reforms were well-meant and drastic ; but he attempted to force them through by too despotic measures. He alienated the good will of the nobles by abolishing forced labour; of the clergy by con fiscating monastic estates ; of the masses by introducing a tobacco monopoly and by the imperfect success of the agrarian reform.

On Feb. 11/23, 1866, he was compelled to abdicate, and although the Powers in Paris voted in favour of a native ruler, the princi palities, on a referendum, elected, almost unanimously, Prince Charles, the second son of prince Charles Antony of Hohenzollern Sigmaringen (see Charles I. King of Rumania).

Prince Charles I.

The new Prince reached Bucharest on May 1o/22, 1866, and took the oath to the Constitution. In October he proceeded to Constantinople, where the Sultan invested him for mally, admitted the principle of hereditary succession in the fam ily, and the right of maintaining an army of 30,00o men.

Foreign and Domestic Politics, 1866-75.

The internal domestic situation was at first very stormy, ten governments hold ing office in five years. They managed, however, to pass a new constitution (July 11, 1866) providing for an upper and a lower house and allowing the Prince an absolute and unconditional veto on all legislation. An attempt was made to reorganize the army and construct railways. Less fortunate was a decree, ostensibly aimed at vagabond foreigners, but resulting in the expulsion and imprisonment of many Jews, which aroused much indignation abroad, especially in France and Great Britain. On the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War (187o, q.v.) feeling ran high between the nation, which was strongly pro-French in sympathies, and the German prince. There was a revolutionary outbreak at Ploesti

and the mob, after storming the barracks, proclaimed Charles deposed. The regular troops restored order, but the prince seri ously thought of abdicating. A few days later a German railway contractor named Strausberg failed to honour the coupons of the railway bonds due on Jan. 1, 1871, most of which were held by influential people in Germany. The responsibility for payment fell on the Rumanian government, which the Prussian government threatened to coerce into payment. Bitter indignation prevailed in Rumania against all things German, culminating in an attack on the German colony in Bucharest (March 22, 1871). The council of Regency having refused the prince's offer to place the govern ment in their hands, a conservative government was formed under Lascar Catargiu to restore order. The chamber was dissolved, and at the new elections in May Catargiu received a large majority. The anti-German feeling subsided, and the railway crisis was ended in Jan. 1872 by a law under which Rumania undertook to pay the railway coupons. Catargiu's ministry held office for four years, at the end of which time the leading Liberals promoted a con spiracy for the arrest and expulsion of the prince and the forma tion of a provisional government. The situation was saved by the fall of the Ministry and after two interim cabinets, I. C. Bratianu took office at the head of a Liberal Ministry (1876).

The Russo-Turkish War, 1877-78.

Domestic problems were temporarily eclipsed by the re-opening of the Eastern Question (q.v) in 1877. Russia had shown symptoms of anger against Rumania for not having taken up a decided attitude in the ap proaching struggle, and the Russian ambassador Ignatiev had some months previously threatened that his government would seize Rumania as a pledge as soon as the Turks occupied Serbia and Montenegro. Prince Charles decided to send a mission, composed of Bratianu and Colonel Slaniceanu (the Minister of War), to the Imperial headquarters at Livadia, where they were well received by the emperor and were successful in not committing Rumania to active measures.