TRANSYLVANIANS IN BONDAGE

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2928, 14 November 1916, Page 4

TRANSYLVANIANS IN BONDAGE

RUMANIA'S MISSION IN THE WAR THE HEEL OF THE TEUTON .-.(Prom tho "Morning Post's" Corros- "> pondent.) ■'.'■.. '••■•,'■. '"°U ;..-.. With the entry of Rumania into the ..war on the sido of the Allies'the Duko,:'dom of Transylvania, once the Roman :; Province of Dacia, with its immense •'natural riches and unequalled natural' beauty, has at once sprung into promin- ';' encs. Aocording to official .Hungarian :<data the province—which is the most stono in the Crown of St., •Stephen of Hungary—is inhabited, by \ 2,700,000 people—estimates .frequently' itmake them much more numerous—of j'.Tvhoni more than half are Rumanians, •800,000 Hungarians, the 'so-called '- Szeklers, and the rest are Saxons, the eastern advance guards of Pan-German- [ ism. Its capital, when an independent i Dukedom; was Klauscnburg (Kolczsvar), an ancient Hungarian town with .Something like 100,000 inhabitants, the 'Seat of tho Transylvanian Magyar mag- ■ nates, with a university and high cultural institutions. It was ransacked "in.the course of history by Mongolians and Turks, and was the homo of tho

great Hungarian hero, John Hunyadi, who fought against Turkish domination. The Rumanians are said'to have settled in Transylvania, during the reign ; of Bela 111 of Hungary, who gave them permission to settle there in order to

'«vado the Turkish yoke which was then

Oppressive for the peoplo of Wallachia '■'• and Moldavia, as the present Rumania [;*as then callod. The territory of Tran'.'sylvania is ahout 21,000 square miles, itaostly mountainous and wooded, but ilioh in mines and other natural sources --*>f wealth. The'sin Against the People. v . Im spite of this fho people are poor, , »nd they. are looked down upon in ;, Hungary. Only the German-Saxons ; are well-to-do and prosperous. The .-/' Rumanian elements and tho Hungarian•ffizeklers are just as poor "and forlorn; ■'■;'•«' one could possibly expect them to bo ;.; ■under the conditions imposed unon 5 them by the Magyar Governments, who, .; en. the other hand, havo been tho ..tools of Austria in this regard. Tho 'greatest sin committed against the ■ Rumanian elements in , ihat of keeping them in total ignorance and without tho least traces of : culture, has now met with retribution in ■ the entry of Rumania against tho Ccn%al Powers. It was part, of the Austrian policy to keep the population-of. , {Transylvania in an animal-liko igiior--knoe and under aniinal-liko'-conditions, an order to be able to exploit them .politically in favour of the dynasty. To make it more clear, lot mo explain 'that the /percentage of illiterates in Transylvania ' among the Rumania ' peasantry only a few years ago was something like 70 per cent., whilst among the Hungarian and Gorman/ elements the percentage did not exceed 20 ■ per cent. There wore whole districts where for every 100,000 inhabitants ■I only three to four teachers were avail'ablo, and in other places where the ; teacher and the shepherd were tho earae person. The Hungarian Government only valued the Transylvanian Rumanians for their votes, and these - oonld only be secured if they were kept '■ in utter ignorance. Tho \rlungariani Governments, which always -.feprosent- ' ed Austria in Hungary an&yireyer the Hungarian nation, and in conseaueiice could never got a majority iih-.'.Parlia- ■ ment by the votes ';. had only the nationalities tojTialx.uponV ■■' and it was in their interested: iii the'. • interest of the Vienna dynasty.that tlio nationalities should give thojftvotes to the man who paid best and jwho could exert terror and command y!;the gen- ■ darmes. %I'j. '." ■ ' Votes Cast Under Duress. To illustrate this I may mention that at an elcotion in Transylvanhvitho Gov:'.eminent candidate had the Runianiau peasants locked up in a large" room, 'where they were given braiidy..and • guarded by gendarmes, in order 1 that ; they should not vote for the other .candidate. They remained locked; up for many hours until they learned' the name of the, candidate-for whom they . had to vote, and were then escorted to the ballot by gendarmes. The Independence elements in :-Hungary,-* : who would have educated the Rumanians— 'this being part of their proEramine ihad they come into power—could never

