Rumania,— Rumania's 'internal a airs • are perhaps the most incalculable! of all. She had 220,000,000 lei= 044,000,0001 in goblin the Ger. man Reichsbaek, which aunt wits held by. Ger many to guarantee compliance with the Treaty of Bucharest (May 1918). During the occu pation, the Central Powers emitted through a pnvate bank in Bucharest .(Basca Garofalo Romanis) over two billion francs (ki). in paper. With. these, they made purchases in the country, and even abroad, leaving the notes to the Rumanian government 03 redeem according to the peace of Bucharest. Aboutthree hundred and fifty million, francs. in gold .and sorne securities, privately and publicly-owned jewels, etc. (including the crown jewels), were sent to Moscow for safekeeping dunng the .war. Nothing is known of the fate of this deposit. Presumably the Central Powers will eventually repay something of the stupendous sums they took from Rumania in money and goods, but the indemr ides and reparations imposed upon them by the victorious Allies are so large in the aggregate as to make this a doubtful asset. Like Serbia, the occupied part of Rumania was stripped practically bare—the German official records, left behind, account for nearly four million tons, and livestock to a value of over six billion francs (pre-war valuation) have disappeared.
To cover over four billion francs in paper nioney alone (laying aside the question of a fairly large national debt and the financing of the reconstruction); there is hi gold and securi ties a little over mien million francs, sbmething like half of it in Russia —if it has not been stolen.
The Rumanian National Liheral,party, led by Ian C. Bratianu, has divided all the crown, and instituticnal lands ameng the .neasants.and also expropriated 2;000,000 hectares (nearly 5,000,000 acres) from the large'proprietors, to be turned over to the peasants who actually work it. No proprietor can now hold over 500 hectares, and the only remaining estates even as large as this are those previously containing 10,000 hectares or more. The terms of the Bessarabiait eicpropriation act were fixed by the local assem bly, and are still more severe. Universal man hood suffrage was decreed' for Old Rumania and Bessarabia in 1918; also a decree authoriz ing Jews who were actual residents to sec-ure citizenship papers from the justice courts.
. The chief opposition to the National Liberals comes from Take Jonescu. Id. Jonescu began his 'career with the Liberals, Seceded to the Conservatives in 1892, left that party to found 2 new one in 1908, returned to form a Con servative miniitry in 1912, and is now 'leading a new split-off from the Conservatives known as the Conservative-Democratic party. He was strongly and consistently pro-French through out the -war. The old Conservatives are in bad odor because their leader, Marghiloman, formed a ministry. milder the Germans. Getieral Ave
reicu's oxPeople's League* has some following, especially amotig the peasants. It stands for Mild reform:it The Social Deumeratshave been persecuted. and prevented from maintaining any strong organization shim 4he beginning of the war, 'There are many socialists in the cities of Transylvania and Bukowina, and communistic doctrines floitrish in the village communities all over the eastern part of what was Austria Hungary. The Rumanian government has been hancheappe,c1 in the persecution of radicals in these newly-acquired territories by the fear of making too, many enemies. In Old Rumania there is less visible evidence of oBolshevisma than in any omntry visited by the writer, In general, the Balkans are free from this, pre sumably because there are comparatively few town laborers, and the holdings in the country are generally small. For the moment, the main political issues an ,Rumania are the constitu tionality of the Bratianu reforms and the ques tion of whether foreign corporations shall be enceuraged through large concessions to develop the country's resources.. This is favored by jonescu and opposed by the Bratianu govern ment.
All the Balkan monarchies are decidedly limited, since thc death of Carol of Rumania and the abdications of Constantine of Greece and Ferdinand of Bulgaria. King Ferdinand of Rumania is popular. He has maintained a scrupulously constitutional position since his accession in 1914. Prince Carol, who re nounced the throne, had a number of escapades, and was regarded by many as erratic. Repub lican sentiment is strong in the lands taken from Austria-Hungary and Russia. This applies also to the ex-Hungarian parts of Jugoslavia. The Serbian king has had little real power in the government since the assassination of King Alexander and Queen Draga in 1903, after an attempt at arbitrary rule. King Peter is popular in Serbia.
Reorganized Serbia and Rumania, the two great southeastern European states arising from the war, now have their political and economic centres of gravity on the fringe of the Balkan Peninsula, if not actually outside. The long established trade habits and routes, political and economic machinery, centre in Budapest, Vienna and Berlin. They do not fit the new order; hence the future largely depends upon their necessarily slow reconstruction by the South Slays and Rumanians. It is a stupendous task. If successfully accomplished, what we have called Balkan problems will be absorbed and integrated in the general European problem, and we shall hear no more of thc "crude, raw races?) gust); °P,0 (The Union of Montenegro) (4 September); Seton-Watson, R. W., (Bulgana Before the Conference) (28 August); also G. Clenton Logio's article (7 August) ; Lady Elinor F. B. Grogan's (26 August) and a series by Constantine Stephanove— these three for the Bulgarian point of view.