'■■•.'lay hands on them owing to , the-fear } 'of the Government and the gendarmes. ,; They wero' not handled hy the Govern-.'■-'.inent as human beings, and naturally V nnder such circumstances the intelligent Rumanians, their priests and teachers, r and the learnpd element, who slowly '■;■ woke up to tho impossibility of • tho \ position of their fellow- ■.-. subjects, brought into existence • 'the ■"Greater Rumania" droani,. an ideal .-: regarded hy the Hungarian authorities ias an anti-national menace, and Ydnrving the war) as high treason '. .'.ln later ■years the Rumanian> students' and the learned classes wero already preparing ;for tho "great day," which at last has iarrived. They'have organised .thensolves into societies which were open]'' "; hostile to Hungarv. and havo carried ■ their aeitation to Rumania, the result jof which is to he fen now. ■ To all ithesi dangers the Hungarians were ; !Wind, and. instead of blaming their vfrovcrnments with criminal neglect.' no ' doubt they will blame Rumania with greed and treachery. The Saxon Population. Tho Saxons of Transylvania, who inhabit tho districts around Kronstadt (Brasso)' and Hermannstadt (NagySzehen), and who number some-' •thing like 250,000, have been just as hostile to Hungary as tho Rumanians, the difference being that, whilst tho Saxons were cultured and rich, and therefore wore tho more to be dreaded -.as enemies of tho State than the uncultured Rumanians, the latter have also had their grievance against the Saxons, who exploited them economically. Tho Saxons handlo tho timber and mining industry in Transylvania, which is very important; they own the majority of . the mineral waters, which are very numerous, and in their woods and mines tho Rumanian peasant has been,tho • working hand for many centuries past. The usual wage varies between one and two shillings a day; tho Rumanian peasantry live principally on maize bread, for meat is almost an unknown luxury to them in peaco or war, and they have boen the servants always of nt'hflr nationalities such as Saxons or Hungarians. One political right did they pnjoy—the vote—in a larger degree than the Magyar peasant, but .they had to give their vote whore it was ordered, so they derived little ad- . vantage from it. Just because their vote could be commandeered for • tho Government they were given an extended franchise. Count Tisza's "Concessions'."

Duing the war Count Tisza, having recognised tho danger which underlies the Rumanian question in Transylvania, has conoluded a pact with tho leaders of the Rumanians, and has agreed to grant to them certain national linguistic and cultural concessions—aftertbo war.. What these con;cessions were in detail was never published, for no doubt thoy would have not pleased cither Austria or tho Rumanians. Where a school was regarded as a national concession, the pact thus mado mustjbave been on.a very

limited scale. The strangest feature or tho Transylvania problem is tliat, iu spite of the great love tiio Hungarians bore for the Trausylvauiau lauds, they have neglected the population there to such an extent that, as we see, Rumania has deemed it necessary to redeem their brethren from the Hungarian and Austrian rule. This very love the Hungarians hear for Transylvania will have tho effect of uniting them still more closely with the Austrians and Germans, and although there might have been some slight hopo ouco > or twice during the war that they might secede from tho alliance, with the entry of Rumania this has vanished entirely. Tko'Hungarians will jiow lind thornselves'bound to their Austrian Allies by the fear of losing this territory, and will fight for it as tho Turks "havo fought again and again for Adrianoplc. The railway system in Transylvania, although comparatively well built, has not been developed as in other parts of Hungary. The main line runs through Groswardein (Nagyvarad) and Klauscn-. burg - (KoloKsvar) and leads to Kronstadt, near tho Rumanian frontier, and Bucharest. This railway is a single track, and the branches which lead from it into the interior of Transylvania servo the purpose of war only to a limited extent. In tho southern part of the country there is only one- such line, leading into tho mountains through Maros Vasarhely, ono of tho principal towns of southern Transylvania. At any rate, the facilities afforded by the northern railway system towards the Russian front will not be available for tho Austro-German armies in Transylvania, | and in consequence the campaign will bo a much more strenuous one from this point of view than in the Russian or Italian war theatres.